As If Prisoners Need Any Other Cause for Cognitive Decline

This past week, I saw on the news a story about recent research into sleep deprivation. Studies have linked sleep deprivation with cognitive decline, not surprisingly. The study also showed that 1 in 3 Americans do not get sufficient sleep. 

One would think that prisoners are not among those numbers. After all, we have nothing better to do than sleep, right? Well, sadly, prisoners are often sleep deprived. 

It's true that some prisoners sleep a lot. Some are heavily medicated because medication is the cheapest and easiest way to deal with mental health and behavior problems. I know many prisoners who take medications at night that knock them out by 8PM. But I know many, many more who don't get enough sleep. 

When I was in the county jail, awaiting either a trial or a plea offer, I was astonished at how difficult it is to get decent sleep in jail. Lights were turned out at 9PM, but emergency lights stayed on all night. Some of these lights shined directly in the cell, making it difficult to fall asleep. Some prisoners, too, either stay up late hollering back and forth with each other or banging on their metal toilets while "rapping" out loud. 

If, by some miracle, I was able to fall asleep somewhat early, officers still made rounds all night, jangling their keys loudly. Often, when they would open the pod door, it would wake me. Some officers would shine flashlights directly in the prisoners' eyes and wake them, calling out, "I just wanted to make sure you are alive." It was intentional torture. In fact, the Geneva convention classifies sleep deprivation as torture. 

One officer, in particular, took pleasure in torturing prisoners, including those of us who were in jail as pre-trial detainees. We had not even been convicted of any crime yet. It takes a special kind of sadist to treat us as he did, with sleep deprivation and in other ways. 

Even when all was quiet, no prisoners yelling, no officers jangling keys or waking people up for haircuts at 3AM, no flashlights in my eyes or banging on the bars, I still had my tortured thoughts making sleep difficult. Yeah, the county jail is no place to catch up on sleep.

Now, in prison, sleep is still difficult to come by. Emergency lights still shine in my eyes, officers still jangle keys, and prisoners still shout back and forth hours into the night. Sometimes, prisoners in the segregation cells across from my cell loudly express their anger late into the night. Fortunately, I have earplugs if I need them, and I cover my eyes to dim the lights. 

Some prisoners, though, are not so fortunate. Those on suicide watch are in cells with bright lights on 24/7. I don't know how bright lights that make sleeping difficult are supposed to help those struggling with thoughts of self-harm. Other prisoners are housed in pole barns where officers violate their own rules and use the PA system late into the night, and where lights shine right into the eyes of those on the top bunks. 

I'm sure that for a population who already largely struggles with cognitive issues, good decision making, and anger issues, sleep deprivation doesn't help at all. I don't expect prison to be a summer camp, but I do at least think its leaders ought to make every effort to avoid deliberately causing conditions that reinforce negative outcomes, like cognitive decline. 

All this talk about sleep, though, is making me want to go take a nap. Perhaps I'll try, through all the hollering back and forth, slamming of dominoes, incessant arguing about nothing, and the hundreds of other noises that make sleeping in prison a challenge.