Mental Health Consequences Following Release from Long-Term Solitary Confinement in California

In collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the Stanford University Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Lab has released a report titled Mental Health Consequences Following Release from Long-Term Solitary Confinement in California, which examines the mental health consequences of long-term isolation. 

Read the report here.

 

Based on interviews with individuals at three maximum-security prisons, researchers found that prisoners formerly held in indefinite solitary confinement in California’s Security Housing Units (SHUs) face continuing mental health consequences even after they are released into general population.

The interviews revealed a range of continued, and potentially permanent, adverse consequences, including: mood deterioration and depression, intense anxiety, emotional numbing and dysregulation, cognitive impairments, modifications in perception of time, physical health ailments, distressful relational estrangement with family and/or friends, and diminished capacity for socialization. 

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April 4, 2018