The Dish

A double-whammy:

Long-term solitary confinement produces an assortment of psychological reactions. Few prisoners are unaffected … Many prisoners have been placed on antipsychotic drugs. Most of these individuals are not suffering from the normal, or common, mental issues. They are developing stress, depression, and psychotic behavior that is a product of the treatment, conditions, and isolation they are forced to live with. Many people are unable to cope.

The prison responds in a two-fold manner. The warden and his administration handle the prisoner’s physical placement and respond to any security concerns. The medical staff, which is under different management, deals with the mental complications that result from whatever the administration inflicts on its captives.

The guards walk the runs, provoking, harassing, and subjecting the prisoners to often idiotic enforcement of petty rules, and new, or otherwise never-before-enforced policies that are ever-changing and designed to torment. The psychological staff makes occasional rounds, or walk-throughs, with clipboards, inquiring in an uncaring way about each prisoners’ well-being. “How are you doing today?” to which most people normally just tell them to get the fuck on, or “bump it on down.” …it is obvious to even the most seriously mentally ill inmate in this prison that they are calloused and uncaring concerning our circumstances and the way we are being treated.