NCJ Number
98912
Journal
American Journal of Psychiatry Volume: 140 Issue: 11 Dated: (August 1983) Pages: 1450-1454
Date Published
1983
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Psychopathological reactions to solitary confinement were extensively described by nineteenth-century German clinicians. In the United States there have been several legal challenges to the use of solitary confinement, based on allegations that it may have serious psychiatric consequences.
Abstract
The recent medical literature on this subject has been scarce. The author describes psychiatric symptoms that appeared in 14 inmates exposed to periods of increased social isolation and sensory restriction on solitary confinement and asserts that these symptoms form a major, clinically distinguishable psychiatric syndrome. (Publisher abstract)