Abbi Olivieri
Solitary confinement is a common tactic of punishment for juveniles in detention centers across the United States. Solitary can be disguised under many other names such as restrictive housing, isolation, administrative segregation, holding, and more. Solitary is used to diffuse situations and protect against suicidality; it separates the individual from the general population. Although some may approve of this practice, it has actually been shown to be detrimental to the mental health of those confined. “SHU Syndrome” as coined by Dr. Stuart Grassian of Harvard Medical School in his 2006 study “The Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement” was found in many inmates at Bay State Prison in California’s Security Housing Unit (SHU). The symptoms included paranoia, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and psychotic symptoms as a result of prolonged solitary confinement. Unfortunately, CO’s have little to no training in the psychiatric effects that solitary confinement has on people. For adults, with fully matured brains, this can be a scary and traumatizing experience, so it is easy to say that for kids, this experience is all the worse.
B.H., an incarcerated juvenile said, “I’m 17 years old. I’ve been here four months. I’ve been in isolation four months. I’m wearing a smock to prevent me from hurting myself.”
“How Can You Love Life at its Worst?”:
“Not sure how long but I lived in isolation.
Tortured in my sleep I hear girls cry.
Now I understand, this is where I’ll die.” - S.K.
It is abundantly clear that symptoms of mental illnesses worsen in isolation, but what exactly happens to the brain when put in these extremely stressful situations?
In a stressful or overwhelming situation, the body and brain have a natural response to go into fight or flight mode. First you are flooded with adrenaline and other stress-related hormones that set off this response. Then the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes emotions, will send a signal of distress to the hypothalamus, which will then send a signal to the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is in charge of functions such as maintaining ones’ heart rate, breathing, and digestion; all of the things we need to survive. Within the autonomic nervous system there is the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, each tasked with carrying out the fight or flight response in your body. The sympathetic nervous system gets the signal from your brain to produce epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenaline), which prepares you for whatever threat may come. Next is the production of the stress hormone, cortisol, which is produced when the hypothalamus sends a signal to the pituitary gland which secretes a hormone called corticosteroid (which includes cortisol). As your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises, and your senses are heightened, your body goes into a state of hypervigilance. After prolonged periods in this state, the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain in charge of decision making and problem solving, begins to shut down. The part of the brain that remains activated is the part that we have in common with wild animals, the part that controls only our most primal and basic functioning.
Dr. Barbara Kirwin, a forensic psychologist who provides psychotherapy to felony offenders and a professor of forensic science at Adelphi University says, “[a]ll of these stress hormones rise about 20 to 30 percent above the brain’s baseline for those individuals who are entering jail without a chemical or hormonal balance in the brain to begin with” (Kirwin qtd. Higgins, 2022). When you can’t go anywhere, and you can’t fight anyone without the risk of being punished, or worse, kept in solitary for longer, your body’s central nervous system does not have the chance to balance itself out. Prolonged high-stress reactions in the body can cause severe psychological damage, and while an adolescent’s mind is still developing, this can become even more detrimental. “There are a lot of people who are in the neuroscience of criminality field who would say if inmates had optimal brain chemistry, they would not be committing crimes,” (Kirwin qtd. Higgins 2022). It is impossible for underdeveloped brains to have optimal brain chemistry, and for children this is always the case, therefore, the effects of solitary are compounded and months in isolation can seem like years.
Sources
Ross Higgins, D. (n.d.). What happens to the brain when you go to jail? A&E. Retrieved January 31, 2022, from https://www.aetv.com/shows/60-days-in/articles/your-brain-in-jail