Physicians for Human Rights
Using science and medicine to stop human rights violationsReports
Buried Alive: Solitary Confinement in the US Detention System
Solitary confinement is a form of segregation in which people are held in total or near-total isolation in small cells for 23 hours a day. It is used to control and discipline detainees in federal and state prisons, local jails, and immigration and national security detention facilities. Unlike incarcerated prisoners, immigration and national security detainees are held not as punishment for a crime but as a preventive measure, and will likely never be charged with a crime. For these people, solitary confinement then becomes entirely punitive, with dire consequences for their mental and physical health.
Dual Loyalties
Health professionals who work in the immigration detention system are bound by the same standards of conduct that apply to the treatment of patients in private clinics and hospitals: to treat their duty to patient as their first priority and to always act in the best interests of the patient. However, this duty becomes severely compromised when the interests of their employer intrude upon or directly conflict with the needs of patients.
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