Stop Solitary For Kids Campaign Analysis

The campaign I chose for this assignment is Stop Solitary for Kids, and the primary concern is terminating solitary confinement on children and adults. The reasons why the campaign believes in ending confinement is since it causes a negative impact it has on a person such as mental health issues, depression and a higher risk of suicide. The campaign intends to eliminate solitary confinement by discussing alternatives the jails and prisons can practice instead. This campaign continues to do various efforts to ultimate confinement such as work with the government and teach public education to people about confinement, policy reform, improving facility practices and much more. The reason why this is relevant to this course is that it is often observed that people of color and lower class in prison or jail. Thus making the chances of a person of color and low class to be in solitary confinement than white people. As for gender, it is quite frequent to see a higher number of men that experience confinement, but women do experience it as well. Although solitary confinement is used as a form of punishment by the jail and prison it has been proven it does not change the behavior of the inmate but makes it worse. The need for social action. The reason why the campaign Stop Solitary for Kids believe that there is a need for social action is because of the research that proves that solitary confinement causes mental illness, spike the rates of suicide, and it does not fix the problem of the youth misbehaving. The reason why an inmate would be placed in solitary confinement is that the inmate broke a rule of the prison or jail or could be a threat to themselves or others. Solitary confinement has been a technique that has been used in not only the United States history but other countries to keep control in prison. Simkin, Beyer, & Geis (2012), “The study found that 50 percent of youth who committed suicide were in isolation at the time of their suicide and 62 percent had previously been in isolation” (p. 259). There is a high percentage of youth that commits suicide during their stay in jail or prison and the connections that are being made is that it is due to solitary confinement. Even just looking at the amount that committed suicide in isolation is unbelievable because that is half of the youth that is put in confinement. Clearly, this is an issue if youth are sent to this place for punishment in hopes that the youth can come out as a “model citizen” but in reality, a huge percentage of youth are coming back dead. Also, you have to think about the percentage that does not commit suicide, but their fate is no better. According to Rademacher (2016), “Existing studies, however, demonstrate that solitary confinement of youth …show more content…
Although the youth has committed a crime, people tend to sympathize with youth being hurt and often people hope for the success of the youth to change and become a “model citizen” oppose to an adult. I would consider that strength that this campaign has because people are sympathetic to youth compared to adults. Some other strengths are that four different organizations are working on this campaign thus having different connections, resources, and research on the topic that the others may not have. Some weakness that it does that is that it is a new campaign and it has not been heard of that much compared to other campaigns that have been in the United States for awhile. Another weakness is that the campaign is going against something that has been in history for many years and is seen as “okay” in society. There are different pros if Stop Solitary for Kids is successful such as youth leaving prison or jail without any mental health issues, a decrease in depression, suicide, and anxiety due to confinement. The youth has a chance to go back into society and become the model citizen, which is the prison or jail goal for the inmate anyhow. Although the con would be, that jails and prisons would need to find another way to punish and scare their inmates to keep control over them. Other than that I do not see any other con to stopping solitary confinement on