605491
research-article2015

TPJXXX10.1177/0032885515605491The Prison JournalHaney et al.

Article

Examining Jail Isolation:
What We Don’t Know
Can Be Profoundly
Harmful

The Prison Journal
2016, Vol. 96(1) 126­–152
© 2015 SAGE Publications
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DOI: 10.1177/0032885515605491
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Craig Haney1, Joanna Weill1,
Shirin Bakhshay1, and Tiffany Lockett1

Abstract
This article addresses the problematic lack of available data on jail isolation.
It discusses the potential significance of the practice of isolating jail inmates
and the basis for believing that punitive isolation in jails is at least as
widespread as in prisons. It also summarizes some of the information that
recently has become available about the use of isolation at one notorious
jail complex—Rikers Island—where the practice has been reported on and
debated perhaps more than any other, and uses Rikers as both an instructive
case study and cautionary tale. Finally, the article briefly reviews what is
known about the significant risk of serious harm that isolated confinement is
known to represent and acknowledges the need for reliable data gathering,
meaningful outside monitoring, and effective oversight.
Keywords
jail isolation, Rikers Island, mentally ill inmates
In October 2014, The New Yorker Magazine carried the moving story of an
African American teenager named Kalief Browder (Gonnerman, 2014). At
age 16, Kalief was arrested in a Bronx neighborhood while walking home
1University

of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Corresponding Author:
Craig Haney, Psychology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street,
Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
Email: psylaw@ucsc.edu

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from a party with a friend and accused of stealing a backpack. His family
could not make the US$3,000 bail that was set in his case, and Kalief was
shipped off to Rikers Island, where he was housed among about 600 other
adolescent boys to await trial. The desperately clogged Bronx court system
resulted in his case being repeatedly postponed, at the prosecutor’s request.
Because Kalief refused to plead guilty to something that he said he had not
done, he spent more than 3 years in jail as a pretrial detainee. Living conditions at Rikers were grim and violent, and he was subjected to gang aggression and guard brutality.
Kalief was also housed for long periods of time in solitary confinement, in
a notorious unit known among Rikers staff and inmates as “the Bing.” The
use of punitive isolation at Rikers had increased in the years preceding
Kalief’s time in jail. According to the former mental health director at Rikers,
officials there had become “severely addicted to solitary confinement” as a
way of managing inmates in the crowded jail environment (quoted in
Gonnerman, 2014). Juveniles like Kalief were not exempt from isolation. In
fact, a United States Department of Justice investigation conducted at around
the same time Kalief was at Rikers noted that approximately one quarter of
the adolescents who were housed in the jail were confined in some form of
punitive segregated or isolated confinement. Fully three quarters of the juveniles housed in isolation were diagnosed as either seriously or moderately
mentally ill (Bharara, 2014). The Justice Department report described the
conditions to which they were subjected this way:
Youth in punitive segregation are confined in six-by-eight-foot single cells for
23 hours each day, with one hour of recreation and access to a daily shower.
Recreational time is spent in individual chain-link cages, and many inmates
chose to remain in their cells due to depression or because they do not want to
submit to being searched and shackled just to be outside in a cage. Inmates are
denied access to most programming and privileges . . . and receive meals
through slots on the cell doors. (Bharara, 2014, p. 47, footnote omitted)

Kalief had an especially difficult time adjusting to this harsh and severe
environment. As his time in isolation mounted, he became increasing
depressed and despondent. On one occasion, he attempted suicide by fashioning a noose from his torn bedsheets and trying to hang himself from a light
fixture. After a short stay in the jail medical clinic, he was returned to his
isolation cell, from which all property had been removed except for a plastic
bucket, pieces of which he used to attempt suicide again, a few days later, by
cutting his wrists.
After Kalief had spent 3 years at Rikers, and following multiple court
appearances and numerous continuances, the prosecutor’s office unexpectedly

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announced that there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial and a judge
released him. He had spent almost the entire preceding 17 months in solitary
confinement before suddenly being sent back into free society. In addition to
changes in his physical appearance—he was no longer a teenager—family
and friends noticed other ways that he was different: “He preferred to spend
time by himself, alone in his bedroom, with the door closed. Sometimes he
found himself pacing, as he had done in solitary” (Gonnerman, 2014). As
time passed, Kalief continued to struggle, and there were several more suicide attempts. He told Jennifer Gonnerman, the journalist who wrote the
compelling account of his case, that “I’m not all right. I’m messed up . . . I’m
mentally scarred right now. That’s how I feel. There are certain things that
changed about me and they might not go back.”
In a tragic follow-up to her original story, Ms. Gonnerman (2015b)
reported that Kalief had experienced a series of ups and downs after his
release from jail. During this time, she had obtained disturbing jail video
footage of a guard assaulting Kalief, and another one of him being attacked
by a group of inmates. With his permission, she posted them online
(Gonnerman, 2015a). His case also had attracted the attention of some prominent media personalities and an anonymous donor had offered to pay his
tuition to a community college where Kalief eventually enrolled. But he continued to suffer psychiatric problems, including another suicide attempt for
which he was briefly hospitalized. Even the prescribed medications he took
were unable to completely control his depression and paranoia. One day,
while living at home with his parents, he hanged himself with an electrical
cord.
In addition to the disturbing nature of this tragic story, it underscores
another problematic fact—namely, that there is no way to know or even to
meaningfully estimate how many times similar episodes have occurred. In
fact, there is no way to estimate how many persons of any age have been
subjected to jail isolation, for how long, or with what consequences. Although
Kalief’s story is likely an extreme and extremely tragic one, there are reasons
to believe that solitary confinement is as widely used in jails as in prison. Just
as in prison, it is not only a painful but potentially damaging experience that
places inmates at significant risk of serious harm.
In this article, we address the problematic lack of reliable, comprehensive
data on the use of jail isolation in the United States, the potential significance
of the practice, and the basis for believing that punitive isolation in jails is at
least as widespread as in the nation’s prisons, if not much more common. We
also summarize some of the largely anecdotal information that is available
about the use of isolation at one jail in particular—Rikers Island—where it
has been reported on and debated perhaps more than anywhere else. Finally,
we briefly review what is known about the significant risk of serious harm
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that isolated confinement is known to represent and apply this knowledge to
jail isolation.

The Lack of Reliable and Comprehensive Data on
Jail Isolation
Minton and Zeng’s (2015) most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data
indicate that there are an estimated three quarters of a million persons housed
in local jails at any one time in the United States, about half the number of
persons who are serving time in prison. Both the overall number of jail
inmates and the ratio of jail to prison inmates have remained largely stable for
almost a decade (Glaze & Kaeble, 2014). Nearly half of jail inmates are
housed in a number of very large (1,000-plus inmate) jails in the United
States (Minton & Zeng, 2015). Approximately two thirds of persons housed
in local jails are unconvicted, pretrial inmates, and more than half are persons
of color (including nearly 40% of whom are Black).
As sizable as these numbers are, and as significant as the apparent disproportionate impact of jail confinement is for communities of color, it is important to note that, because of the high turnover in local jails, well over 10
million persons pass through these facilities in any given year (Minton &
Zeng, 2015). This means that the social and psychic “footprint” of conditions
and practices in jails is broader if not necessarily deeper than for prisons. It
also means that the sheer number of persons who might experience—and be
adversely affected by—jail isolation is potentially very substantial.
The lack of precise knowledge about the exact number of persons who are
subjected to jail isolation is not unique in U.S. corrections. A recent National
Academy of Sciences committee raised concerns about the flawed nature of
the nation’s overall correctional database, noting that “attempts to characterize the pervasive conditions of confinement and analyze their impact on prisoners in general” in the United States are “constrained by the relative lack of
overarching, systematic, and reliable data” (National Research Council,
2014, p. 198). For one, there is no external agency that exercises oversight or
quality control over whether and how data are collected and reported to
ensure accuracy, reliability, and completeness.
Even the data on which the BJS relies—although admirable in certain
respects—focuses on only a limited number of issues. Moreover, the BJS
data are based almost entirely on information provided by correctional systems in which data gathering and reporting are voluntary, sometimes sporadic, and of uncertain reliability. In addition, variations in terminology
sometimes make even the categorizations of specialized populations and

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specific kinds of facilities uncertain and imprecise, thereby rendering basic
calculations about frequencies, incident rates, and the like problematic.
Although reliable and systematic data on the nature of prison life in general in the United States are difficult to come by, researchers and policymakers are especially hard-pressed to precisely calculate the actual numbers of
persons in prison isolation units at any one time. In addition to suffering from
the same general flaws that plague most correctional data, estimates of the
extent of prison isolation are hampered by variations in terminology used to
refer to these kinds of units. For example, the special housing unit at Marion
Penitentiary, generally regarded as the immediate precursor to the modern
“supermax” design, was referred to as the “Control Unit.” Arizona’s supermax units are called “special management units” or “SMUs”; in California,
they are known as “security housing units,” or “SHUs”; in Texas, they are
“high security units”; and Washington State employs the term “intensive
management unit” or “IMU.”
In addition, some prison systems—perhaps in response to heightened
legal scrutiny over the harshness of the conditions to which their isolated
prisoners are exposed—have denied subjecting anyone to “solitary confinement,” despite routinely keeping many of them housed in their cells for 23
hours a day, restricting “recreation” to individual cages, and denying them
the opportunity to touch another human being with affection or to experience
“normal social contact with other persons (i.e., contact that is not mediated by
bars, restraints, security glass or screens, and the like)” (Haney, 2009, p. 12,
n. 1), and affording them extremely limited or no access to meaningful programming of any kind. For example, the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation, which has well over 10,000 prisoners housed in Security
Housing and Administrative Segregation units throughout its large prison
system (in facilities such as the notorious Pelican Bay, among the most isolating in the nation), takes the position that they “do not employ” the practice at
all. As one news report noted, “‘There is no ‘solitary confinement’
in California,’ the corrections agency said in a regulatory filing last month”
(St. John, 2015).
Of course, the absence of a common nomenclature interferes with reliable
reporting. In addition, these and other prison systems also have a wide range
of other kinds of isolated housing into which prisoners are placed, which
might or might not be reported as isolated, segregated, or restrictive housing
(basic terms that, themselves, can have different meanings, depending on
what, exactly, they are used to denote and the way reporting officials choose
to interpret them). In the California prison system, for example, although
much attention has been given to its SHUs, such as Pelican Bay, many more

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prisoners are isolated under equally isolating and deprived conditions in the
state’s Administrative Segregation Units or “Ad Segs,” where they can spend
months or years at a time.
As difficult as the challenge of systematically collecting reliable overall
data about prisons is, the situation is even more troublesome with respect to
jails. This is in large part because there are so many more jails, and because
oversight over the reporting practices of local law enforcement agencies is
even more difficult to exercise than for state and federal prison systems.
According to the BJS jail census, there are more than 3,000 jails in the United
States (Stephan & Walsh, 2011). Although prisons hold approximately twice
as many inmates as jails, there are approximately twice as many jails in the
United States as state and federal correctional facilities (Stephan, 2008).
Thus, although the BJS has at least attempted to calculate the number of
inmates in state and federal prisons who are in restrictive housing, they have
not undertaken such an estimate with respect to jails. As Gibbons and
Katzenbach (2006) summarized,
On June 30, 2000, when the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics last collected
data from state and federal prisons, approximately 80,000 people were reported
to be confined in segregation units. That is just a fraction of the state and federal
prisoners who spend weeks or months in expensive, high-security control units
over the course of a year, and it does not capture everyone incarcerated in
supermax prisons. And there is no similar data for local jails. (pp. 52-53)

Indeed, jail isolation units are likely among the least studied components of
the entire criminal justice system.

Reasoned Speculation About the Use of Jail
Isolation
There are several reasons to believe that solitary confinement, isolation, or
“the hole” is used at least as frequently—if not much more often—in jails as
in the nation’s prisons. For one, jails are “first responder” correctional facilities in the criminal justice system; they take custody of persons abruptly, and
often unexpectedly. Jails house not only persons who are suspected of criminal activity but also, disproportionately, those who are mentally ill, emotionally unstable, and in crisis. Many jail inmates are also under the influence of
drugs or alcohol, in the throes of withdrawal, or detoxing from pre-existing
drug or alcohol use or dependency. Destabilized, disoriented, and “acting
out” behavior of the sort that precipitates arrest among these groups of troubled and traumatized persons is likely to continue for some period of time
after their initial incarceration.
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No matter the initial reason for which they have been brought to jail, some
inmates react especially poorly to the suddenly controlling and deprived conditions to which they are subjected there. Their state of mind and overt behavior can and often do worsen in response to the immediate trauma of
incarceration. This may be especially true for the significant number of people who come into jail as “first timers” who are not only unfamiliar with
correctional environments, procedures, and practices, but also extremely
anxious about the consequences of their arrest and unsure of their survival
inside a potentially dangerous and otherwise foreign environment.
In short, jail inmates are a very diverse, and potentially volatile, reactive
group of people who pose a wide range of special challenges for jail staff
attempting to effectively manage and control them. The relative transience of
the jail population also means that line staff has little time to develop rapport
with or insight into the inmates with whom they interact. All other things
being equal, this means that officers are less likely to be aware of the underlying causes of any problematic behavior that inmates might manifest or interpersonal factors that might mitigate their disciplinary infractions while
incarcerated.
More sophisticated, benign, and non-punitive correctional management
strategies of the sort that are designed to minimize problematic behavior
through the use of positive incentives and that seek to defuse rather than simply punish conflict and rule violations often depend on staff having some
specific understanding of the inmates themselves and the underlying pressures to which they are responding. However, the relative lack of such accessible, reliable information in jails—given the diverse and challenging
population, typically brief stays, and high turnover—means that the most
likely staff response to problematic encounters, troubling behavior, or rule
violations will be punitive.
Moreover, the range of even punitive responses available in jails is limited. Compared with prisons, which are designed for longer term confinement, jails already very significantly limit inmate rights and privileges,
provide few if any educational or vocational training programs (especially
not for the bulk of inmates who are pretrial detainees), and generally rarely
offer other organized activities from which an inmate can be excluded as a
form of punishment. Visitation in most jails is extremely limited and virtually
always occurs on a non-contact basis, and there are severe restrictions on the
amount of personal property and canteen a jail inmate can possess. All of this
means that there are comparably fewer sanctions that can be imposed on jail
inmates short of isolation.
Jails also have fewer support and professional staff available to address
the needs of inmates. Jail inmates report about the same high rates of ever
having suffered from a chronic medical condition as prison inmates (50.2%
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vs. 50.5%; Maruschak & Berzofsky, 2015) but they are much less likely to
have been assessed by staff for sickness, injury, or intoxication (46.4% vs.
63.6%) and much less likely to have been seen by a doctor, nurse, or other
health care professional for any reason (46.5% vs. 79.9%). This means that
jail guards are placed more centrally in control of managing a wider range of
specialized inmate needs and problems. Yet they often lack the training and
resources with which to do so.
Of even greater concern in the present context is the mental health status
of the jail population. A direct interview study conducted by BJS researchers
found that nearly two of every three jail inmates nationwide suffered from a
“mental health problem”—either a clinical diagnosis or treatment by a mental health professional or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM)–defined symptoms of major depression, mania, or psychosis in the preceding 12 months (James & Glaze, 2006). This large group of
mentally ill jail inmates had additional vulnerabilities as well—three quarters
of them reported drug or alcohol abuse or dependency or both, and one quarter had physical or sexual abuse histories or both. Yet fewer than one fifth of
them had received mental health treatment following their admission to jail.
This was approximately half the percentage of mentally ill state prisoners
who reported that they had received treatment after entering prison (17.5% of
jail inmates vs. 33.8% among prisoners).
Researchers who study the prevalence of mental illness among incarcerated populations know that the identification of symptoms and the provision
of treatment in jails and prisons “may be largely confined to offenders who
exhibit disruptive symptoms (e.g., paranoid delusion), whereas less conspicuous disorders (e.g., depression) may go untreated because they are not
noticed” (Teplin, 1990, p. 233). This problem plagues correctional facilities
in general but is likely to be more endemic to jails, in part because, as we
noted earlier, there is a more rapid turnover, less time for in-depth classification, and often fewer options for the appropriate placement of the larger number of special needs inmates who end up there.
Thus, even in jails that routinely screen all incoming inmates for mental
disorder, it has been estimated that as many as two thirds of those who are
“severely ill” go undetected (Teplin, 1990). Depressive symptoms, especially, “are easily overlooked in the chaos of the jail milieu . . . ” (Teplin,
1990, p. 235). A history of having received mental health treatment in the past
increases the chances of detection (probably because this is one simple thing
that even untrained jail staff can ask about during screening and use to as a
proxy for possible current mental health problems). However, other than this,
many mentally ill jail inmates will remain unidentified, their problems undetected and, therefore, untreated.

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Collectively, these things mean that jail inmates are an especially complex
and challenging population for jail staff to effectively monitor and control.
When combined with the relative lack of support staff to whom they can turn,
the high turnover of inmates, and the typically very limited range of classification, alternative housing, and management options at their disposal, there
is a high likelihood that jail guards will employ forceful, punitive responses
to inmate conflict and misconduct. Isolation can easily become a normative
response in such environments, especially in the absence of other viable
alternatives. It may result in its use in situations in which far less draconian
responses would otherwise be warranted and advisable.
Of course, as we stated above, in the absence of reliable data about exactly
how often jail isolation is used, for how long, and with what effect, these
observations represent little more than reasoned speculation. They nonetheless suggest that the use of segregation and isolation in jails might be at least
as widespread as in prisons, and that the sheer number of persons who potentially are exposed to jail isolation in any given year is likely to be substantial.
The practice therefore warrants careful study, conscientious outside monitoring, and effective oversight. There is reason to believe that the widespread
implementation of these safeguards will require significant, hard-fought
reform.

Jail Isolation at Rikers Island
In contrast to the little that is known about the use of jail isolation generally,
practices and policies at the New York City jail complex on Rikers Island
have been extensively examined and debated. Rikers is one of the most controversial jails in the United States, where solitary confinement is employed
on a widespread and well-documented basis, including with juveniles and
mentally ill inmates. It thus provides a useful case study—and cautionary
tale—through which to examine the issue.
In any given year, approximately 100,000 inmates spend time in Rikers,
with an average daily population of 14,000 inmates. Most inmates are awaiting trial; they are housed in 1 of the 10 facilities that comprise an enormous
jail complex sitting on more than 400 acres on Rikers Island in the East River
(Bharara, 2014). As we noted earlier, many of the inmates placed in “punitive
segregation” at Rikers are housed in a facility known as “the Bing,” a 400bed unit located in the Otis Bantum Correctional Center (OBCC), which is
also home to the new supermax unit (Buser, 2014; Tabor, 2015). In addition,
“nonserious mentally ill” inmates can be housed in “restricted housing units”
(RHUs) in the George R. Vierno Center, where they spend 23 hours a day in
their cells before gradually earning time outside of their cells (Tabor, 2015).

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From 2007 through 2013, the percentage of inmates at Rikers in punitive
segregation increased from 2.7% to 7.5% of the total inmate population
(Gilligan & Lee, 2013). As in many jails and prisons, inmates at Rikers can
be placed in punitive segregation for any number of reasons, including nonviolent infractions, such as the failure to obey staff orders, shouting abusive
or offensive words at staff, and failing drug tests (Bharara, 2014; Bronx
Defenders, 2014). However, the two most common alleged infractions for
which inmates were placed in punitive segregation in the past were fighting
with other inmates and assaults on staff (Bronx Defenders, 2014).
Critics have argued that, in addition to the high number of inmates housed
in punitive segregation at Rikers, its internal disciplinary system is plagued
by arbitrariness, resulting in many inmates who accrue more time in punitive
segregation for infractions committed while in isolated housing. In addition,
inmates can be held in isolation for excessive amounts of time. For example,
a public defender organization, the Bronx Defenders, interviewed 59 Rikers
inmates who had spent time in punitive segregation. They reported that their
average length of stay in solitary was 90 days (Bronx Defenders, 2014). One
report found that the Mental Health Assessment Unit for Infracted Inmates
(MHAUII)—a now defunct unit for mentally ill inmates who had committed
infractions—held six inmates who had served 1,000 continuous days in punitive segregation, and one inmate who had served nearly 3,000 days (Gilligan
& Lee, 2013). The Department of Justice investigation conducted on Rikers
reported that one mentally ill juvenile inmate was sentenced to 374 days in
punitive segregation initially and subsequently accrued an additional 1,002
days for infractions committed while there (Bharara, 2014).
Just as in prison solitary confinement units, many Rikers inmates reported
becoming so desperate and dispirited in isolation that they literally “gave up”
and could foresee no viable pathway to release. A number of the Rikers
inmates interviewed by the Bronx Defenders said that they felt that incurring
additional infractions—and receiving additional time in solitary—was more
or less inevitable, so that they became resigned to the fact that they would be
kept in solitary for the entire time that they were incarcerated at Rikers (Bronx
Defenders, 2014). As one 18-year-old inmate with more than 900 days in
solitary put it, “I don’t give a damn . . . I’m never getting out of here” (Bronx
Defenders, 2014. p. 5).
In fact, until recently, even release from Rikers did not necessarily offer
reprieve from a sentence of punitive segregation. That is, when inmates were
released from jail before they had served their entire segregation term, their
remaining days could become “owed time,” which meant that if they returned
to Rikers they could be placed back in solitary without having committed any

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new infractions (Bronx Defenders, 2014). This practice was ended as of
January 2015 (New York City Department of Correction, 2015).
By all accounts, the conditions in punitive segregation at Rikers are harsh
and severe. The segregated inmate’s entire life takes place essentially within
the confines of their small cell, where they eat, sleep, and defecate. Inmates
in punitive segregation spend less than 2 hours per day outside their cell, and
they receive their meals through slots on their cell doors. Almost three quarters (74.6%) of inmates interviewed by the Bronx Defenders stated that they
did not receive enough food or the food made them sick, and some reported
that they skipped meals after corrections officers spit in their food or threatened to contaminate their food. Inmates in punitive segregation are not
allowed to supplement their diet with food from the commissary, so many of
them lose significant amounts of weight while in solitary. One inmate
remarked, “If you don’t want to starve, you don’t want to be in the box”
(Bronx Defenders, 2014, p. 3).
Inmates in solitary in Rikers are also supposed to have access to at least
one phone call per day, capped at 6 minutes. However, phone calls were also
withheld as a punitive measure. In addition to withholding phone access,
some inmates suspected that correction officers were reprogramming phone
numbers to essentially deny inmates access to phone calls (Bronx Defenders,
2014).
Typically, inmates are allowed out of their cells for 1 hour of recreation
each day, spent in individual chain-link cages. Inmates must request to go out
to exercise (Park, 2014), and a number of inmates interviewed by Human
Rights Watch stated that they were only allowed out for recreation if they
woke up before breakfast and requested it (American Civil Liberties
Union(ACLU)/Human Rights Watch, 2012). Other inmates reported that the
correction officers unpredictably changed the times they walked past the
cells, making it difficult to sign up for recreation (Bronx Defenders, 2014).
Another report found that fewer than 1 in 10 inmates at the Central Punitive
Segregation Unit (CPSU) at OBCC went out for recreation on any given day
(Park, 2014).
Shortages in staffing and facilities at Rikers make it impractical to allow
all inmates in punitive segregation to go out for exercise each day (Park,
2014). Some inmates reported having never gone outside while in solitary at
Rikers, while others reported not wanting to go out for recreation to avoid
being shackled or the degradation of being kept in what looks like an animal
cage for an hour (Bharara, 2014; Bronx Defenders, 2014). Isolated inmates at
Rikers are also allowed out of their cells for a short shower once a day
(ACLU/Human Rights Watch, 2012), but correction officers are allowed to

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withhold showers as a punitive measure. They allegedly have done so for as
much as 5 days at a time (Bronx Defenders, 2014).
Like isolated prisoners everywhere, segregated inmates at Rikers are
highly dependent on jail staff to provide them with basic services, such as
exercise, showers, food, medicine, and access to phones. Because inmates are
allowed to leave their cells for only very short periods and have access to
very limited areas in the jail, they are helpless if and when staff is unresponsive. Desperate inmates in punitive segregation at Rikers have engaged in a
practice referred to as “sticking up the slot”—extending their arms through
the tray slots on their cell doors and refusing to move them until a staff member responds to their requests or concerns.
Obviously, the practice serves no other purpose but to draw attention to an
unmet need or provoke (ideally) a helpful staff response. But “sticking up the
slot” is typically considered a disciplinary infraction, resulting in more time
in punitive segregation. The Bronx Defenders (2014) found that “sticking up
the slot” was responsible for a drastic increase in many inmates’ sentences in
punitive segregation. Indeed, an 18-year-old inmate who was facing more
than 1,000 days in solitary said he felt the additional infractions he received
each week were a necessary evil—he needed to act out to receive basic services from the staff in solitary (Bronx Defenders, 2014).
Just as in solitary confinement in most prisons, isolated Rikers inmates are
prohibited from participating in meaningful programming such as school or
group educational programs (Bharara, 2014). Some inmates report being
allowed reading and writing materials in segregation, but the only educational programming they were given was in-cell study packets and no or very
limited access to teachers or fellow students. Inmates with learning disabilities are given no special support (ACLU/Human Rights Watch, 2012; Bronx
Defenders, 2014). Similarly, segregated inmates are prohibited from work,
group recreation, and self-help programs (Bronx Defenders, 2014). A number
of Rikers inmates complained about the poor quality of medical care that they
received in punitive segregation. One inmate stated, “[y]ou’ve got to be basically dead to go see the doctor” (Bronx Defenders, 2014, p. 10). One inmate
reported that a guard ignored her asthma attack, assuming it was a trick to get
out of her cell. Other inmates reported that the only “treatment” they received
were pain pills (Bronx Defenders, 2014).
Access to mental health care at Rikers is very limited, and inmates complain that it is rarely timely and typically of poor quality (City of New York
Board of Correction, 2013). Some inmates receive one-on-one sessions with
a doctor or a social worker, but the sessions are brief and usually conducted
through the cell door—making candid discussions unlikely. The sessions also
often focus on little more than evaluating the inmate’s risk of self-harm, and

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result in prescribed medication rather than meaningful counseling (e.g.,
Bronx Defenders, 2014; Hager, 2015a).
Not surprisingly, as is the case for isolation units in general, punitive segregation at Rikers is plagued by high rates of self-harm and suicidal acts and
ideation. Many of the inmates interviewed by various legal and human rights
organizations reporting on conditions at Rikers said they had thought about
suicide, and several had attempted suicide while in solitary (see ACLU/
Human Rights Watch, 2012; Bronx Defenders, 2014). The inmates remarked
that they often felt depressed, lonely, and hopeless (Bronx Defenders, 2014).
Two inmates interviewed by the Bronx Defenders stated that when they told
correction officers about their suicidal thoughts they were taunted and told to
“hang it up good,” and to only call the officers when they were “about to die”
(Bronx Defenders, 2014, p. 7).
The firsthand accounts of what it is like to live and work in jail isolation
units at Rikers Island, where disproportionate numbers of mentally ill inmates
are housed, are sobering. They underscore the fact that the problems are
widespread and the psychological risks to inmates are substantial. In her
reflections on the years she spent as a social worker in the “central punitive
segregation unit” or “Bing” at Rikers, Buser (2014) acknowledged both the
high concentration of mentally ill inmates who were housed there and the
severity of the isolated confinement to which they and other inmates were
subjected. Buser (2014) described the severe conditions as a “gaunlet of misery,” including the “smell of vomit and feces [that] hangs in the hot, thick
air,” and confinement inside
an eight by nine foot cell—just enough room to pace back and forth . . . . No
phone, no TV, with one hour of “rec”—which amounts to a shackled walk to an
outdoor cage to stand alone and glimpse the sky. (p. 35)

Not surprisingly, such conditions take a severe psychological toll on many
jail inmates. Buser (2014) noted that mental health staff “looms large in a
solitary unit,” such as the Bing, because, as she put it, this is where “punishment is taken to the extreme, inducing the bleakest of depression, plunging
despair, and terrifying hallucinations” (p. 35).
Many such accounts of life inside punitive segregation units at Rikers
have been provided by inmates as well. One juvenile commented on the
roaches and mice covering the cell floor, and the oppressive heat. He stated,
“I’m not gonna lie, I felt like hanging myself. I felt like committing suicide
because of the things that run through my head when I’m in that thing”
(Santo, 2015). An adult inmate compared his access to “recreation” in the
Rikers segregation unit to the experience of a caged animal in the zoo: “When

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you’re in solitary, you get an hour outside, but you know in the zoo, how they
have the animal in a cage? That’s how it is. No weights, no basketball, no
sports, no nothing” (Schwartzapfel, 2015). Another inmate remarked similarly, that “[t]hey treat you like an animal” and another said his experience
had led him to “think twice about putting your dog in a cage” (Bronx
Defenders, 2014, p. 3).
Inmates in punitive segregation at Rikers have complained about the high
levels of noise in the units. Denied normal forms of social interaction, inmates
in neighboring cells yell and scream at each other in an attempt to communicate through the walls (Schwartzapfel, 2015). Others described feelings of
helplessness, and being at the mercy of an uncaring staff. One inmate talked
about being sick in solitary and going to extreme lengths to get treatment. He
cautioned,
[d]on’t get sick there because you’re gonna die up in there. I had to cut my wrist
to go see the dentist. I’ve got the marks to prove it. I had a toothache for like a
week, couldn’t take it no more. So I had to cut up, and when they opened the
slot to put the food in, I stuck my hand out and they seen the blood and they
took me out. (Hager, 2015b)

Not surprisingly, a number of inmates described the experience of being in
solitary as life-altering. For example, as one said, “when people leave solitary
confinement, they are never the same” (Bronx Defenders, 2014, p. 8).
As we have noted above, Rikers houses large number of juvenile inmates.
This is in part because the state of New York automatically charges all individuals aged 16 and older as adults (Bharara, 2014). Juveniles are housed in
several different facilities in Rikers and are separated by age from the adult
inmate population. However, until recently, juveniles involved in fighting
and other use of force incidents, as well as those charged with committing
non-violent rule violations, could be placed in punitive segregation for
extended periods of time (Bharara, 2014). In some units, adolescents were in
close enough contact with adult inmates that they could hear and see one
another, in violation of correctional standards (Bharara, 2014).
The Justice Department’s investigation of Rikers also found that on any
given day in 2013, approximately 15% to 25% of its juvenile population was
in punitive segregation (Bharara, 2014). A 1-day snapshot in 2013 showed
that almost 27% of the 586 juveniles at Rikers were in punitive segregation,
and approximately 71% of those juveniles were diagnosed as mentally ill
(City of New York Board of Correction, 2013).
In addition to juveniles, a high percentage of isolated Rikers inmates are
mentally ill. Thus, a 2013 study determined that 41% of the adult inmates

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housed in the CPSU or “Bing” were mentally ill (Gilligan & Lee, 2013). One
former jail executive confirmed that there were
plenty of people in solitary who are severely mentally ill and disobeyed a direct
order or told an officer to fuck off or who were just not following directions or
may have lashed out against somebody when they were paranoid. (Hager,
2015a)

Buser (2014) described a Rikers’ practice that unfortunately is all too common in a number of prison isolation units—removing mentally ill inmates
from isolation only long enough to stabilize them so that they can be returned
directly back to the harsh environment that first precipitated or intensified
their symptoms. “Like the weary swimmer treading water but starting to go
under, he’ll be pulled out to catch his breath, and then thrown back in. I can’t
help but feel that this has the earmarks of torture” (p. 36).
Although it is based on admittedly anecdotal data, the picture that has thus
emerged of life inside some of what are perhaps the most carefully studied
jail isolation units in the nation is sobering and unsettling. What is now
known about Rikers underscores the apparent ease with which punitive isolation—when it operates without effective outside monitoring, tight regulations and safeguards, and meaningful outside oversight—tends to be greatly
overused in a jail environment, is employed even (and perhaps especially)
with vulnerable populations such as juveniles and the mentally ill, and can
devolve into a “culture of harm” (Haney, 2008) that is not only painful but
also potentially very dangerous.

The Grave Risk of Serious Harm From Jail Isolation
There is a large and growing scientific literature on the many ways that isolated, solitary, and so-called “supermax” confinement can adversely affect
the overall mental health of persons who are subjected to it. The deprivation
of meaningful human contact and social interaction, the enforced idleness
and inactivity, and the oppressive security and surveillance procedures (and
the weapons, hardware, and other paraphernalia that go along with them) that
characterize these units all combine to create a harsh and, for most, painful
environment in which to live. In addition to its painfulness, exposure to such
conditions is now understood to predictably undermine cognitive and emotional health and well-being and impair subsequent social functioning (e.g.,
Cloyes, Lovell, Allen, & Rhodes, 2006; Haney, 2003; Haney & Lynch, 1997;
Smith, 2006). As one of us summarized research on the negative effects of
isolated confinement more than a decade ago:

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[I]n in case studies and personal accounts provided by mental health and
correctional staff who worked in supermax units, a range of similar adverse
symptoms have been observed to occur in prisoners including appetite and sleep
disturbances, anxiety, panic, rage, loss of control, paranoia, hallucinations, and
self mutilations. Moreover, direct studies of prison isolation have documented
an extremely broad range of harmful psychological reactions [that] include
increases in the following potentially damaging symptoms and problematic
behaviors: negative attitudes and affect, insomnia, anxiety, withdrawal,
hypersensitivity, ruminations, cognitive dysfunction, hallucinations, loss of
control, irritability, aggression, and rage, paranoia, hopelessness, lethargy,
depression, a sense of impending emotional breakdown, self-mutilation, and
suicidal ideation and behavior . . . In addition, among the correlational studies of
the relationship between housing type and various incident reports, again, selfmutilation and suicide are more prevalent in isolated housing, as are deteriorating
mental and physical health (beyond self-injury), other-directed violence, such as
stabbings, attacks on staff, and property destruction and collective violence.
(Haney, 2003, pp. 130-131, internal citations omitted)

More recently, the scientific consensus on the significant risk of serious
harm posed by isolated confinement was summarized by two commentators,
who noted that “[i]solation can be harmful to any prisoner,” that the potentially adverse effects of isolation include “anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and
psychosis” (Metzner & Fellner, 2010, p. 104). And, in 2014, a National
Academy of Sciences committee studying the causes and consequences of
high rates of incarceration in the United States recommended a broad review
of punitive isolation policies in the nation’s prisons, noting that long-term
segregation
can create or exacerbate serious psychological change in some inmates and
make it difficult for them to return to the general population of a prison or to
the community outside prison. Although certain highly disruptive inmates may
at times need to be segregated from others, use of this practice is best minimized,
and accompanied by specific criteria for placement and regular meaningful
reviews for those that are thus confined. Long-term segregation is not an
appropriate setting for seriously mentally ill inmates. In all cases, it is important
to ensure that those prisoners who are confined in segregation are monitored
closely and effectively for any sign of psychological deterioration. (National
Research Council, 2014, p. 201)

These scientific conclusions are not only empirically based but also rooted
in sound psychological theory (e.g., Haney, 2009). The importance of “affiliation”—the opportunity to have meaningful contact with others—to reduce

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anxiety in the face of uncertain or fear-arousing stimuli was established many
years ago in social psychology (e.g., Sarnoff & Zimbardo, 1961; Schachter,
1959; Zimbardo & Formica, 1963). In addition, psychologists have documented the fact that one of the primary ways that people determine the appropriateness of their feelings—indeed, the way that we establish the nature,
tenor, and propriety of our emotions—is through the contact that we have
with others (Fischer, Manstead, & Zaalberg, 2004; Saarni, 1999; Schachter &
Singer, 1962; Tiedens & Leach, 2004; Truax, 1984). Thus, prolonged social
deprivation is now recognized as painful and destabilizing in part because it
deprives persons of the opportunity to ground their thoughts and emotions in
a meaningful social context—to know what they feel and whether and to
what degree those feelings are appropriate.
As the early research was conducted on the importance of affiliation,
numerous additional scientific studies have established the psychological significance of social contact, connectedness, and belongingness as well as the
corresponding adverse consequences of social exclusion and loneliness.
Among other things, that research has concluded that the human brain is literally “wired to connect” to others (Lieberman, 2013). Thwarting this “need to
connect” not only undermines psychological well-being but also increases
physical morbidity and mortality. Thus, in part out of recognition of the
importance of this basic need, social psychologists and others have written
extensively about the harmful effects of its deprivation—what happens when
people are subjected to social exclusion and isolation.
In fact, Kelman (1976) argued that denying persons of contact with others
was a form of dehumanization. More recently, others have documented the
ways in which social exclusion is not only “painful in itself,” but also “undermines people’s sense of belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningfulness,
reduces pro-social behavior, and impairs self-regulation” (Bastian & Haslam,
2010, p. 107, internal references omitted). Indeed, the subjective experience
of social exclusion results in what have been called “cognitive deconstructive
states” in which there is emotional numbing, reduced empathy, cognitive
inflexibility, lethargy, and an absence of meaningful thought (Twenge,
Catanese, & Baumeister, 2003).
The application of these theoretical perspectives to a correctional context
has been limited for the most part to understanding the impact of solitary confinement in prisons. However, as we have repeatedly noted in this article, jails
have been overlooked in most of the published research and writing about
punitive isolation. Yet there is no reason to believe that the same psychological
principles would not apply equally to jail settings, that painfulness of the experience of isolation would not be felt as acutely by jail inmates, or that the
substantial risk of serious harm would be any less in jail isolation units.

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All other things being equal, the negative effects of isolated confinement
are thought to vary with the severity of the conditions, the duration of the
exposure, and the vulnerabilities of the persons subjected to them. At first
blush, the only one of these factors that appears to perhaps exempt jail isolation from the same scientific conclusions that have been reached with respect
to prison isolation is the second—the duration of confinement. However, we
believe there are several reasons that this seeming exemption is more apparent than real.
The first is that all other things are not necessarily “equal” for jail inmates,
who are undergoing the abrupt and potentially traumatic transition from freedom to an often extremely harsh, authoritarian, and deprived jail setting. The
added stress, anxiety and fear, and destabilizing effect of being placed in
isolation are likely to significantly compound and worsen the already painful
psychological transition from the freeworld to penal confinement. This
applies with special force to those jail inmates who are experiencing penal
confinement for the first time. In addition, the volatility of jail inmates—the
high concentration of persons “in crisis,” in the throes of a psychiatric or
emotional breakdown, or detoxifying from the effects of drugs or alcohol—
whose unstable and acting out behavior makes them more likely to be placed
in jail isolation also renders them more vulnerable to its effects.
Finally, as we note below, these “all other things are not equal” caveats
notwithstanding, the theoretically sensible proposition that—like other
stressful, traumatic, or noxious experiences—the harmful effects of isolated
confinement are “dose dependent”—more of a bad thing is worse than less—
still does not exempt jails from the scientific conclusions that have been
reached about the effects of isolation or the concerns and admonitions that
have been expressed by mental health, legal, and human rights organizations
about the need to significantly limit its use.
It is certainly true that persons who are subjected to very long terms of
solitary confinement in prison are likely to undergo a deeper kind of damage
and change, suffer more profound transformations in their personalities, and
incur more fundamental losses in their capacity to relate to others than those
who experience comparatively briefer terms. In addition to the immediate
stress and trauma of isolated confinement and the deprivations imposed, longer term solitary confinement requires psychological adaptations to extended
periods of asociality (Haney, 2003). Nonetheless, there is reason to believe
that the normative periods of time in isolation that many jail inmates serve are
sufficient to produce serious damaging effects.
In fact, early research done in the New York City jail system showed that
a high percentage of suicides (42%) took place within the first 30 days of
confinement, that a majority (52%) of inmates who committed suicide had a

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major psychiatric diagnosis, and that the overwhelming number of suicides
were by inmates who were housed alone (i.e., were isolated; Marcus &
Alcabes, 1993). More recent research conducted in the same jail system,
focusing on the broader category of self-harming behavior, reached similar
conclusions, showing that all acts of self-harm, as well as those acts that were
more serious and potentially fatal, were significantly more likely to be
engaged in by jail inmates who suffered from serious mental illness and,
especially, by inmates who had been in solitary confinement at least once
during their jail term (Kaba et al., 2014).
We note also that numerous mental health, legal, and human rights groups
and organizations have promulgated recommendations and standards that
would limit exposure to isolated confinement to the briefest amount of time
possible and mandate that it only be used in correctional settings as an absolute last resort. The “brief” amounts of time that are contemplated certainly
encompass what are likely to be normative terms of jail isolation in many
jurisdictions. That is, in addition to those organizations that call for an outright ban on the use of solitary confinement because of its recognized harmful effects—a ban that would perforce apply to jails—the recommended
limits not only make no distinction as to the type of facility (i.e., prison vs.
jail) but also mandate limits that are measured in terms of days and weeks.
The limits thus reflect concerns over damage that might be incurred during
presumably shorter term jail isolation.
For example, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment wrote in 2011 that, in
his opinion, solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days can constitute
“torture” (Mendez, 2011, emphasis added). The American Bar Association’s
2010 Standards for Criminal Justice required that “[s]egregated housing
should be for the briefest term and under the least restrictive conditions practicable” and that at intervals “not to exceed [90 days], a full classification
review” should be conducted that addresses the prisoner’s “individualized
plan” in segregation with “a presumption in favor of removing the prisoner
from segregated housing” (American Bar Association, 2010, emphasis added).
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s 2012 policy
statement on the solitary confinement of juveniles states that “any youth that
is confined for more than 24 hours must be evaluated by a mental health
professional” (emphasis added). The New York Bar Association in 2013
called on state officials to significantly limit the use of solitary confinement
and recommended that solitary confinement for longer than 15 days be proscribed (New York Bar Association, 2013, emphasis added).
The Society of Correctional Physicians concluded that segregating mentally ill prisoners on a “prolonged” basis lasting for more than 4 weeks should

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be prohibited (Society of Correctional Physicians, 2013). The American
Psychiatric Association recommended in 2012 that “prolonged segregation”
(which it defined as segregation lasting longer than 4 weeks) “with rare exceptions, should be avoided” for prisoners with serious mental illness “due to the
potential for harm to such inmates” (American Psychiatric Association, 2012,
emphasis added). Finally, the recently passed United Nations Commission on
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice’s Standard Minimum Rules for the
Treatment of Prisoners (termed the “Mandela Rules”) defined “prolonged
solitary confinement” as lasting “for a time period in excess of 15 consecutive
days,” and mandated that such confinement “shall be prohibited” (Commission
on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, 2015, Rules 43.1 and 44).
Indeed, the last mentioned set of UN rules for the treatment of prisoners—
what have been termed the “Mandela Rules”—not only include an admonition that many other mental health, legal, and human rights organizations
have endorsed, namely that solitary confinement “shall be used only in
exceptional cases as a last resort” (Commission on Crime Prevention and
Criminal Justice, 2015, Rule 45.1 ) but also mandate that, because of the
increased grave risk of serious harm to which solitary confinement exposes
them, vulnerable prisoners should be exempted from any form of prolonged
placement. Thus, for example, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules
for the Treatment of Prisoners, Rule 45.2, prohibits isolation entirely “in the
case of prisoners with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions
would be exacerbated by such measures.”
The nature of the concerns that underlie these various recommended limitations and prohibitions pertain equally well to isolation in jails as prisons.
The time frames that most envision are brief enough to have relevance for,
and significant impact on, jail policies and practices in many local jurisdictions across the United States.

Conclusion
Despite the fact that it is a chronically under-studied aspect of the criminal
justice system, there are many reasons to believe that jail isolation is used
widely and perhaps excessively and abusively. More than 10 million persons
are incarcerated in local jails in the United States each year. A presumably
large but as yet unspecified number of them are likely to be placed in isolated
confinement sometime during their time in jail. There is thus an urgent need to
study, monitor, and regulate this potentially harmful and damaging practice.
We have argued that a convergence of empirical data and sound theory has
led not only to a scientific consensus about the harmfulness of solitary confinement but also to calls from mental health, legal, and human rights organizations

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to drastically limit its use (American Psychiatric Association, 2012; Gibbons &
Katzenbach, 2006; International Psychological Trauma Symposium, 2007;
National Research Council, 2014). These are calls that a number of state correctional administrators have begun to heed (e.g., Binelli, 2015; Kupers et al., 2009;
Raemisch, 2014; Tapley, 2011). We have also argued that the same scientific consensus and calls for heightened scrutiny and limitations on solitary confinement
in prisons for the most part can, and should, be applied to jail isolation as well.
The emerging scientific, mental health, legal, and human rights consensus
about solitary confinement includes three critically important limits that
should be applied to isolation in all correctional settings: The risks of harm
are so great that isolated confinement should be used only when it is absolutely necessary and as a last resort; the time or duration that a person is
exposed to isolated confinement must be minimized; and the added risk of
harm to vulnerable groups or individual inmates means that they should be
exempted entirely from all but the very briefest and absolutely necessary
terms of such confinement. For reasons we have outlined in this article, the
limiting principles that have been used to address prison isolation essentially
apply with equal cogency and importance to jail isolation as well.
Finally, we end by noting that if the story of abysmal conditions and harmful practices at Rikers Island can and should serve as a cautionary tale about
how highly dependent a jail can become on the use of isolation and subject
even its mentally ill and juvenile inmates to extremely painful, dangerous,
and damaging conditions of confinement, then the very recent history of this
facility also can and should serve as a positive example of something else.
Jail isolation came to be so heavily and inappropriately used and conditions
deteriorated so badly at Rikers largely in the absence of transparency—a lack
of detailed knowledge about the bleak conditions and abusive practices that
existed inside—and, correspondingly, in the absence of meaningful outside
monitoring and effective oversight and intervention to limit the use of isolation and end abusive practices.
As information about these abysmal conditions and draconian practices at
the jail emerged on a more public and widespread basis—in press coverage
and through several reports issued by legal and human rights organizations—
and after a highly critical Department of Justice investigation posed the
implicit threat of litigation, significant momentum for change was finally
generated. The impetus for reform was furthered by the election of a new
political administration in New York City that was more explicitly devoted to
social justice and eventually set in motion a series of reforms that were
designed to correct past abuses at Rikers.
Specifically, the appointment of a highly respected new jail commissioner—Joseph Ponte—was heralded in large part because of his reputation

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as a correctional administrator who could and would meaningfully reform
the use of segregation at the jail. Ponte was instrumental in drastically
reducing the use of isolation in the Maine prison system that he had previously overseen (e.g., Heiden, 2013). Among other things, he ended the
practice of placing inmates under the age of 18 in isolation, proposed eliminating isolation for inmates younger than 21 years old, and limited its use
for adults to no more than 30 days (New York City Department of
Correction, 2015). Rikers also added a “Clinical Alternative to Punitive
Segregation,” a 66-bed pilot program that opened in 2013 and was designed
as an alternative placement for mentally ill inmates instead of punitive
segregation (Malone & Naddaf, 2015). In addition, the jail created a
“Punitive Segregation II” unit designed specifically for inmates whose
disciplinary infractions are non-violent in nature. The unit employs
less draconian controls and provides inmates with the opportunity to be
out of their cells for up to 7 hours per day (New York City Department of
Correction, 2015).
As of January 2015, the OBCC, where the much criticized “Bing” is
located, also began operating Enhanced Supervision Housing (ESH) units,
which are intended to be non-punitive alternatives to punitive segregation
(D’Inverno, 2015a) for housing inmates with violent infractions who are considered direct security threats (New York City Board of Correction, 2015).
Unlike traditional punitive segregation, ESH goals include opportunities to
engage in rehabilitative activities and taking explicit steps to encourage positive behavior (D’Inverno, 2015b).
Although it remains to be seen whether and how effectively these reforms
will be in correcting abusive practices at Rikers and preventing them from
recurring in the future, none of these changes would likely have taken place
in the absence of detailed knowledge about what was actually happening
inside this otherwise closed and impenetrable facility. This is precisely why
the long-ignored and largely overlooked practice of jail isolation needs to be
more carefully studied, independently monitored, effectively regulated, and
legally controlled in local jails across the country.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biographies
Craig Haney, PhD, is distinguished professor of psychology, director of the Program
in Legal Studies, and UC presidential chair, 2015- 2018, University of California,
Santa Cruz. He conducts research on and writes about a wide variety of criminal justice topics, including the psychological effects of prison confinement and the social
historical and contextual causes of serious violent crime.
Joanna Weill is a PhD candidate in social psychology at the University of California,
Santa Cruz. Her current research examines how the separation of incarcerated persons
from their families, their communities, and society affects reentry after incarceration.
Shirin Bakhshay is a PhD student in social psychology at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, earning her JD from Yale Law School. Her current research focus is the
intersection of psychology and law, with particular emphasis on media representations of crime and attitudes toward prisoners and prison reform.
Tiffany Lockett is a PhD student in social psychology at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, earning her MS in psychology from California Polytechnic State
University with a concentration in marriage and family therapy. Her current research
explores the dynamics between psychology and law, with a focus on race, culture, and
social constructions of crime.

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