Solitary Confinement is Crazy Loud | FRONTLINE

Think it's the isolation that drives some solitary confinement prisoners crazy? It might actually be the intense noise. With extraordinary access, FRONTLINE brings you inside a maximum security solitary confinement unit in Maine.

Funding for FRONTLINE's YouTube channel is provided by the Knight Foundation. FRONTLINE is made possible by PBS and CPB. Major support is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Park Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation and Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.

[JonMascar]

You're just making them more crazy than they were when they got in. If you ever release them, the first person they see is fucked.

[enchibla]

and thats how you create psychopaths instead of treating them

[saurabhshah]

What's even more terrifying is that some of these people might be completely innocent.

[benl]

This is what zoo animals probably feel.

[ontologian]

If you weren't insane before you went in (ie. were rich enough to afford a lawyer to get you off on that ticket) you are now. We're making dangerous people WAY MORE DANGEROUS.

[IncognitoSprax]

People actually lose their mind in solitary.

[markspeeps]

Nothing to read, nothing to watch no possible way to expand the mind.  Evil is one thing driving someone insane is criminal.

[WJames-vkkp]

Saw this in my Principles of Justice class. It was scary watching one of the inmates mentally deteriorate. He was fine initially. By the end of his three-month solitary sentence, he was throwing his own poop around the cell and cutting himself to land in the psych unit...

[hansblitz]

They're going to be "rehabilitated" "corrected" by the Corrections Corporation of America.

[ITS.THE.NSA.]

Imagine trying to sleep every night with these noises. You'll never really get used to it

[MistaC]

I've been through this before. Once you can't sleep anymore it really goes down hill from there.

[LynnIronLightning]

the moment you go in there, you really cant help but to feel that you really lost the life game, i mean imagine being wrongfully locked up in there freshly, i cant even imagine the feeling of defeat.

[jetaddicted]

My memories from my 14 months in prison are:
-concrete;
-stones;
-the color grey;
-the sound of the guards’s boots walking on the salt grains we all threw on the ground to hear them coming;
-the clinging of their keys;
-the shrieks, the constant shrieks;
-being called by just my family name, no sir, no mister, nothing but a name;
-the occasional cries at night, from other cells or from me;
-trying every possible way to dampen the sound, be it through toilet paper rolled into my ears or finding ways to fall asleep without my hands moving from said ears;
-the joy of receiving mail, or a visit;
-the fear of being assaulted since I am not a big guy (luckily that did not happen);
-surprizingly: the other inmate’s generosity.
Strange thing: I’ve had time to make friends over there, the names of which I have totally forgotten weeks upon being released.
One thing I remember is that guy, one of the last I saw on the day of my release, telling me these exact words: “go away now and forget us quickly”.

[flyingbobo]

Send the politicians who create tyrannical systems into these holes

[thereplication]

As someone who spent almost 5 days straight in a cell like this, I can confirm that this is real.
In fact, there was this one guy who came in the same day as me and absolutely went insane by day 3, to the point where I think he was trying to kill himself by bashing his head against the wall.
The guards of course stopped him before he did it, but still this is just a cruel way to deal with criminals and/or convicts.

[jamesoncross]

That is inhumane. I understand they need to be punished. That's not good for anyone. Be more constructive. If you want to drive them crazy then there is something wrong with you. Either help them, or kill them. Locking them up like that is wrong.

[chicagolarry]

THAT'S GOTTA BE
THE STRONGEST WINDOW PANE GLASS
IN THE
100% UNBREAKABLE

[reyzortec]

I did 3 years in solitary confinment at the age of 16 till the age 19, im free now, i became more intelligent and patient but i am also a very disturbed person and i believe it was the suffering i had too go through that caused this

[harrybaker]

Few things will drive you insane faster than sleep deprivation. Coupled with the confined space and hopelessness, this is literally hell on earth.

[bluetulip]

The howling and laughing like a hyena is the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.