News
Mental health
US prisons put large numbers of
Black men in solitary confinement
Alice Klein
ALMOST 1 in 10 Black men in
the US are held in prolonged
solitary confinement in prison
at least once before their early
30s – a practice considered
torture by the United Nations
because of its severe impact on
mental health. This is according
to an analysis in Pennsylvania,
where incarceration rates are
representative of the whole US.
Solitary confinement
involves isolating a prisoner
in a cell – colloquially called
“the hole” – for 22 or more hours
a day with little to no human
contact or mental stimulation.
The UN’s Nelson Mandela
Rules state that it should only
be imposed in exceptional
circumstances and for short
periods because more than
15 days of it constitutes torture.
Research shows the practice
can induce anxiety, psychotic
symptoms and post-traumatic
stress disorder in prisoners.
Those held in solitary
confinement for any amount of
time are 78 per cent more likely
to die by suicide within a year of
being released from prison and
127 per cent more likely to die of
an opioid overdose in the first
two weeks compared with other
released prisoners who haven’t
experienced this type of
confinement.
Hannah Pullen-Blasnik
at Columbia University in
New York and her colleagues
analysed prison records from
Pennsylvania spanning 2007
to 2018 to understand the use
of solitary confinement. They
found that 9 per cent of all Black
men in Pennsylvania born
between 1986 and 1989 had
been held in such confinement
Activists protest against
solitary confinement
in New York
for at least 15 consecutive days
by the age of 32, compared with
3 per cent of Latino men and
1 per cent of white men (Science
Advances, doi.org/g7kk).
These rates are probably
nationally representative,
since the incarceration rate and
racial make-up of prisoners in
Pennsylvania are close to the
US average, says Pullen-Blasnik.
“Solitary confinement is
almost never warranted
because there are more
humane options”
Solitary confinement was
used to punish violent acts
in just 12 per cent of cases,
according to the study. The
rest of the time, it was used
to punish verbal threats,
possession of contraband
or defiance, or because the
prisoner was deemed a risk to
others or unsafe themselves.
Tamara Walsh at the
University of Queensland in
Australia says that solitary
confinement is almost
never warranted because
there are more humane and
effective options available.
Prison violence can be cut by
Technology
Cryptocurrency
traders are buying
from themselves
Chris Stokel-Walker
providing structured activities THE majority of cryptocurrency
like athletics training, life skills trades on the world’s most
training and playing board popular but unregulated
games, making sure inmates exchanges may be people
with mental health problems buying from themselves to
have appropriate treatment, artificially inflate prices,
allowing family visits and according to a new analysis.
providing connections with A study of 29 cryptocurrency
nature, says Walsh. exchanges, where people buy
New York and Colorado have and sell the virtual currencies,
banned solitary confinement has found significant volumes
being used for more than of “wash trading” within
15 consecutive days and cryptocurrencies. Wash trading
are experimenting with is where an investor sells and
alternatives. Colorado, for buys the same asset to create
example, replaced long-term artificial interest in an investment,
solitary confinement cells with often distorting the price.
short-term “time out” cells in Xi Li at Newcastle University,
some prisons and found that UK, and her colleagues looked
assaults declined by 40 per cent. at how bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin
Pullen-Blasnik’s research and Ripple – four of the most
indicates that more Black popular cryptocurrencies – were
men are placed in solitary traded. They examined every
confinement because more are trade made between the four
incarcerated in the first place. cryptocurrencies and US dollars
“The most direct way to reduce between July and November 2019,
solitary confinement among analysing them against statistical
Black men is to shrink the and behavioural benchmarks.
[prison] system,” she says. ❚ On the exchanges that are
regulated, the researchers found
Need a listening ear? little evidence of wash trading.
UK Samaritans: 116123 However, they estimate that
(samaritans.org). Visit bit.ly/ wash trading made up more than
SuicideHelplines for hotlines 70 per cent of the total volume of
and websites for other countries. trades on unregulated exchanges
during the study period (arxiv.org/
abs/2108.10984).
Li says some crypto exchanges
have changed their approach
to wash trades since the study
was done, but she believes
the issue largely persists.
The paper’s large data set
and rigorous analysis make it an
important insight into the crypto
trading world, says Emiliano De
Cristofaro at University College
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
London. “Research studies year
after year by serious scholars from
multiple disciplines have pointed
out how [cryptocurrency] trading
largely involves fraudulent
activities,” he says. ❚
4 December 2021 | New Scientist | 11