This document discusses the psychological effects of solitary confinement on prisoners and how it deprives them of basic human needs. It analyzes solitary confinement through the framework of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which identifies physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization as necessary human motivations. The document explains how solitary confinement hinders prisoners' ability to fulfill affiliation needs through lack of human interaction, esteem needs by removing social standing in prison, and self-actualization through the loss of rehabilitative and educational programs. A quote from a former prisoner describes the mental deterioration caused by isolation in solitary confinement.

1. American Prisons have
Forgotten the Needs of
Humans
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS AND HOW THEY CAN BE APPLIED TO THE
AMERICAN PRISON SYSTEM

2. Article Review

3. Worse Than Second-Class
 This article address the issue of solitary confinement used as a punishment
in the American prison system.
 The article specifically looks at the effects of solitary confinement on
women in the judicial system.
 Particular attention is put on the psychological effects that solitary
confinement can have on the human mind.

4. Main Points of Article
1. Solitary confinement is viewed nearly unanimously by psychologists to be a
form of torture and should only be used as a last resort.
2. Solitary confinement deprives prisoners form basic human needs such as
human contact and interaction, the ability to better yourself with learning,
and a feeling of safety.
3. Solitary confinement can create or worsen mental illness and can trigger
memories of abuse.

5. Point 1. Solitary Confinement is Torture
 When in solitary confinement you have little to no interaction with other
human beings. In many prisons the only interaction you will receive for the
deration of your confinement is your food being pushed through a slat in
the door.
 The mind can’t sustain its self without interactions with other humans. Long
expense without interaction can lead to mental illness.
 The rules of how long you can be put in confinement are very lax and
undefined. A sentence to solitary can be for a handful of day to years.

6. Point 2. Lack of Human Interaction
 As previously mentioned when confined you have little to no human
interaction.
 Also it is common place for the prison to take family visitation rights away
form you.
 Often prisoners won’t be told how long they will be confined and will have
no idea when they can see their family again.

7. Point 3. Mental Illness
 Many women in the prison system have some past experience of abuse or
some form of diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness.
 Solitary confinement aggravates mental illness and the hopelessness can
bring up memories of abuse.
 When in confinement prisoners aren’t often checked up on, meaning a
persons mental condition could be detreating and the prison wouldn’t
even know.

8. Maslow’s
Hierarchy
of Needs

9. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
 Physiological Needs: The needs of they body. The very base needs such as
to eat, sleep, and sensory gratification.
 Safety Needs: The need to be safe from danger and the environment you
are in.
 Affiliation Needs: The need to give and receive human affection and
interaction.

10. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
 Esteem Needs: The need of individuals to feel a sense of esteem gained
through public recognition and attention.
 Need for Self-Actualization: In general the need to “Be all you can be.”
The need to strive to be better at what you are doing.

12. How the Practice
of Solitary
Confinement is
Taking Basic
Human Needs from
Prisoners.

13. Needs and Solitary Confinement
 For my application of the Hierarchy of needs theory I will be looking at
each need individually and analyzing how solitary confinement deprives
these need from human beings.
 Also this wasn’t mention in my article but I feel the need to point out that
overall prison is meant to be a system that rehabilitates prisoners. The
Hierarchy of needs looks at the need of humans to improve and thrive in
this world. By depriving prisoners of these needs the prison system is going
against it’s own agenda of rehabilitation.

14. Theory Application
 Physiological Needs: The average solitary confinement cell is six by nine
feet. This is little to no room or any activity beside standing and maybe
three step passing. Physiological needs often are simple thought of as the
need for food and water but the need to move is also a physical need.
 Safety Needs: Prison isn’t over all a very safe place. Prisoners often have to
deal with the fear prison violence, rape, and guard violence. Many tend
to thing that solitary confinement would make you feel safer, this isn’t the
case. Often prisoners aren’t told how long they will be in solitary and these
can lead to extreme feelings of uneasy and fear for ones future.

15. Theory Application
 Affiliation Needs: This need is the one I feel is most abused by the practice
of solitary confinement. We need other humans in our lives to function
properly. Solitary takes away all positive human interaction and even the
hope of affection.
 Esteem Needs: Esteem is very important in prisons. We many not think this
because outside of correctional facilities we have very little esteem for
prisoners but in in a prison there is an ever changing system of power and
respect. When a person is removed from the general prison population
they could lose the respect and esteem they have managed to cultivate.

16. Theory Application
 Need for Self-actualization: We don’t often think of prisoners a people
trying to “Be the best they can be” but as I often reiterate prisons main
function should be to rehabilitate the prisoners. One of the most sure roads
to rehabilitation is education. In most prisons there is some library and a
system for prisoners to get an education and often times college degrees.
This is all taken away from a prisoner that is put in solitary.

17. “
”
After just two months in solitary confinement,
my mind began to slip… I started to realize that
there was a slow disintegration, really, of my
personality, my sense of who I was . . . You are
existing in this kind of vacuum.
-SARAH SHOURD

18. Questions for the Future

19. Thinking Questions
 Why is it that we are so casual about torture in this country? When the
CIA’s torture report was released with a public uproar that eventually
turned to a quite unease that has now been nearly forgotten. Why are we
not more horrified by the acts of our government?
 Is solitary confinement even an affective punishment?
 What are some punishments we could be using instead of solitary?

20. Thinking Questions
 When does solitary go too long? A week, a month, a year?
 Some country's have abolished solitary confinement. What are some of the
results that has had on their prison population?

21. Work Cited
 American Civil Liberates Union. Worse than Second-Class. April 2014, Web.
 Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and
Processes, Seventh Edition. 2015. Print.