What happens if a solitary confinement prisoner goes insane?

The United Nations has called for such conditions to be used only in exceptional circumstances, for no more than two weeks at a time, and in Britain solitary confinement is not used as a punishment, though violent prisoners and those at risk of being victims of violence may be kept separately in “segregation units” for safety reasons. read more

A mentally ill inmate under solitary confinement at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Va., peers from behind his cell door, November 29, 2004. (AP Photo/Virginian-Pilot, Chris Tyree) When corrections officials talk about solitary confinement, they describe it as the prison within the prison, and for good reason. read more

Solitary confinement is supposed to reduce prison violence, but some studies suggest that reducing its use — as in one Mississippi prison, where mentally ill prisoners were removed from solitary and given treatment — actually reduces prison-wide violence. read more