Recreation time is scheduled during the same time as showers, which means a man has to opt for either recreation or his shower. Prison authorities say these newly developed, punitive, segregation housing units are designed with minimal contact between inmates and staff in mind. It would seem that that rationale for the government's push for harsher laws and longer sentences is to justify the S2000s. Rather than rehabilitation, such extended isolation actually inflict mental harm on inmates. Furthermore, recent studies demonstrate that these lengthy periods of isolated incarceration can induce psychosis in inmates with mental disorders, and serious psychotic symptoms in those without prior mental disorders.
Questions have to be asked by the public.
Big Brother is turning the state of New York into a police power with panoptic prisons of punitive palaces for mental anguish. True, we haven't seen a hunger strike perpetrated by S2000's prisoners, but we have had the experience of Attica. This writer cannot overemphasize the urgent need for people to come together and start asking questions about why prison authorities are implementing new policies and procedures that do not comply with the dictates of Correction Law or New York Code Rules Regulations, thus sending inmates to S2000s without proper screening. Men who, for the most part, are non-violent offenders who, in many cases, are mentally ill, should be screened before being placed into such confinement. Assignment to such segregated housing is only justified if there is direct evidence demonstrating that these men are a risk to themselves and others.