When Kwaneta Harris entered solitary confinement in 2015, she knew it will be a lot more durable to keep up a correspondence along with her household. She was permitted one five-minute telephone name each 90 days.

“I can’t even communicate with my oldest daughter as a result of she doesn’t stay with my mother who principally has to provide me a brilliant fast rundown of every thing,” she instructed Al Jazeera in a current interview on the Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville, Texas.

“I’m already remoted from my neighborhood, the jail sentence must be the punishment; I shouldn’t be pressured to observe folks descend into insanity again right here.”

A current report by Unlock The Field and Solitary Watch revealed that Kwaneta is one in all greater than 120,000 folks in solitary confinement on any given night time in the US. The determine far eclipses earlier estimates as a result of it contains knowledge about inmates in each jails and prisons.

Jails are shorter-term amenities for folks awaiting trial, whereas prisons maintain folks convicted of against the law – typically for lengthy intervals of time.

The cells for solitary confinement are in regards to the measurement of a parking house, with sufficient room to stroll a couple of paces, and boundaries stopping contact with different human beings.

“The widespread use of solitary confinement in our prisons and jails is a humanitarian disaster,” mentioned Jean Casella, director of Solitary Watch, an organisation devoted to elevating consciousness in regards to the observe.

“Because the United Nations has confirmed, it’s torture happening on US soil. Now, we lastly have a complete rely of how many individuals are in solitary confinement.”

It isn’t simply the overall variety of prisoners subjected to excessive isolation, it’s also the size of time persons are held there.

“I believe it’s actually vital to level out how excessive the US is,” mentioned Michele Deitch, director of the Jail and Jail Innovation Lab on the College of Texas at Austin.

“In European international locations, it’s thought-about a violation of human rights for somebody to be locked up for greater than 15 days in solitary confinement, and we’re locking up folks right here for 20 or 30 years,” Deitch instructed Al Jazeera.

The psychological impact of solitary confinement is properly established, however the observe continues to be widespread within the US. Spending only one week in isolation (PDF) truly causes modifications in electrical exercise within the mind, based on a research by the Vera Institute of Justice, a US analysis organisation.

“There’s one thing about being remoted in a room with oneself and never having something productive or significant to try this causes an exacerbation of each type of psychological sickness,” mentioned Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist who has interviewed greater than 500 prisoners in solitary confinement.

“Individuals who have a psychotic situation like schizophrenia, bipolar dysfunction or post-traumatic stress dysfunction, what they’ll have is an exaggeration of the signs they have been already feeling,” Kupers instructed Al Jazeera.

Texas is likely one of the leaders within the nation in the case of isolating prisoners. The company that runs the jail system doesn’t use the time period solitary confinement – it refers back to the observe as “administrative segregation” or “restrictive housing”.

“In case you’ve by no means labored a max unit, you simply don’t know that there are guys in there which are actually harmful,” mentioned retired Warden Randy Treon in an interview with Al Jazeera. “I’ve had employees members murdered, employees members assaulted, there are actually harmful folks within the penitentiary and also you’ve acquired to deal with them someplace.”

Texas stopped utilizing solitary confinement as a punishment for prisoners in 2017 however maintains the system for prisoners designated an escape danger, gang members and offenders with a historical past of violence.

There are at the moment greater than 3,000 prisoners in Texas who’re held in isolation for a minimum of 22 hours a day. These numbers are down considerably from 10 years in the past, when the numbers have been double that. There are greater than 500 individuals who have been in isolation for greater than a decade.

The Texas Division of Felony Justice (TDCJ) instructed Al Jazeera in an announcement that it has “made nice strides in decreasing the safety detention inhabitants and it solely accounts for 3 p.c of the overall inmate inhabitants within the state”.

One of many males at the moment in long-term solitary confinement, Sebastian Mejia, has spent greater than 15 years in isolation. He’s on the Polunsky Unit, which is identical facility as dying row. Inmates awaiting execution are all held in solitary confinement. Mejia despatched Al Jazeera a letter describing his expertise there.

“The influence on our soul and psyche from such an existence is absolute desolation. Nonetheless it’s not simply the influence on our souls in right here that ought to concern folks, it’s the influence it’s going to have on the market within the free world, 95 p.c of the lads surrounding me will likely be free sooner or later.”

The difficulty of utmost isolation in Texas prisons turned extra seen in January, when inmates at 11 amenities throughout the state went on a starvation strike. They wished to lift consciousness about prolonged sentences and an absence of entry to a spread of companies similar to taking lessons or studying a commerce that might assist them develop into eligible for parole.

“There actually isn’t any impartial oversight over the system, so for these inmates to talk up, it reveals how determined they’re,” mentioned CJai Foster, an advocate with Texans Towards Solitary Confinement. “They know there’s a probability that they could possibly be retaliated in opposition to and so they participated anyway.”

The TDCJ responded to the strike partially by denying media entry to the inmates collaborating.  Amanda Hernandez, the division’s director of communications mentioned the transfer was to forestall the strike from rising. “By permitting the interviews, we really feel we’re permitting them to organise and additional trigger disruption,” she mentioned, based on the Texas Tribune. The strike ended after seven weeks with no concessions made by the state company that manages the prisons.

After the starvation strike, a number of payments have been launched within the Texas legislature to restrict the period of time folks might be positioned in isolation, in addition to research the impact that it has on psychological well being. Not one of the payments have been voted into legislation.

The observe of isolating prisoners doesn’t have a historic precedent within the US. The truth is, for a lot of the nation’s historical past, the act was frowned upon.

“On the time of the founding and for a minimum of the primary 100 years of this nation’s existence, we don’t have any document of somebody being in solitary confinement for longer than 16 months,” Easha Anand, a lawyer with the MacArthur Justice Middle instructed Al Jazeera. “The concept somebody can be in solitary confinement for greater than a interval of some days or even weeks was simply not one thing that anybody accepted.”

As mass incarceration exploded within the Seventies and Eighties, violence behind bars elevated considerably. The Texas jail system reacted by locking away violent offenders within the administrative segregation programme. The company was capable of convey the violence below management however the system has remained in place for many years.

Kwaneta Harris mentioned she believes that, in some unspecified time in the future, the observe should finish.

“They know the harm solitary confinement causes, it isn’t new. We’ve recognized this for over 100 years. It destroys folks’s souls, it’s a slaughterhouse for souls. They’ve to finish this.”