Special Housing Units (SHU) is a room for a prisoner to be kept alone which is separated from other prisoners. The reason why a prisoner is placed in this kind of room varies, such as the inmate has done a disciplinary infraction or he or she is threatened by other inmates. Placing the inmate in an SHU is basically for the inmate’s safety.
Special Housing Units (SHU) were also called solitary confinement, isolation, administrative segregation, supermax prisons, management control units (MCU), communications management units (CMU), the hole, special needs units, permanent lockdown, or security threat group management units (STGMU).
When an inmate is in a special housing unit, they have severely limited contact with other people. The access to educational programming is also very limited and the unit is made of a solid steel door. In addition, the inmate got limited personal property, inadequate medical and mental health treatment and seldom to get phone calls and non-contact family visits. Because of these extreme limitations, it can make the inmate have special housing unit syndrome.
The Symptoms of Special Housing Unit Syndrome
On the American Friends Service Committee site, it is explained that there are a number of studies that have documented the effects of solitary confinement or special housing units. The effects are predictable and it is defined as Special Housing Unit Syndrome. What will happen to an inmate who experiences Special Housing Unit Syndrome? They can undergo the symptoms such as:
- Auditory and visual hallucinations
- Insomnia
- Hypersensitive to touch and noise
- Paranoia
- Distortions of perception and time
- Having anger and fear uncontrollably
- The increase of risk of PTSD and suicide
There was an investigation from 2006 that 64% of prisoners in Special Housing Units were mentally ill. As cited on the Prison Policy Initiative site, it is explained that at the International Symposium on Solitary Confinement, researchers and previously incarcerated people agreed that the positive benefits of using solitary confinement are less than the severe and often permanent damages that are caused by the long isolation. And there even was also a study that showed that the time spent in solitary confinement can shorten lives. Speakers at the International Symposium also said that other ways solitary can cause irreparable damages.
In fact, prisons and jails are harmful so that placing an inmate in an isolation can give extra stress and it proves that it can cause permanent changes to people’s brains and personalities. There is a fact that if people do not interact with other people for a long time, the part of the brain that has an important role in memory can shrink.
A Bill of the Isolated Confinement Restriction
In 2014, a bill was introduced by State Senators Raymond Lesniak and Peter Barnes in the NJ Senate. The aim of the bill is to reform the use of solitary confinement. In May 2016, the Senate version passed in. In the bill, they include the important things related to the Special Housing Units such as the prohibition against isolation except with reasonable cause where it is believed that an inmate needs to enter the SHU because he or she has a serious or immediate risk of harm to self or others. Below, you are able to read the other important provisions of the bill as cited from a document at the site of The Unitarian Society of Ridgewood.
- Any inmates that are placed in isolation need to undergo medical and mental health examinations and get a measure of due process.
- It is not allowed to place an inmate in a special housing unit who is considered vulnerable to harm in isolation such as elderly, young, disabled, or pregnant.
- When an inmate is isolated, the condition must be safe, clean and human.
- If an inmate needs to undergo emergency solitary confinement, the duration cannot be more than 24 hours.
- In specified limited conditions, an inmate is not allowed to be placed in isolation for more than 15 consecutive days or for more than 20 days per 60 days period.
- Inmates will always have access to voluntary isolation in protective custody where it is done to prevent reasonable foreseeable harm.
- Prisoners who are currently isolated will be individually reviewed under the standards in the bill.
- Conforming to these changes will be required to all correctional facilities that operate directly under or through contract with the Department of Corrections.
- A plan must be developed by the Department of Corrections for implementation of these reforms where it also includes comprehensive training for staff and administrators and also thorough documentation and reporting procedures.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
