This study tackles and monitors the psychological effects of administrative detention resulting from different severe trauma's responses in certain circumstances and situations of prisoners' experience. Administrative detainees are an important sector of the Palestinian society, who struggled and sacrificed their best years of lives behind bars. Therefore, they should not be forgotten and we must shed light on this important experience.
Falling in captivity is one of the most traumatic situations in man's experience, with varying pressure and consequences, depending on the culture and ideology of the capturer, and the prisoner's himself. There are many psychological, mental, and physical changes and effects resulting from this experience.
The importance of this study stems from the need to raise and highlight this matter. Additionally, it aims at launching local, regional and international media and legal campaigns, in order to put an end to such acts and policies that violate basic human rights of Palestinians.
The research is a “Case Study" of a group of five administrative detention prisoners, who were recently released and showed acceptance and cooperation to participate and to be interviewed.
Data that was collected from five administrative prisoners show that all imprisonment stages were difficult, but the hardest of all was the one that precedes release. It shows that it has always been accompanied by fear of extension or renewal of imprisonment term(s), and worries about the family who impatiently awaits their release.
Results from the study indicate that administrative detainees suffer from the arrest trauma, accompanied by depression and apprehension. In addition, it also reveals physical, psychological, psychosomatic symptoms and weight loss due to medical negligence.
With regard to psychological reflections of the arrest process on administrative detainees, it is well known that the moment of falling into capture is in itself a sudden traumatic event with Long-term psychological effects that lasts even after the prisoner's release.
The element of surprise stimulates fear, tension, anxiety, amazement, denial and other physiological symptoms such as tremor, sweating and tachycardia. It also leads to other social consequences such as the prisoner's questioning his family's reaction to his arrest, fear and worries of their reactions, and other questions regarding the way they will live and cope with the fact of his being absent. The administrative prisoner also endeavors an internal self conflict inflamed by questions regarding reasons of his arrest, expected charges, and methods of interrogation.
Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were suggested:
The need to conduct medical examinations on administrative detainees following their release, to examine the effect of detention on their physical state.
The importance of psychological and social care of administrative detainees.
The need to establish a specialized research center that investigates administrative detention and torture and its consequences with regard to the international humanitarian law and other binding laws.