Prisons and Mental Isolation

Monica lost count of all the time she was ticketed and sent to solitary during her 20 years in prison. Researchers have found that isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture. People who are punished with isolation for exhibiting symptoms of mental illness often deteriorate and manifest further symptoms, which can lead to a permanent cycle of punitive isolation. As monica put it, people taken away over mental health episodes in prison don't always come back, and if they do, they may not come back the same. An aggressive approach to decarceration could have prevented millions of cases of covid 19 and saved tens of thousands of lives.