Sleep Deprivation in Prison?

If you had asked me before I came to prison if I thought prisoners got enough sleep, I'd have guessed that prisoners have little else to do but sleep. And yet, after more than eight years in prison, I am astounded by how many prisoners suffer from sleep deprivation. 

My first experience with the torturous sleep deprivation of incarceration occurred in the county jail. Everything in jail and prison is regimented, so one would think that sleep would be easy to come by. It is true, after all, that those in the county (especially) and many in prison have little else to do. Yet, I found that in every jail pod and every prison. unit "security lights" are left on all night to ensure the guards can see the prisoners. These security lights are sometimes diminished from the daytime full brightness, but not always. In jail daytime lights are turned on at 6 AM and left on until 10 PM. Most prisons do the same. When prisoners try to cover their heads to block out the light, they are often awoken by deputies (in jail) or guards (in prison) who insist on seeing the prisoners' faces while doing their rounds for "security reasons." Yet, some guards go out of their way to make a prisoner's time as miserable as possible, often waking prisoners unnecessarily.

I remember within days of being in the county jail, I was sound asleep when around 2 AM a deputy banged his flashlight loudly on my cell bars, startling me into a frightened wakefulness. "Yeah?!" I hollered at him. "Okay. I just wanted to make sure you were alive," he responded. "Of course I'm alive," I replied irritably. "It's in the middle of the night, and I WAS sleeping!" He didn't care. This officer had a reputation for his humiliating treatment of prisoners. He had his fun and moved on, and I laid there with my heart racing from being startled, nursing my anger and hardly able to fall back asleep. This was a regular occurrence, if not to me, then to others in my pod. Either way, most of the pod woke up when a deputy decided to deprive someone of his sleep. 

Now, in prison the guards will turn on room lights in the middle of the night to do their count rounds, despite having flashlights to look in the cells. They will still use the flashlights though, often shining them right in a prisoner's face until he is disturbed enough in his sleep to move. I understand that people die in their sleep, sometimes from self-inflicted wounds, but this occurs very rarely and does not precipitate the torturous methods used to deprive prisoners of their sleep on a regular basis 

Prison is itself a punishment, but people are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. Sleep deprivation techniques such as those used in jails and prisons are just another dehumanizing tool that deputies and guards use to remind prisoners of their power over them. And I'm tired of it...literally.