Lock ‘em Up: How Isolation Practices Damage Incarcerated Youth

  By Rachel Godin and Heather Inglis

These words have so much impact and are all under the same umbrella: Mental illness.

Approximately four million youth and adolescents suffer from serious mental illness in the United States alone, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). These children have functional impairments at home, school and in society overall.

What’s more alarming is how many of these children end up in the juvenile justice system: NAMI says 65% of boys and 75% of girls incarcerated for a crime have at least one mental illness.

Rather than seeking rehabilitation programs, the United States looks to incarceration to solve issues like mental illness. Furthermore, a handful of children who enter the juvenile justice system, and in some more severe cases the adult prisons, end up in solitary confinement.

The system

Often times, in the cases involving adult prisons, solitary confinement/seclusion/isolation is used to comply with federal laws stating minors need to be separated from adults. Due to lack of cell space and other necessities for adequate inmate housing, the youths are often placed in holding cells alone.

Kim Tandy, executive director for the Children’s Law Center, said this concern weighs heavy on those trying to change the system.

“For those youths who may be tried as adults, many of them may remain at a juvenile detention facility,” Tandy said. “But some are actually housed in adult jails, and because they have to be housed from adult prisoners in smaller jails we’re concerned that also means they also might be placed in solitary confinement cells as the only mechanism to comply with federal laws around separation. And that certainly is of concern.”

Kevin DeMott was placed in an adult prison at 15 years old. Despite having a history of bipolar disorder, DeMott was separated from adult prisoners and placed into isolation for up to 30 days at a time before being moved into a psychiatric prison.

Kevin’s mother, Lois DeMott, soon became a coordinator at the Family Participation Program and an advocate for those struggling with mental illness in isolation.

“People don’t know or understand that when you say someone is in solitary confinement that means they are locked down 23 hours a day in their cell, only allowed out three times a week for a ten minute sh
ower, and that’s if they’re there and ready to get out when that shower is offered,” Lois said.

Kevin was bounced from system to system until he was placed into a formal, long-term solitary confinement at 18 years old. Here, Lois said, he endured constant noise, banging, lights being on and little human interaction, which made it very hard for him to function.

And this isn’t to say everyone who goes into solitary confinement has a mental illness prior to incarceration. Seclusion has been notorious for creating and worsening mental illness because of the conditions teenagers like Kevin had to face.

Shakyra Diaz of the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union that solitary confinement negatively

impacts everyone who is placed in it.

“What we generally know is that prolonged isolation results in a number of different mental health breakdowns including withdraw, self-mutilation, panic, anxiety for those who do not have mental illnesses before they enter institution but also for those who already do it exasperates,” Diaz said. “So whether you have have a mental illness before you go in or not, you’re going to be negatively impacted by prolonged isolation.”

 

The solution

Groups across the U.S., specifically Ohio, have been making strides to combat the use of solitary confinement for youths and adolescents.

Tandy said adding better health assessment and creating programs which act as better tools for solving problems could have the potential to help incarcerated youth and eliminate the use of solitary confinement.

“We know a disproportionately high number of children have mental health issues that go into the juvenile justice system,” Tandy said. “So you know it’s a population that really needs a strong mental health component in a residential program, whether that’s juvenile detention or whether that’s a treatment facility or Department of Youth Services. The two things go hand-in-hand. So provision of health services is really important and it is one of those effective keys to eliminate the practice.”

Groups like the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative are working to provide different options for detention for youths. Currently, they have 300 jurisdictions in 39 states and the District of Columbia that help promote alternatives, according to its website.

[pullquote]So whether you have have a mental illness before you go in or not, you’re going to be negatively impacted by prolonged isolation.” – Shakyra Diaz[/pullquote]

The state of Ohio is also trying to make strides. After receiving national attention for overcrowded facilities, it has worked with the Children’s Law Center to and became a model for reducing numbers in juvenile facilities. However, Diaz said there are still some issues that need to be worked out.

“After making great strides, Ohio was a state that was leading in youth solitary confinement, seclusion, isolation and now is working toward, with the help of and intervention of the Department of Justice, changing a lot of their practices and their facilities,” Diaz said.

She went on to say we as a society need to take a step back and look at the issues that lie within the juvenile justice system as a whole.
“When we look at the fact that this country incarcerates more adults and child than any other country in the world, that there are children placed in solitary confinement, who experience trauma while detained, we have to be much more intentional on who we’re placing in these institutions and why,” Diaz said. “Is this the best place to serve a young person? Is this the best way to help them in their rehabilitation or not? Often times our response is to incarcerate in this country and that goes for adults and youth alike. Our response to every single problem has been to incarcerate and it’s not. It’s not appropriate.”

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