These new facilities are a stark contrast to the large ward-based system that is typical in older Turkish prisons. Prisoners may leave their cells once a week if a member of their immediate family visits. A wide range of medical studies indicate that confinement in solitary or small group isolation can be physically and mentally damaging. Impaired vision and hearing, hallucinations, tinnitus, weakening of the immune system, amenorrhea, premature menopause, depression, anxiety, and aggressive behavior are among the effects documented in studies of prisoners, volunteers, and animals. In the Turkish context, concerns about the direct effects of isolation are augmented by a suspicion that the closed environment of an isolation unit may facilitate torture, ill-treatment, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading abuses.
Torture is a long-standing problem in Turkish police stations and gendarmeries.
Turkish prisons do not have a good reputation, but it is nevertheless true that detainees blindfolded and tortured under police interrogation are frequently relieved when a court formally commits them to prison-because only then will they be able to reestablish contact with the outside world. To prisoners and families with such experiences, the introduction of isolation units in prisons looks very much like an indefinite extension of the system of incommunicado detention which has facilitated abuse in police lock-ups. Indeed, accounts by prisoners and their families suggest that, as in police custody, guards in F-type prisons have taken advantage of the closed environment to beat and abuse their charges. Legal and medical institutions that could document, challenge, and prevent such abuses have had only limited access. Isolation may also increase the risk of ill-treatment of prisoners by prison staff.