psylaw
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‘They’re torturing me’: ICE uses solitary confinement to scare people into self-deporting
Craig Haney, a UC Santa Cruz psychology professor and solitary confinement expert, described social isolation as a “psychological toxin.” He said solitary confinement can cause depression, anxiety, hopelessness, the atrophy of social skills, and in more severe cases, hallucinations, cognitive impairment and PTSD. “It’s cruel because it hurts people,” Haney said of solitary confinement. “It’s…
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‘How can that be’: Man died of thirst in Louisville jail
“I wish I could tell you that this is the first time I’ve ever heard this story, but it’s not,” said Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California Santa Cruz who has studied the psychological consequences of confinement in jail and prison for decades.
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Prison methods are as bad as you’ve heard, and spilling onto the streets
Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Haney wrote an opinion article about the damaging dynamics and lack of accountability inside jails and how these practices are increasingly taking place outside of jails too, with anonymous government actors operating unrestrained by due process safeguards, subjugating and terrorizing people with impunity — as has long been common inside…
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Death Row Prisoners Granted Clemency by Biden Brace for “Living Hell” Under Trump
Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has visited ADX and conducted research on solitary confinement for decades, wrote in a declaration as part of the prisoners’ lawsuit, “mentally ill people are more likely to deteriorate and decompensate when they are subjected to the harshness and stress of prison…
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‘People Are Losing Hope’: Suicide Risk Is Rife in ICE Detention Centers
UC Santa Cruz Psychology Professor Craig Haney emphasized that many detainee suicide attempts, and suicidal thoughts, were the result “of their circumstances, a reaction to an otherwise very despairing situation,” he said.
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An inmate died in a Nebraska prison fire. That was just the first tragedy.
Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explained how restrictive housing in prisons affects inmate behavior. “They’re allowed to deteriorate in these environments,” he said. “Eventually, they act out. The prison system responds to the acting out in the only way it knows, which is the application of force. And…
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Class-action trial in Manitoba to challenge province’s use of segregation jail cells on children
Craig Haney, a psychology professor with the University of California, Santa Cruz, is among three academics to provide expert reports as part of the lawsuit. “The conditions of confinement I encountered were stark and depriving − ranging from very bad to outright egregious,” he said.
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A Woman With HIV Spent Six Years in Solitary. She Sued and Missouri Will Change Its Policy.
“It is a psychologically traumatizing experience,” said Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at UC Santa Cruz, of solitary confinement. “It persists after somebody gets out of solitary confinement. In some instances, it’s fatal.”
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Class action lawsuit shines a harsh spotlight on Manitoba’s use of solitary confinement
Craig Haney, the plaintiffs’ expert and a psychology professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, toured Manitoba correctional facilities. “In terms of harshness and the risk of harm to which they subject prisoners, (Manitoba facilities) rivaled anything I have observed in some of the worst solitary confinement units in the United States,” Haney wrote in a…
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Texas is trying a new kind of death row – one with a sense of community
“The basic harmfulness of solitary confinement is now a largely settled scientific fact,” said University of California, Santa Cruz psychology professor Craig Haney.
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Starved in jail
Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Haney says that when incarcerated people with mental health issues stop eating or drinking, jails should respond swiftly. “It’s a crisis that requires moving someone immediately out of solitary confinement, or out of a traditional jail setting, and into a psychiatric facility, for close clinical care and observation.”
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Georgia prison system engages in deception as crisis builds
A leading expert on prison conditions and solitary confinement, Craig Haney, was brought in to study the unit, and he described the SMU as "one of the harshest and most draconian" solitary confinement facilities he had ever seen. … "The atmosphere inside E Wing was bedlam-like, as chaotic and out of-control as any such unit…