Abstract
Clinical social work has yet to address the trauma that prisoners experience from solitary confinement. This paper examines the relationship between trauma and solitary confinement from a social work perspective. The conservation of resources (COR) theory and structural racism provide frameworks from which clinical social workers can evaluate and intervene in the traumatic effects of solitary confinement for prisoners. A review of the literature suggests that few concrete interventions exist for clinical social workers to provide evidence-based treatments to prisoners traumatized by the experience of solitary confinement. The effectiveness of nature imagery, Clinical Alternative to Punitive Segregation (CAPS), and the Sanctuary Model for treating the trauma of solitary confinement are reviewed and evaluated based on their alignment with the COR theory of PTSD development, as well as their ability to address structural racism. This paper concludes with implications for both practice and policy and suggestions for future research to ensure that clinical social workers are prepared to advocate for clinical and policy measures that both alleviate the suffering of this vulnerable population and lay the groundwork for the abolition of solitary confinement all together.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahalt, C., Haney, C., Rios, S., Fox, M. P., Farabee, D., & Williams, B. (2017). Reducing the use and impact of solitary confinement in corrections. International Journal of Prisoner Health,13(1), 41–48.
Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: New Press.
Armour, C. (2012). Mental health in prison: A trauma perspective on importation and deprivation. International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory,5(2), 886–894.
Armstrong, A. C. (2015). Race, prison discipline, and the law. University of California Irvine Law Review,5, 759–782.
Association of State Correctional Administrators-Liman. (2015). Time-in-cell: The ASCA-Liman 2014 national survey of administrative segregation in prison. New Haven, CT: Yale Law School.
Auty, K. M., Cope, A., & Liebling, A. (2017). A systematic review and meta-analysis of yoga and mindfulness meditation in prison: Effects on psychological well-being and behavioral functioning. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology,61(6), 689–710.
Beck, A. J. (2015). Use of restrictive housing in U.S. prisons and jails, 2011–12. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Bloom, S. L., & Farragher, B. (2013). Restoring sanctuary: A new operating system for trauma-informed systems of care. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bloom, S. L., & Sreedhar, S. Y. (2008). The sanctuary model of trauma-informed organizational change. Reclaiming Children and Youth,17(3), 48–53.
Bor, J., Venkataramani, A. S., Williams, D. R., & Tsai, A. C. (2018). Police killings and their spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans: A population-based, quasi-experimental study. The Lancet,392(10144), 302–310.
Browne, A., Cambier, A., & Agha, S. (2011). Prisons within prisons: The use of segregation in the United States. Federal Sentencing Reporter,24(1), 46–49.
Deveaux, M. (2014). “Criminal” justice social work in the United States: Fulfilling the obligation of social work. Journal of Law and Criminal Justice,2, 105–115.
Elwyn, L. J., Esaki, N., & Smith, C. A. (2015). Safety at a girls secure juvenile justice facility. Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities,36(4), 209–218.
Esaki, N., Benamati, J., Yanosy, S., Middleton, J., Hopson, L., Hummer, V., et al. (2013). The sanctuary model: Theoretical framework. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services,94(2), 87–95.
Ewing, A. (2016). In/visibility: Solitary confinement, race, and the politics of risk management. Transition,119(1), 109–123.
Folayan, S. (Producer), & Davis, D. (Director). (2017). Whose Streets [Motion Picture].
Ford, J. D., & Blaustein, M. E. (2013). Systemic self-regulation: A framework for trauma-informed services in residential juvenile justice programs. Journal of Family Violence,28(7), 665–677.
Friedman, B. (2018). Guerilla: Racial coercion, white supremacy, and the rise of the Black guerilla family (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University.
Glowa-Kollisch, S., Kaba, F., Waters, A., Leung, Y. J., Ford, E., & Venters, H. (2016). From punishment to treatment: The “Clinical Alternative to Punitive Segregation” (CAPS) program in New York City jails. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,13(2), 182–192.
Gómez, A. E. (2006). Resisting living death at marion federal penitentiary. Radical History Review,96, 58–86.
Grassian, S. (1983). Psychopathological effects of solitary confinement. American Journal of Psychiatry,140(11), 1450–1454.
Guenther, L. (2013). Solitary confinement: Social death and its afterlives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Hagan, B. O., Wang, E. A., Aminawung, J. A., Albizu-Garcia, C. E., Zaller, N., Nyamu, S., …, Fox, A. D. (2018). History of solitary confinement is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among individuals recently released from prison. Journal of Urban Health, 95(2), 141–148.
Hager, E., & Rich, G. (2014). Shifting away from solitary. The Marshall Project. Retrieved April 15, 2019 from https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/23/shifting-away-from-solitary.
Haney, C. (2018). Restricting the use of solitary confinement. Annual Review of Criminology,1, 285–310.
Haney, C., Weill, J., Bakhshay, S., & Lockett, T. (2016). Examining jail isolation: What we don’t know can be profoundly harmful. The Prison Journal,96(1), 126–152.
Helms, J. E., Nicolas, G., & Green, C. E. (2012). Racism and ethnoviolence as trauma: Enhancing professional and research training. Traumatology,18(1), 65–74.
Henry, J., Richardson, M., Black-Pond, C., Sloane, M., Atchinson, B., & Hyter, Y. (2011). A grassroots prototype for trauma-informed child welfare system change. Child Welfare,90(6), 169–186.
Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist,44(3), 513–524.
Hobfoll, S. E. (1991). Traumatic stress: A theory based on rapid loss of resources. Anxiety Research,4(3), 187–197.
Hobfoll, S. E., Halbesleben, J., Neveu, J. P., & Westman, M. (2018). Conservation of resources in the organizational context: The reality of resources and their consequences. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior,5, 103–128.
Hobfoll, S. E., Stevens, N. R., & Zalta, A. K. (2015). Expanding the science of resilience: Resources in the aid of adaptation. Psychological Inquiry,26(2), 174–180.
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science,10(2), 227–237.
Jackson, G. (1990). Blood in my eye. Black Classic Press.
Johnston, E. L. (2013). Vulnerability and just desert: A theory of sentencing and mental illness. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology,103, 147–230.
Jones, D. M. (2015). A Bronx tale: Disposable people, the legacy of slavery, and the social death of Kalief Browder. University of Miami Race and Social Justice Law Review,6, 31–50.
Kaba, F., Lewis, A., Glowa-Kollisch, S., Hadler, J., Lee, D., Alper, H., …, Venters, H. (2014). Solitary confinement and risk of self-harm among jail inmates. American Journal of Public Health, 104(3), 442–447.
Kupers, T. A. (2015). A community mental health model in corrections. Stanford Law and Policy Review,26, 119–158.
Méndez, J. (2011). Interim report of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. New York: United Nations.
Metzner, J. L., & Fellner, J. (2010). Solitary confinement and mental illness in U.S. prisons: A challenge for medical ethics. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law,38(1), 104–108.
Nadkarni, N. M., Hasbach, P. H., Thys, T., Crockett, E. G., & Schnacker, L. (2017). Impacts of nature imagery on people in severely nature-deprived environments. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment,15(7), 395–403.
Newton, H. P. (1980). War against the panthers: A study of repression in America. Santa Cruz: University of California.
Olson, J. C. (2016). Race and punishment in American prisons. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory,26(4), 758–768.
Patterson, E. J., & Wildeman, C. (2015). Mass imprisonment and the life course revisited: Cumulative years spent imprisoned and marked for working-age black and white men. Social Science Research,53, 325–337.
Raphael, S. (2011). Incarceration and prisoner reentry in the United States. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,635(1), 192–215.
Reiter, K. (2016). 23/7: Pelican Bay prison and the rise of long-term solitary confinement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rivard, J. C., Bloom, S. L., McCorkle, D., & Abramovitz, R. (2005). Preliminary results of a study examining the implementation and effects of a trauma recovery framework for youths in residential treatment. Therapeutic Community: The International Journal for Therapeutic and Supportive Organizations,26(1), 83–96.
Ross, J. I. (2007). Supermax prisons. Society,44(3), 60–64.
Shalev, S. (2017). Solitary confinement as a prison health issue. WHO Guide to Prisons and Health,1, 27–35.
Smith, D. (2018). Neuroscientists make a case against solitary confinement. The Scientific American. Retrieved November 9, 2019 from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/neuroscientists-make-a-case-against-solitary-confinement/.
Steinbauch, A. T. (2014). The movement Away from solitary confinement in the United States. Criminal and Civil Confinement, 40, 499–533.
Umbach, R., Raine, A., & Leonard, N. R. (2018). Cognitive decline as a result of incarceration and the effects of a CBT/MT intervention: A cluster-randomized controlled trial. Criminal Justice and Behavior,45(1), 31–55.
United States Department of Justice. (2016). US Department of Justice report and recommendations concerning the use of restrictive housing. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
Weiss, D. B., & MacKenzie, D. L. (2010). A global perspective on incarceration: How an international focus can help the United States reconsider its incarceration rates. Victims and Offenders,5(3), 268–282.
Wilson, M. H. (2016). Solitary confinement: A clinical social work perspective (report no. n.a). Washington, DC: National Association of Social Work (NASW).
Winters, A. (2018). Alone in isolation: A clinician’s guide to women in solitary confinement. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health: CBMH,28(3), 217–222.
Yawn, A. J. (2019). Holman hunger strike: ADOC shuts off water to striking prisoners. The Montgomery Advertiser. Retrieved March 28, 2019 from https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2019/03/21/holman-hunger-strike-adoc-shuts-off-water-striking-inmates/3236560002/.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pforte, D. Evaluating and Intervening in the Trauma of Solitary Confinement: A Social Work Perspective. Clin Soc Work J 48, 77–86 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-019-00744-w
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-019-00744-w