UC Santa Cruz psychology professor Craig Haney was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey about solitary confinement for the television program “60 Minutes.”
“That vast numbers of prisoners were traumatized by the experience,” said Haney to Winfrey.
When prisoners are sentenced to solitary confinement, they get sent to the Security Housing Unit (SHU – pronounced “shoe”), tiny windowless cells where they are kept in total isolation for up to 22.5 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is zero human contact. In some cases, prisoners are left in the SHU for years.
“They were suffering, they were living in pain, and many of them were being psychologically damaged by the conditions of their confinement. And at much higher levels than even I anticipated,” said Haney about the results of his 1992 study on solitary confinement at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison.
Haney has spent four decades documenting the long-term psychological damage of solitary confinement and his research has been vital to the re-evaluation of its use in California.He has testified before the United States Senate and in various landmark constitutional cases about reform.
“[His] studies of Pelican Bay SHU inmates have become central to arguments against the widespread use of solitary confinement,” said Winfrey about Haney’s contributions.
The program aired Oct. 22, 2017 and can be viewed online: www.cbsnews.com/news/reforming-solitary-confinement-at-infamous-california-prison
Haney is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology, a UC Presidential Chair, and is co-director of the UC Criminal Justice & Health Consortium – a collaborative effort of researchers, experts and advocates from across the University of California system working to bring evidence-based health and healthcare solutions to criminal justice reform in California and nationwide.