The sonic environment has a significant impact on wellbeing. Hearing is one of the first senses to develop in utero, and remains one of the most fundamental ways in which people receive information about their environment and how safe it is.
Both sound and music have been extensively used in torture and ill-treatment. Broadly speaking, this can take the form of forced listening or forced performing. Forced listening may entail exposure to loud noise or music for extensive periods in ways that disorient or disturb, especially when combined with other environmental manipulations. Forced performing typically takes the form of forcing people to sing or to play instruments, dance or march to music. These activities may cause physical injury or pain in addition to psychological harm, humiliation and degradation. Conversely, the complete absence of sound can also be harmful, especially where it leaves the detainee with no real sense of the world beyond their immediate environment. This is a particular risk in solitary confinement.
The importance of the sound environment extends beyond intentional ill-treatment: any kind of noise at night may disrupt sleep, for example. The experience of sound can be very subjective: people who are neurodivergent or living with traumatic stress disorders may be hypersensitive to sound; sound can also be a trigger. Children hear a wider range of frequencies than adults and may therefore hear sounds that older people do not. Silence can also be difficult for some individuals, who require a certain level of background noise to feel safe.
Ideally, detainees should have an element of control over their sound environment: for example, access to quiet places and places where sound can be made without negatively impacting others, or by designating specific, regular quiet periods throughout the day. Background music or noise should not be used to mask other noises. While access to music can be very positive for some detainees, choice and autonomy are central: no-one should be forced to listen to music or to sing, play, or move to music (including e.g. patriotic, religious or ideological songs).
Key Considerations for Detention Monitors
At night-time, is detainee sleeping accommodation affected by noise levels in-cell (e.g., air-conditioner unit, waterworks) or out-of-cell (e.g. other detainees, flight paths) to the extent this could affect sleep?
Are there designated quiet spaces detainees can access spontaneously?
What do detainees comment on when you mention sound, music or noise?
Can detainees choose what to listen to and when?
Are other detainees affected by these choices?