There is something important to me that I want to share with you today. Within prison there is a lot of trauma. My prison isn’t unique in that regard, but I state it as an often overlooked statement of fact.

Over 31 years of uninterrupted incarceration, I’ve learned that the majority of incarcerated people have backgrounds steeped in traumas. Many were abused as children, grew up in broken homes, or experienced the foster care system (don’t get me started on the foster care system. Children in foster care are exposed to all manner of trauma). A high percentage of the men around me tick off more than just those three boxes.

All of this pales in comparison to what I first termed IBPTSD in my 2023 PJP op-ed (What Caused His PTSD? This Prison Right Here) which is Incarceration Borne Post  Traumatic Syndrome Disorder. Jails and prisons harm mental health by design; they are structured to maximize control and confinement. Little consideration is paid to how this impacts mental health. This is the second often overlooked statement of fact.

For example, community areas in cellblocks and dorms utilize constant on security lighting. At night these lights illuminate sleeping areas and beam through cell windows. Jails and prisons also employ high intensity outside security lighting. These lights pour through outside facing windows compounding the issue.

When I was in the county jail a light in front of the row of cells remained on for the entire 130 days I was there. By the time I left the Stark County Jail I suffered from extreme anxiety and insomnia. It’s worth noting that the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on mental health are well documented.

Another example of how jails impact mental health comes by way of testimony from Erica Rowe. She recounts her experience with lice in jail:

    “When the jail gets full the jail issues these plastic boats which are placed on the floor with a mat. I slept on the floor in one of these boats and it was freezing cold all the time. One night I felt something crawling over me. I hop out of the boat freaking out and calling for the officers…”

Erica is taken to the jail nurse:

    “It was lice and I knew it was that because as a kid I’d had it. The nurse forces me into allowing her to cut my hair off…She grabs a pair of scissors and hacks my ponytail off ‘to make it easier’ for the NIX treatment.

    “I was so attached to beauty and vanity I cried when she did this. I have few memories from the county jail 19 years ago, but this one still stands out.”

Another source of stress for incarcerated people is the loss of personal autonomy. Days are regimented and subdivided by numerous counts of the incarcerated population. Incarcerated people are told when they can eat, use restrooms, shower, visit with family, and recreate amongst a hundred other things. It is well established in studies that loss of personal autonomy negatively impacts mental health.

However, no one seems to meaningfully consider this next statement of fact: In prison thousands of individuals from all walks of life, shouldering all manner of trauma and addiction are thrown in together and expected to normalize. People with violent backgrounds, sexual predators, suffering drug addictions, and gang members who know nothing but life in the streets are all thrown into one place. I ask, What do you think happens? The violence and chaos marking a typical day in prison impacts mental and physical health.

Assaults, robberies, murder, mini riots–I’ve witnessed them all. I know what death and drug overdose looks like. I’ve witnessed suicides and rape. None of this shocks me anymore for the abnormal of the prison experience becomes the new normal.

I wonder sometimes, if when I am free again and alone with time to myself, if these traumas I’ve boxed away in my subconscious will come gibbering back to collect their due. If I were to dwell on what I witness I would end up like so many incarcerated people deeply traumatized. This isn’t to say I don’t cope with my own IBPTSD because I do. I’m luckier than most because I cope out of sheer will. Others aren’t as fortunate.

Being a father or mother in prison exacts a heavy mental toll. Felicia Sullivan, an incarcerated mother in Ohio, shares her experience:

    “The arrival of 9PM count brings on the challenge of laying my head down on my pillow, with the hope of falling asleep. Wanting no time to recall the day.

    “I struggle with excruciating pain knowing my children are growing up in this cold world without me. To fend for themselves now raised in separate households.

    “Having lived a life of feeling only pain, I have to do things to remind myself that I’m still alive. That I still have a piece of my old self even if it’s not a healthy piece. That girl still exists.”

I focus on the impact of IBPTSD to draw awareness. Without recognition hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people will return to communities struggling to pick up their lives.

In the past several years numerous states have instituted the body worn camera (BWC) in prisons and jails without well thought out protocols on how BWCs would impact the mental health and civil rights of incarcerated people.

In Ohio BWCs were implemented without careful consideration for incarcerated people’s civil rights under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). At my facility an officer initially wore BWC while conducting strip searches. The practice ended only after the threat of civil rights lawsuit under the PREA act by the ACLU.

The same thing appears to be playing out in other States. Amber, a friend of mine in Michigan incarcerated at the Women’s Huron Valley (WHV) correctional facility, shared with me her experience with BWC prison borne trauma.

She related that it’s already bad enough that we’re removed from society and thrust into deplorable living conditions which she (and I can attest, that this is true for many others) says is mentally and physically hard as it is. Add to this, for women many of whom are survivors of sexual assault, to be recorded by BWC during a strip search is traumatizing.

Since writing me for this post her facility modified BWC policy during strip searches. Protocol now requires officers to turn off BWC video but continue to record audio. This is little comfort to the 900 WHV incarcerated women for compliance rests solely with the officer.

In Ohio, an officer removes a BWC before conducting a strip search. It leaves no room to bend or break policy. Michigan could take a play out of Ohio’s playbook.

There is no official recognition of IBPTSD in psychiatry’s authoritative reference manual the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV). The closest recognition exists in what the psychiatric profession calls Post Incarceration Syndrome, where restored citizens struggle to reintegrate.

There needs to be focused studies on how the prison experience itself causes trauma. Once recognized incarcerated people can receive IBPTSD psychiatric help while incarcerated, which at this time does not exist.

*Christopher Monihan is a writer, author, journalist and Stillwater Award recipient. He is incarcerated in Ohio.

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