Author(s): Shelby Rothberg, Kristina Wheeler
Mentor(s): Taylor Hartwell, Criminology, Law, and Society
AbstractMany residents experience symptoms of mental illness while being housed in solitary confinement units, yet little is known about the mental health services provided to them, and how effective the residents find these services to be. This research investigates how the residents placed in solitary confinement units perceive the mental health services provided to them while they are housed in these units. Using 106 interviews collected from six different prisons, our findings suggest that most residents view these mental health services as being an overall negative experience, with residents citing a lack of treatment or ineffective treatment. These findings show that mental health services in solitary confinement units are lacking and more effective treatment is needed.
Audio TranscriptTitle Slide:
-Hi, I am Shelby Rothberg
-I am Kristina Wheeler
-And we are Criminology, Law, and Society Majors at George Mason University. For our Summer Team Impact Project, we worked with the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence!, also known as ACE!, on their Solitary Confinement Project. This project has been ongoing for the past five years, with two of those including teams of undergraduate and graduate research assistants visiting seven different prisons and solitary confinement units where they conducted interviews with residents and staff. For our project this summer, Kristina and I investigated residents’ perceptions of the mental health services provided to them in solitary confinement.
Literature Review
-In the prisons included in this study, solitary confinement units are called RHUs, or restricted housing units. RHUs are commonly referred to as a “prison within a prison”. A resident may be placed in an RHU as either a voluntary or involuntary removal from the general population. While in the RHU, residents are placed in a locked cell, either alone or with another prisoner, and are unable to leave their cell for a majority of the day. We began our project by diving into the previous literature regarding the mental health of residents in solitary confinement units. Much of the previous literature on this subject can be summarized by the following key findings. First, in 2005 Rhodes found that 20-25% of residents in solitary confinement units included in their study showed strong evidence of having a mental illness. Next, Haney concluded in 2006 that prisoners held in solitary confinement for long periods of time are at an increased risk of mental illness symptoms, especially long-term impulse-control disorder and clinical depression. In 2020 Dellazizzo et al., concluded that mental illness is a contributing factor to a resident’s placement in solitary confinement. Finally, in their 2008 study, Lovell found that 45% of residents included in their study that were being housed in solitary confinement units suffered from psychological breakdowns, marked psychological symptoms, brain damage, or serious mental illness. These findings all suggest that long-term solitary confinement may lead to declining mental health and symptoms of mental illness. They also suggest that many residents in these solitary confinement units have a preexisting mental illness before they were placed within these units, and their placement may lead to worsening symptoms of their mental illness. With this understanding that solitary confinement leads to declining mental health and that many residents in these units have symptoms of mental illness also comes a gap in knowledge regarding the mental health services provided to these residents, and more importantly the residents’ perceptions of the mental health services that are provided to them while they are in the solitary confinement units.
Research Question
-This gap in knowledge leads to our main research question for our summer project: What are residents’ in solitary confinement units’ perceptions of the mental health services provided to them while they are being housed in the RHU? This then leads into another question we investigated which was: Do residents feel that the mental health services provided to them in the RHU are effective or ineffective? Another question we would like to explore in the future is: what are RHU residents” thoughts about psychological staff in RHUs?
Data Collection/Methods
-To answer these questions, we coded and analyzed resident interviews that had been previously collected by the ACE! team. Our study site included six different male state prisons that each had their own RHU. The data collection process took place over two years beginning in 2017. In the first year, the team spent two days in each of the three prisons. In the second year, the team spent four days in each of the four prisons. The team consisted of 6 undergraduate research assistants, 3 masters students, 2 PhD students, and 3 faculty members. The data collected included two hundred and nine total resident interviews, one hundred and six of which were included in our current project. 103 interviews were excluded as they did not reference mental health services. Our research process began by closely reading through all of the resident interviews. We then used the coding software program Atlas.ti to code the interviews for mental health and mental health services. From here, interviews that included any mention of mental health services in RHUs were used in this study. Preliminary analysis was then conducted to determine residents’ perceptions of the mental health services that were provided to them.
Findings
-Here are our findings. Overall in our research, there were more negative perceptions of mental health, rather than positive perceptions of service. In total, there were 274 instances where the resident stated their negative perception, and 36 instances where the resident said something positive about the mental health services provided. There were two major recurring themes in the data such as the 76 residents who said that they believed there were not enough services or a lack thereof, and the 71 residents who stated that the psych services provided were ineffective and not beneficial. We have also provided quotes from the data to give examples of the residents perceptions such as, “There are no checkups to even see if anyone needs to get any medication provided to them”, “They (CO’S) do not talk about what is actually happening”, and “The mental health services in here are poor. There is really no one for you to talk to. They just give you medication when you just need to talk to someone.”
Discussion
-For theoretical implications we wanted to expand the literature on mental health services in RHU’s using the data provided. Practical implications include residents that may have useful suggestions for improving the effectiveness of treatment for themselves or in group therapy settings. Correctional institutions should consider adding more psych services for residents as well. Some RHU’s may be lacking the employees that are needed. For our future research we have three things we would like to research. The first research question is “What are RHU residents’ perceptions of psychological staff in RHUs?”. The second thing we would like to inquire in-depth is into mental health services (e.g.,how correctional officers/psych staff implement the psych programs, how correctional staff enforce attendance, etc.). Lastly a more in-depth inquiry into psych programming (e.g., examine perceptions of psych programs among program participants; conduct ethnographic field observations of psych programs).
Final Slide
-Thank you for listening to our presentation
-Hi, I am Shelby Rothberg
-I am Kristina Wheeler
-And we are Criminology, Law, and Society Majors at George Mason University. For our Summer Team Impact Project, we worked with the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence!, also known as ACE!, on their Solitary Confinement Project. This project has been ongoing for the past five years, with two of those including teams of undergraduate and graduate research assistants visiting seven different prisons and solitary confinement units where they conducted interviews with residents and staff. For our project this summer, Kristina and I investigated residents’ perceptions of the mental health services provided to them in solitary confinement.
Literature Review
-In the prisons included in this study, solitary confinement units are called RHUs, or restricted housing units. RHUs are commonly referred to as a “prison within a prison”. A resident may be placed in an RHU as either a voluntary or involuntary removal from the general population. While in the RHU, residents are placed in a locked cell, either alone or with another prisoner, and are unable to leave their cell for a majority of the day. We began our project by diving into the previous literature regarding the mental health of residents in solitary confinement units. Much of the previous literature on this subject can be summarized by the following key findings. First, in 2005 Rhodes found that 20-25% of residents in solitary confinement units included in their study showed strong evidence of having a mental illness. Next, Haney concluded in 2006 that prisoners held in solitary confinement for long periods of time are at an increased risk of mental illness symptoms, especially long-term impulse-control disorder and clinical depression. In 2020 Dellazizzo et al., concluded that mental illness is a contributing factor to a resident’s placement in solitary confinement. Finally, in their 2008 study, Lovell found that 45% of residents included in their study that were being housed in solitary confinement units suffered from psychological breakdowns, marked psychological symptoms, brain damage, or serious mental illness. These findings all suggest that long-term solitary confinement may lead to declining mental health and symptoms of mental illness. They also suggest that many residents in these solitary confinement units have a preexisting mental illness before they were placed within these units, and their placement may lead to worsening symptoms of their mental illness. With this understanding that solitary confinement leads to declining mental health and that many residents in these units have symptoms of mental illness also comes a gap in knowledge regarding the mental health services provided to these residents, and more importantly the residents’ perceptions of the mental health services that are provided to them while they are in the solitary confinement units.
Research Question
-This gap in knowledge leads to our main research question for our summer project: What are residents’ in solitary confinement units’ perceptions of the mental health services provided to them while they are being housed in the RHU? This then leads into another question we investigated which was: Do residents feel that the mental health services provided to them in the RHU are effective or ineffective? Another question we would like to explore in the future is: what are RHU residents” thoughts about psychological staff in RHUs?
Data Collection/Methods
-To answer these questions, we coded and analyzed resident interviews that had been previously collected by the ACE! team. Our study site included six different male state prisons that each had their own RHU. The data collection process took place over two years beginning in 2017. In the first year, the team spent two days in each of the three prisons. In the second year, the team spent four days in each of the four prisons. The team consisted of 6 undergraduate research assistants, 3 masters students, 2 PhD students, and 3 faculty members. The data collected included two hundred and nine total resident interviews, one hundred and six of which were included in our current project. 103 interviews were excluded as they did not reference mental health services. Our research process began by closely reading through all of the resident interviews. We then used the coding software program Atlas.ti to code the interviews for mental health and mental health services. From here, interviews that included any mention of mental health services in RHUs were used in this study. Preliminary analysis was then conducted to determine residents’ perceptions of the mental health services that were provided to them.
Findings
-Here are our findings. Overall in our research, there were more negative perceptions of mental health, rather than positive perceptions of service. In total, there were 274 instances where the resident stated their negative perception, and 36 instances where the resident said something positive about the mental health services provided. There were two major recurring themes in the data such as the 76 residents who said that they believed there were not enough services or a lack thereof, and the 71 residents who stated that the psych services provided were ineffective and not beneficial. We have also provided quotes from the data to give examples of the residents perceptions such as, “There are no checkups to even see if anyone needs to get any medication provided to them”, “They (CO’S) do not talk about what is actually happening”, and “The mental health services in here are poor. There is really no one for you to talk to. They just give you medication when you just need to talk to someone.”
Discussion
-For theoretical implications we wanted to expand the literature on mental health services in RHU’s using the data provided. Practical implications include residents that may have useful suggestions for improving the effectiveness of treatment for themselves or in group therapy settings. Correctional institutions should consider adding more psych services for residents as well. Some RHU’s may be lacking the employees that are needed. For our future research we have three things we would like to research. The first research question is “What are RHU residents’ perceptions of psychological staff in RHUs?”. The second thing we would like to inquire in-depth is into mental health services (e.g.,how correctional officers/psych staff implement the psych programs, how correctional staff enforce attendance, etc.). Lastly a more in-depth inquiry into psych programming (e.g., examine perceptions of psych programs among program participants; conduct ethnographic field observations of psych programs).
Final Slide
-Thank you for listening to our presentation