American Prisons have

Forgotten the Needs of

HumansMASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS AND HOW THEY CAN BE APPLIED TO THE

AMERICAN PRISON SYSTEM

Article Review

Worse Than Second-Class

This article address the issue of solitary confinement used as a punishment

in the American prison system.

The article specifically looks at the effects of solitary confinement on

women in the judicial system.

Particular attention is put on the psychological effects that solitary

confinement can have on the human mind.

Main Points of Article

1. Solitary confinement is viewed nearly unanimously by psychologists to be a

form of torture and should only be used as a last resort.

2. Solitary confinement deprives prisoners form basic human needs such as

human contact and interaction, the ability to better yourself with learning,

and a feeling of safety.

3. Solitary confinement can create or worsen mental illness and can trigger

memories of abuse.

Point 1. Solitary Confinement is Torture

When in solitary confinement you have little to no interaction with other

human beings. In many prisons the only interaction you will receive for the

deration of your confinement is your food being pushed through a slat in

the door.

The mind can’t sustain its self without interactions with other humans. Long

expense without interaction can lead to mental illness.

The rules of how long you can be put in confinement are very lax and

undefined. A sentence to solitary can be for a handful of day to years.

Point 2. Lack of Human Interaction

As previously mentioned when confined you have little to no human

interaction.

Also it is common place for the prison to take family visitation rights away

form you.

Often prisoners won’t be told how long they will be confined and will have

no idea when they can see their family again.

Point 3. Mental Illness

Many women in the prison system have some past experience of abuse or

some form of diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness.

Solitary confinement aggravates mental illness and the hopelessness can

bring up memories of abuse.

When in confinement prisoners aren’t often checked up on, meaning a

persons mental condition could be detreating and the prison wouldn’t

even know.

Maslow’s

Hierarchy

of Needs

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Physiological Needs: The needs of they body. The very base needs such as

to eat, sleep, and sensory gratification.

Safety Needs: The need to be safe from danger and the environment you

are in.

Affiliation Needs: The need to give and receive human affection and

interaction.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Esteem Needs: The need of individuals to feel a sense of esteem gained

through public recognition and attention.

Need for Self-Actualization: In general the need to “Be all you can be.”

The need to strive to be better at what you are doing.

How the Practice

of Solitary

Confinement is

Taking Basic

Human Needs from

Prisoners.

Needs and Solitary Confinement

For my application of the Hierarchy of needs theory I will be looking at

each need individually and analyzing how solitary confinement deprives

these need from human beings.

Also this wasn’t mention in my article but I feel the need to point out that

overall prison is meant to be a system that rehabilitates prisoners. The

Hierarchy of needs looks at the need of humans to improve and thrive in

this world. By depriving prisoners of these needs the prison system is going

against it’s own agenda of rehabilitation.

Theory Application

Physiological Needs: The average solitary confinement cell is six by nine

feet. This is little to no room or any activity beside standing and maybe

three step passing. Physiological needs often are simple thought of as the

need for food and water but the need to move is also a physical need.

Safety Needs: Prison isn’t over all a very safe place. Prisoners often have to

deal with the fear prison violence, rape, and guard violence. Many tend

to thing that solitary confinement would make you feel safer, this isn’t the

case. Often prisoners aren’t told how long they will be in solitary and these

can lead to extreme feelings of uneasy and fear for ones future.

Theory Application

Affiliation Needs: This need is the one I feel is most abused by the practice

of solitary confinement. We need other humans in our lives to function

properly. Solitary takes away all positive human interaction and even the

hope of affection.

Esteem Needs: Esteem is very important in prisons. We many not think this

because outside of correctional facilities we have very little esteem for

prisoners but in in a prison there is an ever changing system of power and

respect. When a person is removed from the general prison population

they could lose the respect and esteem they have managed to cultivate.

Theory Application

Need for Self-actualization: We don’t often think of prisoners a people

trying to “Be the best they can be” but as I often reiterate prisons main

function should be to rehabilitate the prisoners. One of the most sure roads

to rehabilitation is education. In most prisons there is some library and a

system for prisoners to get an education and often times college degrees.

This is all taken away from a prisoner that is put in solitary.

“

”

After just two months in solitary confinement,

my mind began to slip… I started to realize that

there was a slow disintegration, really, of my

personality, my sense of who I was . . . You are

existing in this kind of vacuum.

-SARAH SHOURD

Questions for the Future

Thinking Questions

Why is it that we are so casual about torture in this country? When the

CIA’s torture report was released with a public uproar that eventually

turned to a quite unease that has now been nearly forgotten. Why are we

not more horrified by the acts of our government?

Is solitary confinement even an affective punishment?

What are some punishments we could be using instead of solitary?

Thinking Questions

When does solitary go too long? A week, a month, a year?

Some country's have abolished solitary confinement. What are some of the

results that has had on their prison population?

Work Cited

American Civil Liberates Union. Worse than Second-Class. April 2014, Web.

Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and

Processes, Seventh Edition. 2015. Print.