By Micaela Parker
Observer-Dispatch, Utica, N.Y.
DANNEMORA, N.Y. — Kenny Hobbs and solitary confinement are not strangers.
He’s experienced it in Upstate, Auburn and Attica prisons, and most recently in Clinton Correctional Facility in 2008.
He knows first-hand the impact of confinement on his fellow inmates while he was serving time on multiple burglary and robbery charges.
“If you’re not mentally strong, you will definitely lose your mind in there,” he said.
That’s how Hobbs describes solitary confinement – the forced isolation of inmates, often for punitive or protective purposes.
“I stayed in (solitary in Clinton Correctional Facility) for 120 days,” Hobbs said. “The only thing that helped me get through was my daughters were writing me and coming to see me. My daughters begged me not to let my anger supersede my desire to see them. That helped me. I was able to sustain myself. I’ve seen many situations where (inmates) started throwing feces or urinating in cups and throwing it on each other and setting fires – they couldn’t take it.”
In 2014, New York’s prison system agreed to a series of reforms designed to reduce its use of solitary confinement, instituting a series of ongoing changes that a corrections official described as making the system’s disciplinary practices more humane while maintaining safety and security.
Confinement at local state prisons
At prisons throughout the state, inmates can be placed in solitary – or administrative segregation in special housing units – for infractions such as assaults on staff or inmates, possessing contraband, disruptive behavior, weapons use or sexual misconduct, said Pat Bailey, Department of Corrections and Community Supervision spokesman. In addition to disciplinary purposes, inmates can also be placed in special housing for purposes including protective custody or detention admissions. Special housing cells can be single or double occupancy, he said.
At local prison facilities – Marcy Correctional in Rome, and Mid-State and Mohawk in Marcy – the number of inmates in a special housing unit is a small percentage of the total population:
* Marcy Correctional’s total population is 1,061 inmates with 28 in a special housing unit.
* Mid-State’s population is 1,370 inmates with 30 in a special housing unit.
* Mohawk’s population is 1,287 inmates with 43 in a special housing unit.
“A majority of inmates serve their time productively without fear, threats or violence that may harm them or interrupt the operation of a facility,” Bailey wrote. “Overall safety and security of staff, inmates and facilities in general is improved when violent, insubordinate or disruptive inmates are removed from general population.”
Inmates placed in administrative segregation, meaning that presence in the general population would pose a threat to the safety and security of the facility, have their status reviewed every 60 days. Bailey said inmates in segregation still have many of the same resources available to them as general inmates, such as mental health staff and religious chaplains, as well as time for daily outdoor exercise and access to showers.
Under the reforms agreed to by the state, disciplinary confinement no longer can be used for minors or for inmates who are pregnant, Bailey wrote.
Reform efforts
Sara Sullivan, project manager at Vera Institute of Justice’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections, said a lot of strategies being implemented at correctional facilities and systems to reduce the number of inmates being placed in disciplinary segregation are similar to the same strategies used for reducing the prison population overall.
“How many people are you sending (to prison) for nonviolent or low-level offenses?” Sullivan asked. “What are ways to respond to that that doesn’t necessarily require incarceration, and if they are incarcerated, prepare them to better enter society so they don’t have to go back? That’s exactly what things look like for reducing segregation. There’s a little nuance differences, a little targeted strategy differences, but I’d say the larger model of reform strategy to reduction there’s a lot of echoing reform strategy to reducing the prison population.”
Pointing at research that indicates that the use of segregation doesn’t reduce future incidents or violations as well as additional research indicating adverse impacts on the mental health of inmates placed in segregation, Sullivan urged the use of alternative sanctions such as removing a privilege or adding an extra work detail as a form of punishment without resorting to isolation.
“The goal should be for people to be in the least restrictive setting, and if they’re in a restrictive setting they should be in for the minimum time possible in order to achieve the safety and security of an institution.”
Confinement and the mind
Dr. Paul Gendreau, University of New Brunswick professor emeritus, has been researching the psychology of solitary confinement since 1966. He said the subject is powerful ideologically and mainly comes down to two schools of thought: that solitary confinement is “a form of torture” or that its effects are not that dramatic.
He’s a believer in the latter.
“The view of us who take this noncatastrophic position on solitary is that when you see people incarcerated – the major caveat is when people are housed in prison, no matter if they’re in general population or in solitary – if they are treated humanely and are treated with respect, under those conditions the effects of solitary are much smaller than you think they are.”
He said the “major culprit” of an inmate “acting stressfully” in solitary is how they are treated by the guards – which can produce anxiety and negative psychological effects. He said negative behaviors seen in solitary – such as increased anxiety or depression, could be part of the “psychological package” inmates bring into the environment.
“Even though we don’t buy into the catastrophic idea of solitary introducing negative psychology immediately, we do believe it should be limited and is overused,” he said.
Hobbs, meanwhile, said his overall prison experience — where he learned how to deal with conflict and attain a peaceful resolution — has continued to impact his everyday life.
He is a member of the eight-man Utica street team named Save Our Streets, as part of efforts to reach out to young adults and educate them to leave a life of gun violence behind.
“I grew up,” he said. “Physically and mentally.”