Entombed Alive: Decades in Solitary Confinement
活埋：單獨監禁數十寒暑
By Erica Goode

In 1993, Craig Haney, a social psychologist, interviewed a group of inmates in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Prison, California’s toughest penal institution.
1993年，社會心理學家克雷格．哈尼在加州最嚴格的刑事監禁所「鵜鶘灣州立監獄」，訪談遭到單獨監禁的一批囚犯。

He was studying the psychological effects of isolation on prisoners, and Pelican Bay was among the first of a new breed of super-maximum-security prisons that states around the country were beginning to build.
他當時正在研究隔離監禁對囚犯的心理會產生什麼樣的作用，「鵜鶘灣」是新式的超高安全管理規格監獄之一，而那時節全美各州正開始打造這種型式的監獄。

Twenty years later, he returned to Pelican Bay for another set of interviews. He was startled to find himself facing some of the same prisoners he had met before, inmates who now had spent more than two decades alone in windowless cells. “It was shocking, frankly,” Dr. Haney said.
20年後，他重回鵜鶘灣，進行另一回合的訪談。而他十分錯愕地發現，有些受訪者竟然是他當年見過的相同囚犯，這些人已經在沒有窗戶的囚房裡度過了20餘年。哈尼博士說：「坦白說，這很令人吃驚。」

Few social scientists question that isolation can have harmful effects. But most studies have focused on relatively short periods. Dr. Haney’s interviews offer the first systematic look at inmates isolated from normal human contact for much of their adult lives.
很少社會學家對隔離定會產生有害影響持懷疑觀點。但大多數的研究都聚焦於相對而言較短的時期。哈尼的訪談則針對成年生活有很長一段時間遭到隔離關押，無法與人正常接觸的囚犯，提供了第一個系統性的觀察結果。

The interviews, conducted as part of a lawsuit over prolonged solitary confinement at Pelican Bay, provide a portrait of men so severely isolated that, to use Dr. Haney’s term, they have undergone a “social death.”
鵜鶘灣因長期單獨監禁一些囚犯而引來一場官司，這項訪談是因為這場官司的需要而做的，但它同時也為遭到嚴重隔離的囚犯提供了圖像，套句哈尼的話，這些人經歷了「社交死亡」。

Sealed for years in a hermetic environment, prisoners recounted struggling daily to maintain their sanity. They spoke of longing to catch sight of a tree or a bird. Many shutting down emotionally and shunned even the meager human conversation and company they were afforded.
經年累月被關在與外界隔絕的環境中，囚犯描述每天如何努力保持自己的理智。他們談及對於能夠見到一棵樹、一隻鳥的渴望。許多人從此封閉了情感，甚至捨棄獄方提供給他們、極為有限的人際對話，或是他人的陪伴。

“If you put a parakeet in a cage for years and you take it out, it will die,” one older prisoner said. “So I stay in my cage.”
一名年長的囚犯說：「把鸚鵡關進籠子數年，再把牠從籠裡移出，牠會死亡。所以我繼續待在我的籠裡。」

President Barack Obama, who last month became the first president to visit a federal prison, questioned whether “we really think it makes sense to lock so many people alone in tiny cells for 23 hours a day, sometimes for months or even years at a time.”
歐巴馬上個月成為第一位視察聯邦監獄的美國總統，他質疑道，「我們真的認為這是合理的嗎，將這麼多人單獨關進小室內，一天23小時，有時一次數個月，甚至數年。」

In 2012, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in federal court against state officials on behalf of Pelican Bay inmates who had spent more than 10 years in solitary confinement, claiming that their prolonged isolation violated their Eighth Amendment rights against “cruel and unusual punishment.” The parties are now in settlement negotiations.
2012年，「憲法權利中心」代表在鵜鶘灣遭到單獨監禁逾10年的囚犯，向聯邦法院對州官員提出告訴，指出長期隔離侵害當事人依美國憲法第八增修條文所享有的，不得遭受「殘酷和不尋常懲罰」的權利。雙方現正就庭外和解進行談判。

Most of the inmates studied by Dr. Haney were placed in the isolation unit not because of their original crimes but because they were deemed to be gang members or gang associates. Many talked wistfully about mothers, wives and children they had neither touched nor spoken to for years – prisoners in the isolation unit were not allowed personal phone calls and were prohibited from physical contact during visits. Some had not had a single visitor during their years in solitary. “I got a 15-minute phone call when my father died,” said one inmate who had been isolated for 24 years. “I realized I have family I don’t really know anymore, or even their voices.”
哈尼研究的囚犯遭受隔離關押，多數不是因為他們原始的罪行，而是因為被視為幫派的成員或同夥。許多囚犯談到他們對多年未能碰觸、說過話的母親、妻子、子女的望眼欲穿。隔離牢房的囚犯禁打私人電話，會面時也禁止身體接觸。有些人在單獨囚禁的歲月中，未再見過半個訪客。已被單獨囚禁24年的一個囚犯說：「父親去世時，我接到一通15分鐘電話。我這才發現我有家人。我已不再能認得我的家人，或他們的聲音。」

Another prisoner described placing photographs of his family facing the television in his cell and talking to them while he watched. “Maybe I’m crazy, but it makes me feel like I’m with them,” he told Dr. Haney.
另一名囚犯描述他在牢房內把家人的照片面朝電視擺著，他看電視時，會和照片交談。他告訴哈尼：「也許我是瘋了，但這讓我覺得我和他們在一起。」

Some prisoners became so disoriented they began to question their own existence. Since the lawsuit was filed, the department has moved many inmates who had been in isolation at Pelican Bay to other settings.
一些囚犯因為神志太迷亂而開始懷疑自己的存在。提起訴訟後，當局已將鵜鶘灣隔離監禁的許多囚犯移到他處。

Dr. Haney said that he was especially struck by the profound sadness many of the inmates displayed. “They were grieving for their lost lives, for their loss of connectedness to the social world and their families outside, and also for their lost selves,” he said. “Most of them really did understand that they had lost who they were, and weren’t sure of who they had become.”
哈尼說，他對許多囚犯表現的深刻悲哀感觸良深。他說：「他們為失去的生活、社交和與外面家人的連繫，也為消失的自我感到悲哀。他們大多數真的知道，他們已不再是從前的自己，也不確定現在已經變成了誰。」

An estimated 75,000 state and federal prisoners in the United States are held in solitary confinement, according to prison experts. Prison consultants called in by state systems to assess the risks posed by the prisoners in solitary have often found that only a small minority require such restricted confinement.
獄政專家指出，估計美國有7萬5000名州和聯邦囚犯遭到單獨關押。由州系統聘雇、負責評估單獨關押囚犯風險的監獄顧問經常發現，只有一小部分的人需要這種嚴格的禁錮。

Pelican Bay’s isolation unit was designed to minimize human interaction. The windowless, 2.3-meter-by-3.5-meter cells were built to face concrete walls. Doors opened and closed electronically. Corrections officers spoke to the inmates through intercoms. Prisoners could communicate with other inmates only by shouting through perforated steel doors, or the ventilation shafts.
鵜鶘灣的隔離牢房旨在將人際互動降到最低。這些無窗、寬2.3公尺、長3.5公尺的牢房，被建成只能面對混凝土牆壁。獄門開關全部電動控制，獄警透過對講機和犯人通話。囚犯只能透過孔狀的鋼門或朝通風井大喊，才能和其他囚犯溝通。

“At Pelican Bay, there is no other reality,” said Joseph Harmon, 51, a former gang leader who said he spent eight years there, after a violent attack on another inmate, but eventually became a pastor. “It was a tomb. It is concrete tomb.”
51歲的約瑟夫．哈蒙曾經是幫派老大，在暴力攻擊另一名囚犯後在鵜鶘灣待了8年，最後成了牧師。他說：「在鵜鶘灣，沒有其他的真實世界。它是墳墓。一座混凝土墳墓。」

One plaintiff, Gabriel Reyes, 49, said he often despaired. “Sometimes, I’m at the point that I’d be wanting to write the judge and say, ‘Just give me the death penalty,’ ” he said.
原告之一，49歲的加布里爾．雷耶斯說，他常感到絕望。他說：「有時我差點想寫信給法官，求他『改判我死刑』算了。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/health/solitary-confinement-mental-illness.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://m.cn.nytimes.com/living/20150817/t17solitary/zh-hant/

2015-08-18聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 王麗娟譯 原文參見紐時週報十版上