Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
RESEARCHERS SAY HUMAN BRAIN NOT ABLE TO COPE WITH DEPRIVATIONS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
AFP News Limited Network February 16, 2014
The Black Panther movement member said he managed to stay sane through the strength of his political convictions.
Many of the more than 80,000 prisoners currently held in solitary confinement in US prisons — and countless more around the world — are not as fortunate.
The human mind is not built for the sensory and social isolation of solitary confinement, researchers said on Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
Depriving someone of visual stimulation, human interaction, sunlight or physical activity can change their brain structure in a matter of days — let alone decades — said University of Michigan neuroscientist Huda Akil.
"Positive experience like touch actually activate positive things in our brains, including molecules we can measure that are like the fertilisers that make things growth," Dr Akil told reporters.
Depriving people of these important stimulants can be toxic, she said, adding that "a lot of structures in the brain actually shrink." About a third of US prisoners in solitary confinement suffer from mental illnesses, said Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Plenty of prisoners who entered solitary without mental ailments end up developing them as a result of the severe conditions.
Anxiety, depression and difficulties with impulse control are common. As are social phobias. The loneliness spurs some people to start hearing voices.
"So much of who we are depends on social contact," Prof Haney said. "When you remove people from that social contact, they lose their sense of self."
A major psychological experiment was carried out in the 19th century when hundreds of thousands of prisoners were subjected to solitary confinement.
The hope was that the isolation would rehabilitate prisoners by getting them to turn their thoughts inward and meet God. It soon became apparent that it actually drove many of them mad.
The reason it is still so widely used is because it is seen as the easiest way to protect guards from violent prisoners.
"You can either go for dynamic security where you do as much as you can to achieve low levels of violence by having a reasonably good culture," said Peter Scharff Smith of the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
Or, you can simply "give up" and stick prisoners in solitary. Corrections officials in the United States were fully aware of the harm that solitary confinement causes to individual prisoners when it became embraced on a wider scale beginning in the late 1970s, Prof Haney said.
"We did it anyway because prisons were becoming overcrowded, there was an influx of the mentally ill into the prisons and we had abandoned rehabilitation," he explained.
"So they embraced solitary as a form of control and they have forgotten how do it any other way — it is inertia." King, who managed to win his freedom in 2001 after his conviction for a prison murder was overturned, continues to fight to free two other men known as the "Angola Three" who are approaching their fourth decade in solitary.
"The psychological impact, it extends to this day," King told reporters. But while he was crippled by the experience to the point where he still gets lost within a block or two of his home, King said he never cracked.
"I said in my mind that even though I was in prison, I was not going to let prison get to me," King said.
"We spent our time fighting with the system in order to affect change."
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/science/researchers-say-human-brain-not-able-to-cope-with-deprivations-of-solitary-confinement/story-fni0c0qr-1226828362166
Caged ... prisoners who enter solitary without mental ailments end up developing them as a result of the severe conditions.
Source: News Limited
ROBERT King sat, slept and ate every meal alone in a cramped cell at
Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison for 29 long and lonely years.
His eyesight failed from lack of stimulation, but King insists his
resolve to fight the injustice of solitary confinement never did.The Black Panther movement member said he managed to stay sane through the strength of his political convictions.
Many of the more than 80,000 prisoners currently held in solitary confinement in US prisons — and countless more around the world — are not as fortunate.
The human mind is not built for the sensory and social isolation of solitary confinement, researchers said on Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
Depriving someone of visual stimulation, human interaction, sunlight or physical activity can change their brain structure in a matter of days — let alone decades — said University of Michigan neuroscientist Huda Akil.
"Positive experience like touch actually activate positive things in our brains, including molecules we can measure that are like the fertilisers that make things growth," Dr Akil told reporters.
Depriving people of these important stimulants can be toxic, she said, adding that "a lot of structures in the brain actually shrink." About a third of US prisoners in solitary confinement suffer from mental illnesses, said Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Plenty of prisoners who entered solitary without mental ailments end up developing them as a result of the severe conditions.
Anxiety, depression and difficulties with impulse control are common. As are social phobias. The loneliness spurs some people to start hearing voices.
"So much of who we are depends on social contact," Prof Haney said. "When you remove people from that social contact, they lose their sense of self."
A major psychological experiment was carried out in the 19th century when hundreds of thousands of prisoners were subjected to solitary confinement.
The hope was that the isolation would rehabilitate prisoners by getting them to turn their thoughts inward and meet God. It soon became apparent that it actually drove many of them mad.
The reason it is still so widely used is because it is seen as the easiest way to protect guards from violent prisoners.
"You can either go for dynamic security where you do as much as you can to achieve low levels of violence by having a reasonably good culture," said Peter Scharff Smith of the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
Or, you can simply "give up" and stick prisoners in solitary. Corrections officials in the United States were fully aware of the harm that solitary confinement causes to individual prisoners when it became embraced on a wider scale beginning in the late 1970s, Prof Haney said.
"We did it anyway because prisons were becoming overcrowded, there was an influx of the mentally ill into the prisons and we had abandoned rehabilitation," he explained.
"So they embraced solitary as a form of control and they have forgotten how do it any other way — it is inertia." King, who managed to win his freedom in 2001 after his conviction for a prison murder was overturned, continues to fight to free two other men known as the "Angola Three" who are approaching their fourth decade in solitary.
"The psychological impact, it extends to this day," King told reporters. But while he was crippled by the experience to the point where he still gets lost within a block or two of his home, King said he never cracked.
"I said in my mind that even though I was in prison, I was not going to let prison get to me," King said.
"We spent our time fighting with the system in order to affect change."
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/science/researchers-say-human-brain-not-able-to-cope-with-deprivations-of-solitary-confinement/story-fni0c0qr-1226828362166
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
PUSH TO VACCINATE KIDS UNDER STATE LABOR'S 'NO JAB, NO PLAY' POLICY
February 01, 2014
And conscientious objectors would only be eligible for exemptions if they consult a medical professional, in a bid to address falling immunisation rates in some Melbourne suburbs.
The State Opposition's tough stance comes as the Abbott Government considers whether to strip parents of family benefit payments or childcare rebates if they refuse to vaccinate their children.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Abbott said a policy audit was being conducted "with the intention of a review of childcare payments to conscientious objectors".
Last year Mr Abbott said parents receiving childcare payments should have "an obligation to have your child immunised so they can safely participate in childcare centres".
He also backed "no jab, no play" laws that came into effect in NSW this year.
Victorian Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews' promise for new state laws is modelled on the NSW approach, with parents who conscientiously object to vaccinations forced to get medical advice before being eligible for a signed exemption certificate.
Childcare centres that enrol children without exemptions would face penalties.
Mr Andrews told the Sunday Herald Sun that parents who refuse vaccinations "put your child and every other child at risk".
"My three young kids have had all their shots and I'm proud of that," he said.
Mr Andrews said Labor would also restore funding for whooping cough vaccines, and release a full immunisation policy closer to the election.
"No jab, no play, will form a part of it," he said.
Around Australia, the number of conscientious objectors has risen sixfold in two decades, to 36,320.
Labor is concerned about pockets of wealthy suburbs that have seen child immunisation rates fall well below 90 per cent, with Melbourne, Toorak, and South Yarra among the worst offenders.
The national schedule of immunisations for children includes measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines at 12 and 18 months, while a range of other vaccines - including to protect against whooping cough and hepatitis B - are provided within a few months of birth.
matthew.johnston@news.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/push-to-vaccinate-kids-under-state-labors-no-jab-no-play-policy/story-fnii5sms-1226815780436
Emma, Emily and Sudays, all aged two, play at Kensington Community Children's Co-op. Picture: Josie Hayden
Source: News Limited
EXCLUSIVE: CHILDCARE centres will be able to turn away parents who
refuse to vaccinate their children if Labor wins the November state
election.
Under the "no jab, no play" policy, which is aimed at keeping kids
safe from disease, families would have to prove their child has
up-to-date vaccinations before they can be enrolled in childcare.And conscientious objectors would only be eligible for exemptions if they consult a medical professional, in a bid to address falling immunisation rates in some Melbourne suburbs.
The State Opposition's tough stance comes as the Abbott Government considers whether to strip parents of family benefit payments or childcare rebates if they refuse to vaccinate their children.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Abbott said a policy audit was being conducted "with the intention of a review of childcare payments to conscientious objectors".
Last year Mr Abbott said parents receiving childcare payments should have "an obligation to have your child immunised so they can safely participate in childcare centres".
He also backed "no jab, no play" laws that came into effect in NSW this year.
Victorian Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews' promise for new state laws is modelled on the NSW approach, with parents who conscientiously object to vaccinations forced to get medical advice before being eligible for a signed exemption certificate.
Childcare centres that enrol children without exemptions would face penalties.
Mr Andrews told the Sunday Herald Sun that parents who refuse vaccinations "put your child and every other child at risk".
"My three young kids have had all their shots and I'm proud of that," he said.
Mr Andrews said Labor would also restore funding for whooping cough vaccines, and release a full immunisation policy closer to the election.
"No jab, no play, will form a part of it," he said.
Around Australia, the number of conscientious objectors has risen sixfold in two decades, to 36,320.
Labor is concerned about pockets of wealthy suburbs that have seen child immunisation rates fall well below 90 per cent, with Melbourne, Toorak, and South Yarra among the worst offenders.
The national schedule of immunisations for children includes measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines at 12 and 18 months, while a range of other vaccines - including to protect against whooping cough and hepatitis B - are provided within a few months of birth.
matthew.johnston@news.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/push-to-vaccinate-kids-under-state-labors-no-jab-no-play-policy/story-fnii5sms-1226815780436
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