Impacts of Long-Term Captivity

by Ned Rollo

Long-term incarceration produces a mix of highly conflicting, counter-productive influences which, when combined into an overall experience, pervert participant values and diminish skills required for post-release success.

These influences include:

An acute, ongoing grief cycle:
- initial shock and disbelief
- denial and minimization
- deep-seated guilt and shame
- all-consuming depression
- cumulative hopelessness
- evolving disassociation
Increasing psycho-social dissonance:
- sensory deprivation
- mental stagnation
- loneliness and isolation
- lethargy and desensitization
- silent, seething desperation
- hypertension
- absorption: ever-shrinking universe
- limitless longing
- seeks artificial/micro power base
- fear of change or any instability
- practice of nesting behaviors
Distortion of reality:
- institutionalization into prison life
- "rewrites" nature of crime & case
- false expectations of relief
- contorted world view
Post-release distress:
- acute post-traumatic stress disorder
- cyclical anxiety & dysfunction

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