Professor’s book highlights horrors of, alternatives to solitary confinement
Wright Institute Professor’s Book Highlights Horrors of, Alternatives to Solitary Confinement
Over the course of decades researching the effects of solitary confinement on prison inmates, Professor Emeritus Terry Kupers, M.D. has amassed hundreds of anecdotes that illuminate the ways in which isolation causes disturbing patterns in relatively stable people and exacerbates symptoms of mental illness in those with histories of trauma and psychological problems. One such story was that of a woman he met in an East Coast prison who had recently been moved out of a secure housing unit (SHU), or solitary confinement.
“She was extremely anxious, and she told me that as a child her mother had locked her in a dark closet for hours or even days to punish her and was physically and verbally abusive,” Kupers said. “She eventually went to prison and to solitary, which triggered flashbacks, or experiences of reliving her abuse as a child.”