The system of punishment used for prison inmates who misbehave behind bars is completely ineffective, according to two psychiatrists who spoke yesterday at Suffolk University.
One of them, Dr. Stuart Grassian, went so far as to say the isolation programs destroy the minds of prisoners.
Inmates who are found guilty of various infractions are often separated from the general population and placed in departmental disciplinary units or similar isolated cells. They are rarely released from these cells and have little or no contact with other people.
Grassian, who has toured such units and has testified as a psychiatric expert, said these separated people, over a period of time, receive reduced stimulation. They eventually become “stimulus averse,” meaning their minds avoid stimulation.
“You can’t concentrate. You go into a kind of mental fog,” he said. “The impact is catastrophic. … Guys who were gregarious become loners.”
Some of these inmates become psychotic, Grassian said.
“It becomes an insanity after a while,” he said.
Dr. Jerome Rogoff disagreed with Grassian, saying isolation doesn’t necessarily drive men mad. He said the experience of being alone for a long time creates bitterness, but not insanity.
Rogoff, who was the senior psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution-Norfolk, said he interviewed about 30 men who were in isolation units. He said a few liked being there because they felt safer and a few were simply evil. For the most part, they were bitter, he said.
Rogoff said inmates in isolation who have symptoms of mental problems often have less-visible symptoms of those problems before going in.
The system still has many flaws, he said. The length of time served and the treatment they receive in the units is inappropriate, according to Rogoff.
Some prisoners spend years in isolation for things like fighting and drug use.
“That was really unconscionable,” he said. “The length of time they serve is barbaric and self-defeating.”
While he said he didn’t think isolation necessarily causes psychosis, Rogoff admitted it does affect a person’s ability to deal with other people.
He said isolation offers no constructive use of time for the prisoners.
Grassian said the corrections officers who work in isolation also lose touch somewhat. Nothing happens there, he said, so the officers make things happen. Often, they mistreat rather than rehabilitate the inmates.
“It’s an environment where nothing good ever happens,” he said. “You lose sight of want you want to achieve and all you end up doing is punishing.”
Both expressed their support for changes in isolation units, including programs to increase human contact and provide therapy for the prisoners. They said medicating the inmates is a bad idea.
“There ought to be therapy for those who want it or need it,” Rogoff said. “You need to stay away from the idea of sedating an entire population.”
“Obviously … you need to have some control of their movements,” Grassian said, referring to those who misbehave. “You need to develop programs for those individuals.”
Both speakers advocated new legislation limiting the amount of time a prisoner can spend in isolation.
Rep. Kay Khan (D-Newton) presented a bill to the House of Representatives that states a misbehaving prisoner can spend no more than 15 days in an isolation, departmental disciplinary unit or other disciplinary unit.
Grassian testified in favor of the bill yesterday morning before the Joint Committee on Public Safety.
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