Solitary Confinement:

Common Misconceptions and Emerging
Safe Alternatives
MAY 2015

Alison Shames • Jessa Wilcox • Ram Subramanian

CENTER ON SENTENCING AND CORRECTIONS

THE Robert W. Wilson
CHARITABLE TRUST SERIES

FROM THE CENTER DIRECTOR
The overuse and misuse of solitary confinement by our prisons and jails is yet another indication of the overly punitive approach that has characterized our nation’s
sentencing and corrections practices. Not only do we incarcerate too many people
and for far too long, we also have a corrections system that employs, all too frequently and—at times, too casually—the most extreme form of confinement as a
routine management strategy; this persists despite decades of evidence pointing
to the manifold negative impacts of subjecting people to such conditions. Any serious effort to reduce over-incarceration and its harmful consequences must rest on a
commitment to human dignity and focus on the treatment of those in jail and prison.
Although this practice goes by many names—isolation, restricted housing, administrative segregation, protective custody, special housing, disciplinary segregation,
etc.—the old adage about ducks applies: if it looks like a duck… As this report makes
clear, whatever the label, the experience for the person placed in solitary confinement is the same: confinement to an isolated cell for the overwhelming portion of
each day, often 23 hours a day, with limited human interaction and minimal, if any,
constructive activity; an experience that all too often leads to harmful outcomes for
the person’s mental and physical health and the well-being of the community to
which he or she returns. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently
opined, “This idea of total incarceration just isn’t working, and it’s not humane.” It’s
also a significant drain on the budgets of corrections departments.
Solitary confinement need not be corrections’ sole first response to incidents of misconduct, nor should it be casually and routinely used to solve custody management
challenges that arise in making housing decisions. In the past decade, several jurisdictions, some of which have worked with Vera, have reduced their use of solitary
confinement and implemented safe alternatives.
This report shines a bright light on the use/abuse of solitary confinement and pushes us to recognize the critical connection between what happens to people inside
penal institutions and the success of their return to community. It is my sincere hope
that it fosters both debate and change, which balance respect for human dignity and
safety and security concerns, as these are not—nor need not be viewed as—mutually exclusive. Humane and effective management of our nation’s prisons and jails
requires nothing less.

Fred Patrick
Director, Center on Sentencing and Corrections

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SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

Contents
4	Introduction
8	 MISCONCEPTION #1
	
Conditions in segregated housing are stark but not 		
	inhumane
12	 MISCONCEPTION #2
	
Segregated housing is reserved only for the most violent
14	 MISCONCEPTION #3
	
Segregated housing is used only as a last resort
15	 MISCONCEPTION #4
	
Segregated housing is used only for brief periods of time
17	 MISCONCEPTION #5
	
The harmful effects of segregated housing are overstated 	
	
and not well understood
18	 MISCONCEPTION #6
	
Segregated housing helps keep prisons and jails safer
20	 MISCONCEPTION #7
	
Segregated housing deters misbehavior and violence
22	 MISCONCEPTION #8
	
Segregated housing is the only way to protect the 		
	vulnerable
24	 MISCONCEPTION #9
	
Safe alternatives to segregated housing are expensive
26	 MISCONCEPTION #10
	
Incarcerated people are rarely released directly to the 		
	
community from segregated housing
28	Conclusion

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

3

Introduction
What is commonly known as solitary confinement is a practice still widely used
by corrections officials in the United States today, largely as a means to fulfill a
prison’s or jail’s top priority: the safety of its staff and the incarcerated people
under its care. While it is most often deployed when incarcerated people break
rules or engage in violent or disruptive behavior, it is also used as a preventative
measure in an effort to protect those at high risk of sexual assault and physical
abuse in a prison’s or jail’s general population (for example, incarcerated people
who are transgender or former law enforcement officers). The term solitary
confinement, however, is often not used by corrections officials, who prefer
labels such as restricted housing, segregated housing, and special or intensive
management.

NAMING THE PRACTICE
Corrections officials in the United States refer to solitary confinement by many names, and placement policies also vary by jurisdiction and facility type. The terms in most frequent use today include:
>>Disciplinary or punitive segregation is used to punish incarcerated people for violating
facility rules. As in the larger criminal justice process, charges are written, a hearing is held,
evidence is presented, and, if found guilty, a term in segregated housing is imposed.
>>Administrative segregation is used to remove incarcerated people from the general prison
or jail population who are thought to pose a risk to facility safety or security. It may be used
for those believed to be members of gangs or active in other restricted activities, even if no
violation has been identified. Administrative segregation is not technically a sanction or a
punishment, and can be indefinite.
>>Protective custody is a form of administrative segregation that is used to remove incarcerated people from a facility’s general population who are thought be at risk of harm or abuse,
such as incarcerated people who are mentally ill, intellectually disabled, gay, transgender, or
former law enforcement officers. While some people who fear for their safety in the general
population may request protective custody, this status is often conferred involuntarily.
>>Temporary confinement in segregated housing is used when a reported incident is being
investigated or related paperwork is being completed, or when no beds are available for
transfers.
Some incarcerated people are held in solitary confinement in prisons or jails, while others are
held in disciplinary and administrative segregation in supermax facilities, which are freestanding
prisons or distinct units in prisons where the entire incarcerated population is housed in solitary
confinement.a
All prisons and many jails in the United States use some form of solitary confinement. Whatever
the label, the experience for the person is the same—confinement in an isolated cell (alone or

4

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

Whatever the label,
the experience for the person is the same

—confinement in an isolated cell
(alone or with a cellmate) for an average of

23 hours a day
with limited human interaction,
little constructive activity, and in
an environment that ensures

maximum control
over the individual.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

5

with a cellmate) for an average of 23 hours a day with limited human interaction, little constructive
activity, and in an environment that ensures maximum control over the individual.b When sources
cited in this report refer to the practice as solitary confinement, the authors do as well. Otherwise,
consistent with American Bar Association standards, “segregated housing” is used as the generic
term for the practice.c
David C. Fathi, “United States: Turning the Corner on Solitary Confinement,” Canadian Journal of Human Rights, 4, no. 1
(2015): 168. For the definition of a supermax, see National Institute of Corrections, Supermax Prisons: Overview and General
Consideration (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, 1999), 2-3.
b
In 2013, the Arthur Liman Program at Yale Law School reviewed the policies related to administrative segregation for 46 states
and the federal Bureau of Prisons. See Hope Metcalf et al., Administrative Segregation, Degrees of Isolation, and Incarceration:
A National Overview of State and Federal Correction Policies: Public Law Working Paper (New Haven: Yale Law School, 2013),
2. The states not included in the review—Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah—all have forms of segregated housing.
For information on Utah, see ibid, p. 24, endnote 7. For information on Louisiana, see Editorial, “Four Decades of Solitary in
Louisiana,” New York Times, November 21, 2014. For information on South Carolina, see Emily Bazelon, “The Shame of Solitary
Confinement,” New York Times, February 19, 2015. For information on Texas, see American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Texas
Civil Rights Project-Houston, A Solitary Failure: The Waste, Cost and Harm of Solitary Confinement in Texas (Houston: ACLU of
TX, 2015).
c
The American Bar Association defines “segregated housing” as “housing of a prisoner in conditions characterized by substantial isolation from other prisoners, whether pursuant to disciplinary, administrative, or classification action.” See American Bar
Association, ABA Standards for Criminal Justice Treatment of Prisoners (Washington, DC: ABA, 2010), § 23-1.0.

a

There are indications that the use of segregated housing has grown substantially in recent years (perhaps as much as by 42 percent between 1995 and
2005), yet the precise number of people held in segregated housing on any given day is not known with any certainty.1 Estimates range from 25,000 (which
includes only those held in supermax facilities) to 80,000 (which includes
those held in some form of segregated housing in all state and federal prisons).2
None of these estimates include people held in segregated housing in jails,
military facilities, immigration detention centers, or juvenile justice facilities in
the United States. Based on research conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice
(Vera) and others, the percentage of a state’s prison system’s daily population
that is held in segregated housing ranges from five to eight percent, while more
recent research found that, in November 2013, the Federal Bureau of Prisons—
the largest prison system within the United States—held five percent of its
prisoners in segregated housing units.3 Moreover, because these estimates are
only one-day snapshots, they most likely underestimate the total number of
people subjected to one or more periods in segregated housing over the course
of their incarceration.
Against this backdrop, evidence mounts that segregated housing produces
many unwanted and harmful outcomes—for the mental and physical health
of those placed in isolation, for the public safety of the communities to which
most will return, and for the corrections budgets of jurisdictions that rely on
the practice for facility safety. As these negative impacts have come to light,
concern about its overuse has grown. The severe conditions to which people in
segregated housing are subjected are now regularly exposed by mainstream
journalists.4 Incarcerated people who participate in hunger strikes against its
use, such as those at Pelican Bay state prison in California in 2013, receive sympathetic national attention.5 And in response to the shift in public opinion, local,

6

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

RESEARCH AND DATA LIMITATIONS
A full appreciation of the prevalence and impact of segregated housing in the United States is not
yet within our grasp because up-to-date and reliable national data on the number of people held in
segregated housing do not exist. While many individual jurisdictions can report accurately the number of incarcerated people they hold in segregated housing, comparing and aggregating this information across jurisdictions is highly problematic as the nomenclature used to describe segregated
housing varies widely from state to state and there are no national standards for reconciling these
differences.a For example, the terms “administrative segregation,” “supermax,” and “administrative
separation” are used interchangeably, and housing conditions defined as supermax in some states
are classified differently in others. For example, in one state, such conditions are formally termed
“high-security control.”b In addition, differences in the criteria for admission to, and release from,
segregated housing further confound efforts to compare the use of segregated housing between
jurisdictions. Not only do these vary from state to state, they can change significantly even within
jurisdictions from year to year.c
The most recent and comprehensive prison census data, published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2008, concern people incarcerated in 1,821 state and federal facilities in 2005.d However,
the number of people reported to be in segregated housing is questionable because the census
form used to collect the data did not supply definitions for many of the key terms used by jurisdictions to classify those held in segregated housing. More than 100 facilities indicated that they either
did not have people in segregated housing or simply did not answer the question. Moreover, many
states failed to match the total number of people in segregated housing with the sum of the segregated sub-types provided (e.g., punitive segregation, death row, protective custody). Researchers
encountered similar challenges in a review of supermax custody.e For example, they discovered that
some jurisdictions changed the way in which they counted supermax prisoners over time with some
states inconsistently including or excluding people in administrative segregation and protective custody in their count of supermax prisoners. And even more confusingly, some states reported having
supermax prisoners but no supermax housing, and vice versa.
Given these challenges and the prevalence of outdated data systems among corrections departments, it should come as no surprise that nearly 12 percent of the total number of people held in
segregated housing reported in the 2005 census is an estimate. Until jurisdictions are compelled to
create robust reporting systems, with nationally accepted definitions and measures, accurate data
on segregated housing practices in the United States will remain elusive.
For example, such a count was recently done of the federal prison system by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. That
count found that from 2008 through 2013, the number of people in restricted housing units in federal prisons grew by 17 percent (almost triple the six percent rise in the total prison population for that same period). See U.S. Government Accountability
Office, Bureau of Prisons: Improvements Needed in Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring and Evaluation of the Impact of Segregated
Housing (Washington, DC: GAO, 2013).
b
H. Daniel Butler, O. Hayden Griffin III, and W. Wesley Johnson, “What Makes You the ‘Worst of the Worst?’ An Examination of
State Policies Defining Supermax Confinement,” Criminal Justice Policy Review 24, no. 6 (2012): 676-694; and Alexandra Naday,
Joshua D. Freilich, and Jeff Mellow, “The Elusive Data on Supermax Confinement,” The Prison Journal 88, no. 1 (2008): 69-93.
c
Jesenia M. Pizarro and Raymund E. Narag, “Supermax Prisons: What We Know, What We Do Not Know, and Where We Are
Going,” The Prison Journal 88, no. 1 (2008): 23-42; Butler and Griffin, 2013, pp. 676-694.
d
United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Census of State and Federal
Adult Correctional Facilities, 2005 (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor],
2010).
e
Alexandra Naday, Joshua D. Freilich, and Jeff Mellow, 2008, pp. 69-93.
a

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

7

state, and federal policymakers are turning their attention to the overuse of
segregated housing by the nation’s prisons and jails. A subcommittee of the U.S.
Senate Judiciary Committee held a series of hearings in 2012 and 2014 focused
on reassessing the use of solitary confinement.6 In 2014, 10 states announced or
implemented policy changes to reduce the number of adults or juveniles held
in segregated housing, improve the conditions in segregation units, or facilitate
the return of segregated people to a prison’s general population.7 Some, like
Colorado, passed legislation that removed entire classes of people—for example,
those with serious mental illnesses—from being housed in long-term segregation.8 And, most recently, New York City’s Department of Correction made the
historic decision to ban the use of segregated housing for all those in its custody
21 years old and younger.9
Despite increased attention to the issue, many people—policymakers, corrections officials, and members of the public—still hold misconceptions about and
misguided justifications for the use of segregated housing. This report aims to
dispel the most common of these misconceptions and highlight some of the
promising alternatives that are resulting in fewer people in segregated housing.

MISCONCEPTION #1

Conditions in segregated
housing are stark but not
inhumane
“…[I]t’s anything but quiet. You’re immersed in a drone of garbled noise—other
inmates’ blaring TVs, distant conversations, shouted arguments. I couldn’t make
sense of any of it, and was left feeling twitchy and paranoid. I kept waiting for
the lights to turn off, to signal the end of the day. But the lights did not shut
off. I began to count the small holes carved in the walls. Tiny grooves made by
inmates who’d chipped away at the cell as the cell chipped away at them.”10
This is solitary confinement, described not by an incarcerated person or an
advocate but by Rick Raemisch, director of the Colorado Department of Corrections. Charged by the governor with reforming the use of segregated housing
by the state’s prison system, Director Raemisch decided he needed to experience it firsthand.
When an incarcerated person is placed in segregated housing, he or she is
confined to a cell (either alone or with a cellmate) for 22 to 24 hours a day. 11 The
cell is typically six by eight feet, smaller than a standard parking space. It is furnished with a metal toilet, sink, and bed platform. Reading materials are either
strictly limited or prohibited altogether. Natural sunlight in the cell is limited to
a very small window or does not exist at all, and fluorescent bulbs light the cell,
often throughout the night.12 Recreation is limited to one hour a day, five days
per week, which is taken alone in a cage outdoors or an indoor area (sometimes
with a barred top).13 Every time the incarcerated person is taken out of solitary

8

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

...[I]t’s anything but quiet. You’re
immersed in a drone of garbled noise—

other inmates’ blaring TVs,
distant conversations, shouted
arguments.
I couldn’t make sense of any of it, and was

left feeling twitchy and
paranoid. I kept waiting for the lights to turn off, to
signal the end of the day.

But

the lights did not shut off.

I began to count the small holes carved in the walls.
Tiny grooves made by inmates who’d chipped away
at the cell as the cell
chipped away at them.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

9

confinement and returned to it, he or she is strip-searched.14 Interactions with
people (other than a cellmate, if double celled) are brief and infrequent. Officers
deliver meal trays through a slot in the door; there are only occasional meetings with healthcare practitioners, counselors, or attorneys; and visitation with
family may be restricted or prohibited. Any meetings or visits, when they do
occur, are almost always conducted through the cell door or conducted by video,
speaker, or telephone through a thick glass window.15 When an in-person visitation is permitted, the incarcerated person is placed in restraints and separated
from the visitor by a partition.
Although this is how most incarcerated people experience segregated housing, it need not be this restrictive. Some jurisdictions are experimenting with
making conditions more humane and less solitary. For example, Colorado now
requires that incarcerated people held in its Management Control Unit receive
four hours of time outside their cell each day.16 New York State, as part of a legal
settlement, gives 16- and 17-year-olds in segregated housing at least five hours
of exercise and programming outside of their cells five days per week.17 Maine
requires that incarcerated people in segregated housing receive group recreation, counseling sessions, and opportunities to increase privileges through good
behavior, as well as greater access to radios, televisions, and reading materials.18
Some jurisdictions have developed different levels of segregated housing,
including “step-down” incentive programs that are structured in progressive
phases that provide increasing privileges—such as more time out of the cell,

IS SOLITARY CONFINEMENT TORTURE?
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects individuals from “cruel and
unusual punishment.”a Although the United States Supreme Court has affirmed that solitary confinement is a form of punishment subject to scrutiny under Eighth Amendment standards, most
federal courts have been unreceptive to limiting its use.b This may be, in part, because in order
to demonstrate an Eighth Amendment violation, an incarcerated person must satisfy a particularly
onerous two-part test: first, his or her alleged suffering must be reasonably serious; and second,
prison officials must have acted with “deliberate indifference to the prisoner’s health and safety”—
where “deliberate indifference” is only proved if it is shown that prison officials “kn[e]w that inmates
face[d] a substantial risk of serious harm,” but “fail[ed] to take reasonable measures to abate it.”c
As a result, successful Eighth Amendment claims regarding prison conditions have usually involved
the direct action or inaction of prison officials, including medical indifference, failure to protect, and
excessive use of force, rather than an overall challenge to general penal practices, such as solitary
confinement.d Indeed, only a few federal courts have held that certain segregation practices—those
narrowly limited to the isolation of incarcerated people with serious pre-existing mental illness or
those prone to suffer severe mental injury—violate the Eighth Amendment.f
The reluctance by federal courts to outlaw solitary confinement is in direct contrast to international human rights standards. For example, the United Nations General Assembly, through the Basic
Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted in 1990, encourages governments to undertake
efforts to abolish or restrict the use of solitary confinement as a punishment. The European Prison

10

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

Rules limit the use of solitary confinement to only exceptional cases and for short periods of time.
And the Committee Against Torture, the official body established pursuant to the United Nations’
Convention Against Torture, consistently recommends that the practice be abolished altogether.g
On an international level, specific reasons are given for why solitary confinement is considered inhumane and degrading. For example, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT)—the monitoring body formed out of the
European Convention for the Prevention of Torture—has criticized the physical and psychological effects of lengthy solitary confinement on incarcerated people—including increased suicidal
thoughts, “fatigue, insomnia, loss of appetite, nausea, headaches, crying fits and bouts of depression becoming more acute in solitary confinement…[as well as] distress upon not being allowed
contacts with families and friends….”h The CPT has also critiqued procedural weaknesses—such as
the lack of laws and regulations governing the use of solitary confinement—and noted the risk of
permanent damage to incarcerated people due to the absence of appropriate mental and physical
stimulation in prolonged isolation.i The European Court of Human Rights too has emphasized that
the long-term dangers inherent in social and sensory isolation can make solitary confinement inhuman or degrading and, in certain circumstances, could amount to torture.j The Inter-American Court
of Human Rights is even more categorical, stating that “prolonged isolation and coercive solitary
confinement are, in themselves, cruel and inhuman treatments, damaging to the person’s psychic
and moral integrity, and.[…]the dignity inherent to the human person.”k
The Eighth Amendment states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” U.S. Constitution, Amendment VIII.
b
Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 685 (1978); and Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976).
c
Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 847 (1994).
d
Christine Rebman, “The Eighth Amendment and Solitary Confinement: The Gap in Protection from Psychological Consequences,” DePaul Law Review, 49, no. 2 (1999): 595.
e
Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 685 (1978).
f
See Jones ‘El v. Berge, 164 F. Supp. 2d 1096 (W.D. Wis. 2001); Ruiz v. Johnson, 37 F. Supp. 2d 855 (S.D. Texas 1999), reversed
on other grounds, 243 F.3d 941 (5th Circuit 2001), adhered to on remand, 154 F. Supp. 2d 975 (S.D. Texas 2001); Madrid v.
Gomez, 889 F. Supp. 1146 (N.D. Cal. 1995). Notably, in 2013, the Department of Justice notified a governor for the first time
ever—the Governor of Pennsylvania—that the manner in which a state uses isolation with prisoners with serious mental illness
violates the Eighth Amendment, see Letter from Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of
Justice, Civil Rights Division, to Tom Corbett, Governor of Pennsylvania (May 31, 2013).
g
Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, General Assembly Resolution 45/111, U.N. Doc. A/45/49 (1990), Principle 7;
Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, Recommendation No. Rec (2006)(2) (January 11, 2006); Convention Against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, General Assembly Resolution 46, at 197, U.N. GAOR, 39th
Sess., Supp; U.N. Comm. Against Torture, Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 19 of the Convention: Denmark, ¶ 14, U.N. Doc. CAT/C/DNK/CO/5 (July 16, 2007); U.N. Comm. Against Torture, Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 19 of the Convention: Luxembourg, ¶ 6, CAT/C/CR/28/2 (June 12, 2002); U.N. Comm.
Against Torture, Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 19 of the Convention: Norway, ¶ 156, U.N.
Doc. CAT/A/53/44 (May 6, 1998); and U.N. Comm. Against Torture, Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under
Article 19 of the Convention: Sweden, ¶ 225, U.N. Doc. CAT/A/52/44 (May 6, 1997).
h
See European Commission for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 2nd General
Report on the CPT’s Activities Covering the Period 1 January to 31 December 1991, CPT/Inf (92) 3 [EN] (April 13, 1992), ¶ 56;
see also European Commission for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), The
CPT Standards: “Substantive” Sections of the CPT’s General Reports, CPT/Inf/E (2002) 1; Ramirez Sanchez v. France, App. No.
59450/00, 45 Eur. H.R. Rep. 49, ¶ 83 (2007); and CPT Norway Report, CPT/Inf (97) 11 [EN] (September 5, 1997).
i
See for example, CPT 21st General Report, CPT/Inf (2011) 28 (November 10, 2011).
j
See for example, Ensslin, Baader, and Raspe v. Federal Republic of Germany, App. No. 7572/76, 14 D.R. 91 (1978); Krocher
& Miller v. Switzerland, App. No. 8463/78, 26 Eur. Comm’n H.R. Dec. & Rep 52 (1982); Ocalan v. Turkey, 41 Eur. Ct. H.R. 45
(2005); Ilascu v. Moldova, 40 Eur. Ct. H.R. 46 (2004). See also Iorgov v. Bulgaria, 40 Eur. Ct. H.R. Rep., 7, 22 (2005) (people in
isolation with little social contact must be provided with appropriate mental and physical stimulation to prevent their long term
deterioration).
k
Case of the Miguel Castro-Castro Prison v. Peru, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 160, ¶ 323 (Nov. 25, 2006); see also Velasquez
Rodriguez Case, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 4, 9 ¶ 156 (1988) (finding that “prolonged isolation and deprivation of communication are in themselves cruel and inhuman treatment”).
a

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

11

the opportunity to participate in group activities, television in the cell, and
additional reading materials—for sustained compliance to facility rules. Pennsylvania, Washington, and New Mexico have all created step-down programs
for gang members held in segregated housing.19 Washington has an Intensive
Transition Program for incarcerated people with chronic behavior problems
who are frequently placed in segregated housing, in which they move through a
curriculum in stages, progressively learning self-control and gradually engaging
in opportunities to socialize until they are ready to return to the prison’s general
population.20 Michigan operates an Incentives in Segregation pilot project, in
which incarcerated people work through six stages (each stage requiring different tasks and bestowing additional privileges) over several months.21 The Virginia Department of Corrections has developed a successful step-down program
for incarcerated people in administrative segregation that uses evidence-based
practices first developed in the community corrections setting. Since 2011, the
program has reduced the number of incarcerated people in administrative segregation by 53 percent and the number of prison incidents by 56 percent.22

MISCONCEPTION #2

Segregated housing is reserved
only for the most violent
It is still widely believed that the incarcerated people who end up in segregated
housing are the worst of the worst, the most feared, the incorrigibly dangerous. However, several studies have revealed that a significant proportion of the
segregated population is placed there for being neither violent nor dangerous.
Many are there not as punishment for actually engaging in violence; rather
they are there because they have been categorized as potentially dangerous or
violent—often because prison officials have identified them as gang members.23
This type of segregation, based on identification rather than individual activity,
is referred to as administrative segregation.24
Segregated housing is not only used to anticipate or react to dangerous or
disruptive behavior, it is also used for incarcerated people in protective custody
who prison officials believe will be unsafe in the general population. They may
be at risk for reasons of mental illness (or other special needs, such as developmental disability), age (such as young people under the age of 18 tried, convicted, and sentenced as adults), former gang or law enforcement affiliation, sexual
vulnerability or gender nonconformity, or other reasons, including temporary
confinement of someone who has been victimized in general population
pending an investigation of the incident.25 Individuals may even request to be
removed from the general population. Although these incarcerated people are
separated for their own safety, they are subject to the same restrictive conditions as others in segregation.
The most commonly understood justification for segregation is as punishment for a violation of a prison rule. While this practice, known as disciplinary

12

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

...disruptive behavior— such as
talking back,
being out of place,
failure to obey an order,
failing to report to work or school, or
refusing to change housing units or cells—

frequently lands incarcerated
people in
disciplinary segregation.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

13

segregation, is used as a response to behavior that is violent or dangerous, Vera’s
experience in the field has shown that disruptive behavior—such as talking
back, being out of place, failure to obey an order, failing to report to work or
school, or refusing to change housing units or cells— frequently lands incarcerated people in disciplinary segregation.26 In some jurisdictions, these “nuisance
prisoners” constitute the majority of the people in disciplinary segregation.27
Before collaborating with Vera, Illinois found that more than 85 percent of the
people released from disciplinary segregation during a one-year period had
been sent there for relatively minor infractions, such as not standing for a count
and using abusive language.28 In Pennsylvania, the most common violation associated with a sentence to segregated housing was “failure to obey an order,”
with 85 percent of those written up for this type of violation sent there.29 In
2013, an incarcerated person in South Carolina received a penalty of more than
37 years in solitary confinement for posting on Facebook on 38 different days.30
Piper Kerman, who was incarcerated in a federal prison and is the author of the
memoir Orange is the New Black, reported to the United States Senate Judiciary
Committee in 2014 that she saw many women sent to solitary confinement for
at least 30 days for minor infractions such as moving around a housing unit
during a count, refusing an order from a corrections officer, and possession of
low-level contraband such as small amounts of cash or underwear other than
that issued by the prison.31

MISCONCEPTION #3

Segregated housing is used only
as a last resort
Although many jurisdictions have a list of alternative sanctions that can be
used to discipline incarcerated people who are unruly or difficult to manage,
the reality is that far too many turn to segregated housing as the first response
to bad behavior. This is in stark contrast to the system used in certain European countries, where corrections officers are trained to impose disciplinary
measures that are relative and proportionate to the disruptive behavior. Dutch
and German prison officials use sanctions such as reprimands, restrictions on
money and property, and restrictions on movement or leisure activities. Care
is taken to relate the sanction to the alleged infraction.32 In these countries,
solitary confinement is used rarely and only for very brief periods of time. For
example, an adult male prison in Germany reported using segregation just two
or three times in 2012, and another German prison for young adults had utilized
its segregation cell twice between 2008 and 2012, and only for a few hours each
time.33
One of the most basic measures that a prison can take to ensure that disciplinary segregation is reserved for those who truly pose a risk to the safety of
staff and other incarcerated people is to prohibit its use as a punishment for
less serious violations. For instance, Pennsylvania no longer sends anyone to

14

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

segregated housing as a sanction for the least serious violations, such as taking
unauthorized food from the dining hall and unexcused absences from work,
school, or mandatory programs.34 The Illinois Department of Corrections also
prohibits the use of segregated housing as a response to certain disciplinary
violations.35 And corrections officials in Maine use a range of less severe restrictions, such as limiting work opportunities, in response to minor infractions.36
Some states use structured sanction grids to provide corrections officers with
guidance on the appropriate and proportionate punishment for particular
behaviors. The sanction grids articulate when less restrictive sanctions (such as
mediation or anger management classes, withholding access to the commissary, removing TV privileges, restricting visitation rights, making the prisoner
responsible for the costs of damaged property, and assigning the prisoner to an
undesirable work shift) may be used, and when more serious sanctions, such as
revocation of good time credit and segregation, are appropriate.37

MISCONCEPTION #4

The

sanctions grid
in use by the Washington
Department of Corrections
can be downloaded
at www.vera.org/
solitary-confinementmisconceptions-safealternatives.

Segregated housing is used only
for brief periods of time
As a matter of policy within the federal prison system and in at least 19 states,
corrections officials are permitted to hold people in segregated housing indefinitely.38 While placement in administrative segregation can, with some level
of periodic review, be open-ended, a term in disciplinary segregation is almost
always a defined period of time.39 Notably, if a term in disciplinary segregation
is thought to be too brief, corrections officials can easily “move” incarcerated
people from “short-term” disciplinary segregation to long-term administrative
segregation by the simple process of reclassification.40
After Colorado Department of Corrections Director Rick Raemisch spent 20
hours in a cell in segregated housing, he reported that it was “practically a
blink” in comparison to the experience of incarcerated people in Colorado who,
at the time, spent an average of 23 months in segregation, with many spending
multiple years.41 In 2009, the average length of stay at the Illinois supermax
facility, since closed, was more than 6 years; in 2011, the average length of stay
in Washington’s intensive management unit was 11 months; and in Texas, the
average amount of time in administrative segregation is almost four years.42
Vera begins its work with a jurisdiction by conducting a comprehensive
analysis of administrative data in order to understand how the jurisdiction is
actually using segregated housing. Vera’s inquiry encompasses areas that, due
to the data limitations addressed above (see “Research and Data Limitations” on
page 7), are not typically examined by corrections systems. The findings from
these analyses often surprise corrections officials, who overwhelmingly agree
that no one should stay in segregation any longer than necessary to achieve
the original safety and disciplinary goals underlying the placement. However,
Vera’s review of the data regularly shows that incarcerated people who are

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

15

Average lengths of stay
prior to reforms
WASHINGTON

2011: more than

11 months

ILLINOIS

COLORADO

23 months

2014:
...with many spending

multiple years.

2009: more than

6 years

TEXAS

2013: almost

4 years

16

not violent or overly disruptive stay in segregated housing for long periods of
time, ranging from months to years and even decades. These findings have led
some jurisdictions to implement reforms designed to reduce the likelihood of a
person staying in segregated housing for periods of time incongruent with the
behavior leading to the placement. For example, the Washington Department
of Corrections reduced the amount of time an incarcerated person can be held
in administrative segregation from 60 to 47 days, absent direct approval from
the Deputy Director.43
To ensure that no one remains in segregated housing for indefinite or very
long periods of time, some states mandate frequent reviews and assessments.44
Those who are reclassified or are no longer deemed dangerous can be transferred to less restrictive housing units. In Colorado and Pennsylvania, for
example, multi-disciplinary committees review segregated housing placements, making it more likely that they are appropriate and objective.45 In Pennsylvania, those sentenced to disciplinary segregation may be released upon
completion of one-half of the imposed sanction and a review of the Program
Review Committee.46 In California, after changing its segregated housing placement criteria, the state conducted case-by-case reviews of all people held in segregation that resulted in many being transferred to less restricted housing.47
Another method of reducing the amount of time someone spends in segregated housing is to implement a system of incentives that allows an incarcerated person to earn his or her way out earlier than the imposed term. This strategy is informed by research that has demonstrated that positive reinforcement
of pro-social behavior increases the chances of that behavior being repeated
in the future.48 To this end, several states have devised programs designed to
target behavior issues.49 Some states provide programming for certain incarcerated people, such as gang members with histories of violence, who would otherwise face long-term administrative segregation. Washington instituted the
Motivating Offender Change program, which focuses on gang-affiliated people
in its maximum custody units. It provides opportunities to learn and practice
cognitive-behavioral skills to help reduce violent behavior. Successful graduates

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

of the program are transferred to a lower custody environment within the general prison population.50

MISCONCEPTION #5

The harmful effects of
segregated housing are
overstated and not well
understood
Despite the long-established consensus among researchers that solitary confinement damages, often irreparably, those who experience it for even brief periods of time, its continued use in prisons and jails in the United States implies
that many jurisdictions and correctional officials are unaware of or minimize
the importance of this body of evidence. According to one report, “[n]early every
scientific inquiry into the effects of solitary confinement over the past 150 years
has concluded that subjecting an individual to more than 10 days of involuntary
segregation results in a distinct set of emotional, cognitive, social, and physical
pathologies.”51 The characteristics that define segregated housing—social isolation, reduced environmental stimulation, and loss of control over all aspects
of daily life—create a “potent mix” that produces a litany of negative impacts,
including: hypersensitivity to stimuli, distortions and hallucinations, increased
anxiety and nervousness, diminished impulse control, severe and chronic
depression, appetite loss and weight loss, heart palpitations, talking to oneself,
problems sleeping, nightmares, self-mutilation, difficulties with thinking, concentration, and memory, and lower levels of brain function, including a decline
in EEG activity after only seven days in segregation.52 Upon release from segregated housing, these psychological effects have the potential to undermine
significantly an incarcerated person’s adjustment back in the prison’s general
population or the community to which he or she returns.53
The harmful effects are compounded for people with mental illness, who
make up one-third to one-half of all incarcerated people in segregated housing.54 The conditions of segregated housing can exacerbate a preexisting condition or prompt a reoccurrence. As one psychiatric expert explained, “Prisoners
who are prone to depression and have had past depressive episodes will become very depressed in isolated confinement. People who are prone to suicide
ideation and attempts will become more suicidal in that setting. People who
are prone to disorders of mood…will become that and will have a breakdown
in that direction. And people who are psychotic in any way…will have another
breakdown.”55
Suicide rates and incidents of self-harm (such as banging one’s head against
the cell wall) are much higher for people in segregation than those in the
general prison population.56 For example, in California, where an estimated five

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

17

percent of the prisoners are placed in segregated housing, 69 percent of the
suicides in 2006 occurred in those units.57 In Texas, incarcerated people in segregation are five times more likely to commit suicide than those in the general
population.58 In New York, between 1993 and 2003, suicide rates were five times
higher among incarcerated people in segregation than among those in the
general prison population.59
Several states are revising their segregation policies in light of the harm it
poses to vulnerable populations, especially those with mental illness. To settle
a lawsuit that charged Pennsylvania with violating the constitutional rights of
incarcerated people with serious mental illnesses by keeping them in solitary
confinement without access to treatment, the state agreed in January 2015 to
keep them out of non-therapeutic segregated housing and to improve their
care.60 In Colorado, a law enacted in 2014 requires the removal from long-term
segregated housing of all incarcerated people with serious mental illness.61
Washington created a Reintegration and Progression Program that targets
incarcerated people with mental health issues, especially those who engage in
chronic self-injurious behavior. The program addresses maladaptive thought
and behavior patterns and teaches enhanced coping skills to gradually integrate them into a lower level of custody.62

MISCONCEPTION #6

Segregated housing helps keep
prisons and jails safer
The most widely accepted and cited reason for using segregated housing is to
ensure safety, order, and control within a prison.63 Some prison officials believe
that the mere existence of segregated housing controls the amount and seriousness of violence within their facilities (both among prisoners and between
officers and prisoners).64 However, there is little evidence to support the claim
that segregated housing increases facility safety or that its absence would increase in-prison violence.65 One study found no relationship between the opening of supermax prisons and the aggregate levels of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in three prison systems (Illinois, Arizona, and Minnesota).66 With respect
to the impact on the number of prisoner-on-staff assaults after the opening of
supermax facilities, although the number of staff assaults dropped in Illinois,
staff injuries from prisoner assaults temporarily increased in Arizona, and there
was no effect in Minnesota on the incidents of violence directed toward staff.67
While corrections administrators and officers remain concerned that a decrease in the use of segregated housing will endanger both incarcerated people
and staff, the fear may be unsubstantiated. Colorado has decreased its use of
segregated housing by 85 percent and prisoner-on-staff assaults are the lowest
they have been since 2006.68 Colorado decreased its use of segregated housing
by narrowing the criteria for placement and reducing the length of stay, which
included a step-down program that allows those with compliant behavior to be

18

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

People who are prone to suicide ideation...will become

more suicidal...People who are
psychotic in any way…will have another 		
breakdown.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

19

released to the general population.69 Other states (for example, Illinois, Maine,
New Mexico, and Washington) have also reduced their use of segregated housing and increased the use of alternative strategies.70 Although it is too soon to
fully assess outcomes in these states, evidence to date suggests there has been
little or no increase in violence.71

MISCONCEPTION #7

Segregated housing deters
misbehavior and violence
Many prison officials support the use of segregated housing for managing disruptive and violent behavior because they believe that it has both a general and
individual deterrent effect on misbehavior.72 However, empirical and anecdotal
evidence suggests that segregated housing may have little influence on improving the behavior of incarcerated people.
Studies have contrasted “control-oriented” prisons, which rely on formal
sanctions like segregated housing, with others that are “responsibility-based,”
which provide incarcerated people with self-governance opportunities, or
“consensual,” which incorporate features of both the control-oriented and
responsibility-based models of prison management.73 Researchers tested the
relationship between these approaches and prison order and found that prisons that employed a responsibility-based or consensual management model
experienced lower levels of minor and serious disorder than prisons that were
more control oriented.74 Moreover, there is no evidence that confinement in a
supermax facility produces a deterrent effect on the individual.75 A recent study
found that exposure to short-term disciplinary segregation as a punishment
for initial violence did not deter incarcerated people from committing further
violence in prison.76
Some theoretical models describe the behavior of incarcerated people as a
reaction to the strains, frustrations, and pains of imprisonment combined with
little access to mitigating factors.77 Subjecting incarcerated people to the severe
conditions of segregated housing and treating them as the “worst of the worst”
can lead them to become more, not less, violent.78
Rather than rely on segregated housing to deter misbehavior, some prison
systems are providing incarcerated people who are most likely to misbehave
with special programming. For example, Washington has an Intensive Transition Program for incarcerated people with chronic behavior problems who are
frequently placed in segregated housing, in which they move through a curriculum in stages, progressively learning self-control and gradually engaging in
opportunities to socialize until they are ready to return to the prison’s general
population.79 Pennsylvania is in the process of implementing Behavior Modification Units with a similar focus.80

20

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

exposure to
short-term disciplinary segregation
as a punishment for initial violence
did not deter
A recent study found that

incarcerated people from committing further violence in prison.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

21

MISCONCEPTION #8

Segregated housing is the only
way to protect the vulnerable
Some people in segregated housing are not violent and do not misbehave but
require or request protection from the general population. These include incarcerated people who suffer from mental illness, have developmental or intellectual disabilities, are vulnerable because of their sexuality (e.g., they are lesbian,
gay, bisexual, or transgender), may be retaliated against by other prisoners
(e.g., they are former gang members or have testified against someone in the
facility), committed sex offenses against children, or are former law enforcement officers or public officials. Many prison officials believe these vulnerable
incarcerated people can only be kept safe by placing them in segregated housing with conditions as restrictive as those imposed on people who commit the
most violent and dangerous acts.
Some jurisdictions are taking a different approach. Rather than isolating
those at risk of victimization, they are creating specialized units, which house
vulnerable incarcerated people together and provide privileges and programs
that are similar to those available in the general population units.81 In Washington state, for example, the Skill Building Unit houses incarcerated people with
developmental and intellectual disabilities in a general population setting that
is dedicated to meeting their needs.82 The unit provides out-of-cell programming, including daily opportunities to interact with each other and staff during
meals and recreation in the dayroom. Unit residents also participate in supported work and other activities to help them function more independently while
in prison and upon release. Corrections officers assigned to the unit are trained
how to respond appropriately to people with special needs and help them live
healthy and safe lives.83 The Washington Department of Corrections reports
that the unit has resulted in safer living conditions for these incarcerated people and safer working conditions for corrections staff.84
Still other jurisdictions have reformed or are in the process of reforming their
use of segregated housing for certain types of vulnerable incarcerated people:
Pennsylvania now sends those with significant mental illness, who formerly
would have been placed in disciplinary or administrative segregation, to therapeutic units; New York State banned the use of segregated housing to discipline
pregnant women or any incarcerated person under the age of 18; in California,
a federal judge has ordered the state to find more suitable housing for physically disabled prisoners; and New York City has pledged to eliminate the use of
segregated housing for all incarcerated people aged 21 years old and younger.85
Alaska and Maine have also enacted laws that ban the use of segregated housing for juveniles for punitive reasons.86

22

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

Rather than isolating those at risk of victimization,

[some jurisdictions] are creating
specialized units,

and
provide privileges and programs

which house vulnerable incarcerated people together

that are similar to those available in the general population units.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

23

MISCONCEPTION #9

Safe alternatives to segregated
housing are expensive
A common objection among corrections officials to reducing the use of segregation is that few safe alternatives exist and they are too costly to implement.
However, growing concern among policymakers and the public about overincarceration in the United States has put the use of segregated housing under
particular scrutiny, and for good reason: segregated housing harms those subject to it, produces little, if any, improvement in public and prison safety, and is
much more expensive than less restrictive housing. The significant fiscal costs
associated with building and operating segregated housing units and facilities
are due to the reliance on single-cell confinement, enhanced surveillance and
security technology, and the need for more corrections staff (to handle escorts,
increased searches, and individualized services).87 For example, in 2013, the
estimated daily cost per inmate at the federal administrative maximum (supermax) facility was $216.12 compared to $85.74 to house people in the general
prison population.88 In 2003, the daily per capita costs of operating a supermax
prison in Ohio were estimated at two-to-three times that of regular security
units—$149 per day compared to $63 per day, with one corrections officer for
every 1.7 prisoners in supermax compared to one for every 2.5 in less restricted
housing.89
Many of the policy and practice changes undertaken by jurisdictions to
reduce their reliance on segregated housing described in this report cost little
to implement. Time and patience are required, but not necessarily an enhanced
budget. In addition, many of the alternative programs, such as reentry programming and integrated housing units, may only require extending programs that
already exist, which would save on start-up costs. Finally, by safely decreasing
the number of incarcerated people held in segregated housing, jurisdictions
may be able not only to close expensive segregation units and supermax prisons, but free up the staff and other resources needed to pursue evidence-based
programming that will help many more incarcerated people return successfully
to their communities.

24

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

cost per inmate at the
federal supermax
facility was $216.12 compared to
$85.74 to house people in the
general prison population.
In 2013, the daily

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

25

MISCONCEPTION #10

Incarcerated people are
rarely released directly to the
community from segregated
housing
While national data are not available, jurisdictions often hold people in segregated housing until they complete their sentences, releasing them directly
to the community. Between 1987 and 2007, California released an estimated
900 incarcerated people each year directly to the community from its secure
housing units; in 2013, Texas released more than 1,200 incarcerated people in
this way.90 Releasing people directly from segregated housing into the community sets them up for failure—and endangers the safety and well-being of
the communities to which they return—because in segregated housing, people
more often than not receive no reentry planning services or rehabilitative programming, such as substance abuse counseling or classes related to life skills or
anger management.
Moreover, data from some states suggest that recidivism rates for incarcerated people who have been held in segregated housing, regardless of whether
they are released directly to the community, is significantly higher than for
those who have not spent time in segregated housing while in prison. A 2001
review of recidivism data in Connecticut found that 92 percent of those who
had been held in administrative segregation were rearrested within three
years, compared to 66 percent of incarcerated people who had not been held in
administrative segregation.91 Another study found that confinement in supermax housing is associated with an increased risk of violent reoffending.92 In
Colorado, the recidivism rate for those who had been held in administrative segregation was between 60 and 66 percent, while the recidivism rate for those in
general population was 50 percent.93
While the research is mixed, there is at least one study that shows the likelihood of reoffending by those who have been held in segregated housing may
be reduced by returning them to the general prison population for as brief a
period as three months before they are released to the community.94 In Colorado, all people leaving restrictive housing (formerly called administrative segregation) spend up to 180 days in a transition unit where they receive cognitive
behavioral programming and spend six hours a day outside of their cell before
they return to the general prison population or to their communities.95 Other
jurisdictions have introduced reentry programming to those in segregated
housing, primarily aimed at helping them re-socialize and get accustomed to
interacting with other people. New Mexico created a Re-Entry and Release Unit
for people in segregated housing who are within 180 days of release where

26

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

...the typical circumstances and conditions of segregated

damage, sometimes irreparably,
the people thus confined
and the communities
housing...

to which they return—
and

fail to make prisons and
jails any safer...

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

27

they participate in education and behavioral health programming, are not in
restraints during group education activities, and move freely amongst other
incarcerated people in recreation areas.96

Conclusion
Segregated housing remains a mainstay of prison management and control in
U.S. prisons and jails largely because many jurisdictions still subscribe to some
or all of the common misconceptions laid out in this report. Few in American
corrections would dispute that its use may be unavoidable from time to time
and for very brief periods to manage incarcerated people who have committed
especially violent or dangerous acts. However, increasingly, policymakers, corrections officials, and the general public are justifiably questioning the human
and societal toll of its widespread use. A large body of evidence has now well
established that the typical circumstances and conditions of segregated housing—the deprivation of regular social intercourse and interaction, the removal
of the rudimentary sights and sounds of life, and the severe restrictions on such
basic human activities as eating, showering, or recreating—damage, sometimes
irreparably, the people thus confined and the communities to which they return. And they fail to make prisons and jails any safer for those incarcerated or
for the people who work in them.
Much of this research affirms the objections expressed by the United States
Supreme Court 125 years ago in its landmark case of In re Medley. The court
declared that solitary confinement is not “a mere unimportant regulation as to
the safe-keeping of the prisoner.…[A] considerable number of the prisoners…
f[a]ll, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition…[while]
others bec[o]me violently insane; others still, [commit] suicide; while those who
st[an]d the ordeal better [are] not generally reformed, and in most cases d[o]
not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the
community.”97
Whether prompted by the public’s growing appetite for broad criminal justice
reform or compelled by court orders, some jurisdictions are making progress. But
much more remains to be done. Every effort must involve the implementation
of policies and practices that effectively ban the use of segregated housing as an
emergency response to minor rule infractions and as the default placement for
those in need of protection—such as incarcerated people with serious mental
illness, physical disabilities, or who are at risk of sexual victimization or violent
retaliation. Not only will safe alternatives to segregated housing improve overall
conditions in prisons and jails, but they will help build the foundation all incarcerated people need to return successfully to their communities.

28

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

29

ENDNOTES
1	

Percent increase calculation done by Vera Institute of Justice
researchers as part of its Segregation Reduction Project, based on data
from the 1995 and 2005 Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional
Facilities. For an estimate of the number of people in segregated
housing in 1995, see U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities,
1995 [Computer file]. Conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census. ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university
Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor],
1998. Doi:10.3886/ICPSR06953.v1. For an estimate of the number of
people in segregated housing in 2005, see United States Department of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Census
of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities, 2005. ICPSR24642-v2.
Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social
Research [distributor], 2010-10-05. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24642.
v2.

2	

For the estimate of 25,000 incarcerated people in segregated housing,
see Daniel P. Mears, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Supermax Prisons
(Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2006), 4. For the estimate of
approximately 80,000 incarcerated people in segregated housing,
see United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Census of State and Federal Adult
Correctional Facilities, 2005. ICPSR24642-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor],
2010-10-05. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24642.v2.

3	

In 2002, 40 states responded to a National Institute of Corrections
survey with respondents having an average of 5 percent of prisoners
in administrative and disciplinary custody. See James Austin and
Kenneth McGinnis, Classification of High-Risk and Special Management
Prisoners: A National Assessment of Current Practices, (Washington,
DC: US Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections, 2004),
29-30. https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.nicic.gov/Library/019468.
pdf. This mirrors more recent calculations. For example, in 2010, 5.3
percent of Washington state’s prison population was in segregated
housing. This included 2.1 percent held in administrative or disciplinary
segregation and 3.2 percent in the highest custody level of maximum.
See Bernie Warner, secretary, Washington Department of Corrections,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March 12, 2015. In
2011, seven percent of Colorado’s prison population was held in
administrative segregation. See James Austin and Emmitt Sparkman,
Colorado Department of Corrections Administrative Segregation
and Classification Review, (Washington, DC: National Institute of
Corrections, 2011, Technical Assistance # 11P1022) https://www.aclu.
org/files/assets/final_ad_seg.pdf. In 2014, 5.1 percent of Pennsylvania’s
prison population was held in segregated housing. See Shirley Moore
Smeal, executive deputy secretary, Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, February
27, 2015. For information on the percentage of incarcerated people
in segregation in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, see
CNA, Federal Bureau of Prisons: Special Housing Unit Review and
Assessment (Washington, DC: CNA, December, 2014). A report from
the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found seven percent
of the prison population housed in segregated housing as of February,
2013. U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Bureau of Prisons:
Improvements Needed in Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring and Evaluation
of Impact of Segregated Housing (Washington, DC: GAO, 2013).

4	

Ted Conover, “From Gitmo to an American Supermax, the Horrors of
Solitary Confinement,” Vanity Fair, January 16, 2015; Laura Dimon,
“How Solitary Confinement Hurts the Teenage Brain,” The Atlantic,
June 30, 2014; and Atul Gawande, “Hellhole,” The New Yorker, March
30, 2009.

5	

See Benjamin Wallace-Wells, “The Plot From Solitary,” New York
Magazine, February 26, 2014.

6	

United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee
on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, Reassessing
Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal, and Public Safety
Consequences, June 19, 2012, http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/

30

media/doc/CHRG-112shrg87630.pdf; United States Senate Committee
on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and
Consequences, Reassessing Solitary Confinement II: The Human Rights,
Fiscal, and Public Safety Consequences, February 25, 2014, http://www.
judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/reassessing-solitary-confinement-ii-thehuman-rights-fiscal-and-public-safety-consequences.
7	

Eli Hager and Gerald Rich, “Shifting Away from Solitary,” The Marshall
Project, December 23, 2014. Also, South Dakota repealed a law that
allowed a county prisoner to be kept in solitary confinement on bread
and water for refusal to labor or obey necessary orders, see 2014 S.D.
Laws 118 repealed S.D. Codified Laws § 24-11-34 (2014).

8	

“The department shall not place a person with serious mental illness in
long-term isolated confinement except when exigent circumstances are
present,” Colorado Revised Statute, 17-1-113.8 (2014).

9	

In September 2014, the New York City Department of Correction
ordered the end of solitary confinement for 16- and 17-year-olds by
the end of the year. See Michael Shwirtz, “Solitary Confinement to End
for Youngest at Rikers Island,” New York Times, September 28, 2014.
In January 2015, the New York City Board of Correction adopted rules
relating to enhanced supervision housing and punitive segregation,
which stated that sufficient resources are made available for staffing
and implementing necessary alternative programming; as of January 1,
2016, inmates ages 18 through 21 will no longer be placed in enhanced
supervision housing. Rules of the City of New York, Chapter 1, Title 40,
§1-16 (c)(1)(ii).

10	

Rick Raemisch, “My Night in Solitary,” New York Times, February 20,
2014, p. A25, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/opinion/my-nightin-solitary.html. For several personalized accounts of life in segregated
housing, see American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Texas Civil Rights
Project-Houston, A Solitary Failure: The Waste, Cost and Harm of
Solitary Confinement in Texas (Houston: ACLU, 2015).

11	

For more information on double celling, see Scarlet Kim, Taylor
Pendergrass, and Helen Zelon, Boxed In: The True Cost of Extreme
Isolation in New York’s Prisons (New York: NYCLU, 2012), 34: “Doublecelled prisoners experience the same isolation and idleness, withdrawal
and anxiety, anger and depression as do prisoners living alone in the
SHU. But double-celled, they must also endure the constant, unabating
presence of another man in their personal physical and mental space.”

12	

Caroline Isaacs and Matthew Lowen, Buried Alive: Solitary Confinement
in Arizona’s Prisons and Jails (Arizona: American Friends Service
Committee: 2007), 10-11.

13	

Craig Haney, “Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and
‘Supermax’ Confinement,” Crime & Delinquency 49, no. 1 (2003): 126.

14	

Isaacs and Lowen, 2007, p. 11.

15	

Haney, 2003, p. 126; Eric Lanes, “The Association of Administrative
Segregation Placement and Other Risk Factors with the Self-Injury-Free
Time of Male Prisoners,” Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 48 (2009):
532; Fred Cohen, “Isolation in Penal Settings: The Isolation-Restraint
Paradigm,” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, 22 (2006):
297-299.

16	

Kellie Wasco, deputy director, Colorado Department of Corrections,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, April 17, 2015.

17	

Benjamin Weiser, “New York State in Deal to Limit Solitary
Confinement,” The New York Times, February 19, 2014.

18	

American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, Change is Possible: A Case
Study of Solitary Confinement Reform in Maine (Portland, ME: ACLU of
ME, 2013), 13. http://www.aclumaine.org/sites/default/files/uploads/
users/admin/ACLU_ Solitary_Report_webversion.pdf.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

19	

20	

21	

For information on Washington state, see Bernie Warner, secretary,
Washington Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera,
Washington, DC, March 12, 2015. For additional information on
Washington, see Jonathan Martin, “State Prisons Rethink Solitary
Confinement,” Seattle Times (January 7, 2013). For information
on New Mexico, see Gregg Marcantel, secretary, New Mexico
Corrections Department, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, March 25, 2015. For information on Pennsylvania, see Shirley
Moore Smeal, executive deputy secretary, Pennsylvania Department
of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, February
27, 2015; Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, “STGMU Program”
(unpublished memorandum, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections,
2014).
Carlyne Kujath, manager, Strategic Operations, Washington
Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, April 15, 2015.
For information on Michigan, see Daniel Heyns, “Incentives in
Segregation Program,” Director’s Office Memorandum (December 23,
2014) http://www.michigan.gov/documents/corrections/DOM_20155_478829_7.pdf.

22	

“Virginia Step Down Program for Administrative Segregation,”
Southern Legislative Conference (2013), http://www.slcatlanta.org/
STAR/2013documents/VA_Step_Down.pdf. Mississippi also uses a
step down unit for prisoners with significant mental illness, see Terry
A. Kupers et al., “Beyond Supermax Administrative Segregation:
Mississippi’s Experience Rethinking Prison Classification and Creating
Alternative Mental Health Programs,” Criminal Justice and Behavior
36 (2009): 1037-50. Maine conducts risk assessments for each prisoner
in administrative segregation and uses this information to develop
individualized behavioral programs, which can include in cell as well as
group counseling. See American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, 2013.

23	

Haney, 2003, p. 127. In a survey of supermax admission characteristics,
Butler and Griffin found 36 percent of states responded that gang
membership or participation in a security threat group was an adequate
reason for inmate supermax placement. See H. Daniel Butler, O.
Hayden Griffin III, and W. Wesley Johnson, “What Makes You the ‘Worst
of the Worst?’: An Examination of State Policies Defining Supermax
Confinement,” Criminal Justice Policy Review 24, no. 6 (2012): 687.

24	

25	

At least 46 states have specific criteria that govern who is placed
in long-term administrative segregations. See Hope Metcalf et al.,
“Administrative Segregation, Degrees of Isolation, and Incarceration: A
National Overview of State and Federal Correction Policies,” Public Law
Working Paper (New Haven: Yale Law School, 2013), 2, http://papers.
ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2286861; and Haney, 2003, p.
127.
For information on incarcerated people in segregation due to mental
instability, see Craig Haney, 2003, pp. 124-156. For information on
children in segregated housing, see American Civil Liberties Union
and Human Rights Watch, Growing Up Locked Down: Youth in
Solitary Confinement in Jails and Prisons Across the United States
(New York: ACLU & HRW, 2012) https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/
us1012webwcover.pdf. Additional reasons to place someone in
protective custody include advanced age, former affiliation as a law
enforcement officer, the crime committed (e.g., a particularly heinous
act or sex offenders), owe debts to others in the facility, and testified
against someone in the facility.

26	

Angela Browne, Alissa Cambier, and Suzanne Agha, “Prisons Within
Prisons: The Use of Segregation in the United States,” Federal
Sentencing Reporter 24, no. 1 (2011): 46-49.

27	

Leena Kurki and Norval Morris, “The Purposes, Practices, and Problems
of Supermax Prisons,” Crime and Justice, 28 (2001): 385-424, 389;
David Lovell, Kristin Cloyes, David Allen, and Lorna Rhodes, “Who
Lives in Super-Maximum Custody? A Washington State Study,” Federal
Probation Journal 64, no. 2 (2000): 33-38; and Jean Casella and James

Ridgeway, “New York’s Black Sites,” The Nation (July 30-August 6,
2012).
28	

Bryan Gleckler, chief of staff, Illinois Department of Corrections, e-mail
exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, April 3, 2015.

29	

Shirley Moore Smeal, executive deputy secretary, Pennsylvania
Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, February 27, 2015.

30	

An investigation revealed that South Carolina was sending incarcerated
people caught posting on social media sites to segregated housing
for an average of 512 days. See Emily Bazelon, “The Shame of Solitary
Confinement,” New York Times, February 19, 2015.

31	

Testimony of Piper Kerman, Senate Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights,
“Reassessing Solitary Confinement II: The Human Rights, Fiscal, and
Public Safety Consequences,” (February 24, 2014), http://www.judiciary.
senate.gov/imo/media/doc/02-25-14KermanTestimony.pdf.

32	

Ram Subramanian and Alison Shames, Sentencing and Prison Practices
in Germany and the Netherlands: Implications for the United States
(New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2013), 13. The corrections
systems in Germany and the Netherlands embrace two principles
that the National Research Council finds particularly missing from
current criminal justice policies and practices in the United States:
proportionality—i.e., offenses should be punished in proportion to
their seriousness—and parsimony—i.e., the period of confinement
should be sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve the goals
of the disciplinary policy. See National Research Council, Committee
on Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration, Jeremy
Travis, Bruce Western, and Steve Redburn, eds., The Growth of
Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences
(Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2014).

33	

Subramanian and Shames, 2013, p. 13.

34	

These violations are eligible for informal resolution, which does not
permit segregated housing as a sanction. Should these violations be
referred for formal resolution, the only sanctions levied are those
sanctions other than segregated housing.

35	

Bryan Gleckler, chief of staff, Illinois Department of Corrections, e-mail
exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, April 3, 2015.

36	

American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, 2013, p. 15.

37	

Washington Department of Corrections, Prison Sanctioning Guidelines
(DOC 320.150 Attachment 2), on file with Vera.

38	

Ryan Jacobs and Jaeah Lee, “Maps: Solitary Confinement, State by
State,” Mother Jones, November/December 2012.

39	

See American Correctional Association, Standards for Adult
Correctional Institutions (4th edition, 2003), § 4-4249. For information
on review while in administrative segregation, see Hope Metcalf et al.,
2013, pp. 15-17, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_
id=2286861.

40	

Cohen, 2006, p. 300.

41	

Raemisch, 2014, p. A25.

42	

For information on length of stay in Illinois, see Illinois Department
of Corrections, Tamms Closed Maximum Security Unit: Overview and
Ten-Point Plan (Springfield, IL: Illinois Department of Corrections,
September 3, 2009), p. 39, Table 4; in Washington, Carlyne Kujath,
manager of strategic operations, Washington Department of
Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, April 17,
2015; and in Texas, see American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, 2015,
2. This report does not specify the year(s) for which data was analyzed.
According to the report’s author, the average length of stay in Texas

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

31

was calculated using data available as of August 13, 2013. Burke Butler,
Arthur Liman Fellow, the Texas Civil Rights Project, e-mail exchange
with Vera, Washington, DC, April 18, 2015.
43	

Bernie Warner, secretary, Washington Department of Corrections,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March 12, 2015.

44	

In a review of the policies of 47 jurisdictions, Metcalf et al. found
that every jurisdiction required some form of review of prisoners in
administrative segregation. The majority of jurisdictions required
an initial review within seven days with subsequent reviews ranging
from weekly to yearly. The decision makers for the review can include
facility staff, warden, a specially designated committee, and high-level
administrators. Additional research is needed on whether and how
the frequency of reviews correlates with the length of time spent in
segregation. Metcalf et al., 2013, pp. 15-16.

45	

Shirley Moore Smeal, executive deputy secretary, Pennsylvania
Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, February 27, 2015. Kellie Wasco, deputy director, Colorado
Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, April 17, 2015.

46	

Shirley Moore Smeal, executive deputy secretary, Pennsylvania
Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, February 27, 2015.

47	

Data obtained from the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation reveals that 69 percent of Security Housing Unit case
reviews led to release to a step down program or a general population
setting and 63 percent of administrative segregation unit case
reviews led to a return to the general population. See Sal Rodriguez,
“In California Prisons, Hundreds Have Been Removed from Solitary
Confinement—and Thousands Remain,” Solitary Watch, January 27,
2015.

48	

Paul Gendreau, Sheila A. French, and Angela Gionet, “What Works
(What Doesn’t Work): The Principles of Effective Correctional
Treatment,” Journal of Community Corrections 13 (Spring 2004): 5.

49	

Metcalf et al. specify Connecticut, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New
Jersey, New Mexico, and Virginia as states that have structured
programs that target behavior issues. Metcalf et al., 2013, p. 18.

50	

51	

32

Bernie Warner, secretary, Washington Department of Corrections,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March 12, 2015.
The Washington State Department of Corrections uses the RiskNeed-Responsivity Model as a foundation of the Washington State
Department of Corrections Offender Change Model. For more
information on the Risk-Need-Responsivity model, see James Bonta and
D. A. Andrews, Risk-Need-Responsivity Model for Offender Assessment
and Rehabilitation (Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2007), http://www.
publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/rsk-nd-rspnsvty/index-eng.aspx.
David H. Cloud, Ernest Drucker, Angela Browne, and Jim Parsons,
“Public Health and Solitary Confinement in the United States,”
American Journal of Public Health, 105, no.1 (2015): 18-26. For a
comprehensive summary of the published studies documenting this
statement see Haney, 2003, pp. 124-156. On historical research on
the “sizable and impressively sophisticated literature, now largely
forgotten,” that documented significant damage to incarcerated
people held in segregated housing, see Peter Scharff Smith, “The
Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prison Inmates: A Brief History
and Review of the Literature,” Crime and Justice, 34, no. 1 (2006):
441. One contrasting study of incarcerated people in administrative
segregated housing in Colorado found no mental deterioration while
in segregation, see Maureen L. O’Keefe et al., “One Year Longitudinal
Study of the Psychological Effects of Administrative Segregation.”
(National Institute of Justice Document 232973, October 2010).
However, experts with long professional track records in correctional
mental health have taken issue with the design of that study and
caution not to draw any conclusions from the study. See Kirsten Weir,
“Alone in the Hole: Psychologists Probe the Mental Health Effects of
Solitary Confinement,” American Psychological Association 43, no. 5

(May 2012): 54, http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/05/solitary.aspx; and
Stuart Grassian and Terry Kupers, “The Colorado Study vs. the Reality
of Supermax Confinement,” Correctional Mental Health Report, 13,
no.1 (May/June 2011): 1-4.
52	

For information on the “potent mix,” see Sharon Shalev, A Sourcebook
on Solitary Confinement (London: Mannheim Centre for Criminology,
London School of Economics, 2008). For information on negative effects
of solitary confinement, see Haney, 2003, pp. 130-136; Paul Gendreau,
et al. “Changes in EEG Alpha Frequency and Evoked Response Latency
During Solitary Confinement,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology
79 (1972), 57-58; Stuart Grassian, “Psychiatric Effects of Solitary
Confinement,” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, 22
(January 2006): 325-383; Stuart Grassian, “Psychopathological Effects
of Solitary Confinement,” American Journal of Psychiatry 140, no.11
(1983): 1450-1454.

53	

See Craig Haney and Mona Lynch, “Regulating Prisons of the Future:
A Psychological Analysis of Supermax and Solitary Confinement,” New
York University Review of Law and Social Change 23 (1997): 568.

54	

While precise estimates are difficult, Professor Haney writes that the
number of prisoners in segregated housing with mental illness may be
twice as high as in the general prison population. See Haney, 2003, pp.
124-156; Sasha Abramsky and Jamie Fellner Ill-Equipped: US Prisons
and Offenders With Mental Illness (New York: Human Rights Watch,
2003); David Lovell, “Patterns of Disturbed Behavior in a Supermax
Prison,” Criminal Justice and Behavior 3, no. 8 (2008): 985-1004.

55	

Abramsky and Fellner, 2003, available at http://www.hrw.org/
reports/2003/usa1003/18.htm, citing an e-mail from Dr. Terry A.
Kupers, who testified in Jones ‘El v. Berge, 164 F. Supp 2d 1096 (W.D.
Wisconsin, 2001), which challenged the conditions in a Wisconsin
supermax.

56	

Fatos Kaba et al., “Solitary Confinement and Risk of Self-Harm Among
Jail Inmates,” American Journal of Public Health 104, no. 3, (2014):
442-447; Eric Charles Lanes, “Are the ‘Worst of the Worst’ Self-Injurious
Prisoners More Likely to End Up in Long-Term Maximum-Security
Administrative Segregation?” International Journal of Offender Therapy
and Comparative Criminology 55, no. 7 (2011): 1034-1050.

57	

Kevin Johnson, “Inmate Suicides Linked to Solitary,” USA Today,
December 27, 2006.

58	

American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, 2015, p. 10. Rates for suicide
and self-harm calculated using data from fiscal year 2013 per Burke
Butler, Arthur Limas Fellow, Texas Civil Rights Project, email exchange
with Vera, Washington, DC, April 18, 2015.

59	

For an examination of suicides from 1993-2003, see Bruce Way et al.,
“Inmate Suicide and Time Spent in Special Disciplinary Housing in New
York State Prison,” Psychiatric Services 58, no. 4 (2007): 558-560.

60	

Samantha Melamed, “Deal Aims to End Solitary Confinement For
Seriously Mentally Ill Prisoners in Pa.” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 8,
2015.

61	

Colorado Revised Statute, 17-1-113.8 (2014).

62	

Bernie Warner, secretary, Washington Department of Corrections,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March 12, 2015.

63	

See Mears, 2006, p. 41; Chad S. Briggs, Jody L. Sundt, and Thomas
C. Castellano, “The Effect of Supermaximum Security Prisons on
Aggregate Levels of Institutional Violence,” Criminology 41, issue 4
(2003): 1342.

64	

Mears, 2006, p. 42. Interestingly, the physical conditions of a prison—
some of which are present in segregated housing units—have been
found to relate to misconduct, with worse levels of noise, clutter,
dilapidation, and lack of privacy predicting higher levels of violence.
D.M. Bierie, “Is Tougher Better? The Impact of Physical Prison

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

Conditions on Inmate Violence,” International Journal of Offender
Therapy and Comparative Criminology 56, no. 3 (2012): 338-355.
65	

There are few, if any, credible studies on the impact of administrative
segregation on facility safety, see Daniel P. Mears, “Supermax Prisons:
The Policy and the Evidence,” Criminology & Public Policy 12, no. 4
(2013): 681-720. The authors of a report on the use of segregated
housing in federal prisons said that the literature does not make it
“clear if there is a causal relationship between segregation policies and
institutional safety,” see CNA, 2014. Moreover, the federal Bureau of
Prison’s has never assessed whether the use of segregated housing has
any effect on prison safety, see U.S Government Accountability Office
(GAO), 2013, p. 33.

66	

Briggs, Sundt, and Castellano, 2003, p. 1367.

67	

Ibid, pp. 1365-1367.

68	

In October 2009, Colorado Department of Corrections housed 1,166
incarcerated people in long-term administrative segregation. In April
2014, 215 incarcerated people were housed in long-term administrative
segregation. Office of Planning and Analysis Prison Operations,
Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC), SB 11-176 Annual
Report: Administrative Segregation For Colorado Inmates (Colorado:
CDOC, 2015), 3; Rick Raemisch, director, Colorado Department of
Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, February 27,
2015.

69	

70	

CNA, 2014, p. 48; and Office of Planning and Analysis Prison
Operations, Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC), 2015, pp.
3-4.
Colorado, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, and Ohio greatly reduced their
use of segregated housing and officials reported little or no adverse
impact on facility safety, see U.S. Government Accountability Office
(GAO), 2013, 34. Washington has reduced the number of prisoners
assigned to maximum custody by 47 percent from January 2011 to
December 2014, see Bernie Warner, secretary, Washington Department
of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March
12, 2015; Gregg Marcantel, secretary, New Mexico Corrections
Department, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington DC, March 25,
2015.

71	

When Maine cut its population in segregated housing, incidents of
prison violence dropped. See American Civil Liberties Union of Maine,
2013, pp. 30-31.

72	

Jesenia M. Pizarro and Raymund E. Narag, “Supermax Prisons: What
We Know, What We Do Not Know, and Where We Are Going,” The
Prison Journal 88, no. 1 (2008): 29; Mears, 2006.

73	

John J. DiIulio, Governing Prisons: A Comparative Study of Correctional
Management (New York: Free Press, 1987); and Michael D. Reisig,
“Rates of Disorder in Higher-Custody State Prisons: A Comparative
Analysis of Managerial Practices,” Crime and Delinquency, 44, no. 2
(1998), 230.

74	

Michael D. Reisig, 1998, p. 239.

75	

Chad S. Briggs, Jody L. Sundt, and Thomas C. Castellano, 2003, p.
1370.

76	

Robert G. Morris, “Exploring the Effect of Exposure to Short-Term
Solitary Confinement Among Violent Prison Inmates,” Journal of
Quantitative Criminology DOI 10.1007/s10940-015-9250-0 (2015): 1-24.

77	

See Kristie R. Blevins et al., “A General Strain Theory of Prison Violence
and Misconduct: An Integrated Model of Inmate Behavior,” Journal
of Contemporary Criminal Justice 26, no. 2 (2010): 148-166; Gresham
M. Sykes, The Society of Captives (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1958); Hans Toch, Living in Prison: The Ecology of
Survival (New York: Free Press,1977); and Burt Useem and Anne Piehl,

“Prison Buildup and Disorder,” Punishment and Society 8, no. 1 (2006):
87-115.
78	

Kate King, Benjamin Steiner, and Stephanie Ritchie Breach, “Violence in
the Supermax: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy,” The Prison Journal, 88, no. 1
(2008): 161-62.

79	

Carlyne Kujath, manager, Strategic Operations, Washington
Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, April 15, 2015.

80	

See Shirley Moore Smeal, executive deputy secretary, Pennsylvania
Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington,
DC, April 10, 2015.

81	

Pennsylvania houses prisoners with special needs in a specialized unit,
which provides privileges and programming similar to those offered
in the general population. See Shirley Moore Smeal, executive deputy
secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, e-mail exchange
with Vera, Washington, DC, April 10, 2015.

82	

Bernie Warner, secretary, Washington Department of Corrections, e-mail
exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March 12, 2015; Washington
State Department of Corrections, “Skill Building Unit – Cedar Hall, WCC
for Offenders with Cognitive Disabilities,” (unpublished memorandum,
Washington State Department of Corrections) on file with Vera. More
information is available at http://www.doc.wa.gov/facilities/prison/wcc/.

83	

Ibid.

84	

Bernie Warner, secretary, Washington Department of Corrections,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March 12, 2015.

85	

For information on Pennsylvania, see Samantha Melamed, January
8, 2015, http://articles.philly.com/2015-01-08/news/57797425_1_
solitary-confinement-illness-inmates. For information on New York
State, see Benjamin Weiser, February 19, 2014, http://www.nytimes.
com/2014/02/20/nyregion/new-york-state-agrees-to-big-changes-inhow-prisons-discipline-inmates.html?ref=solitaryconfinement. Despite
California’s agreement in 2012, the state continues to house disabled
prisoners in segregation units. A federal judge ordered the state to
suspend this practice in February 2015. Paige St. John, “Federal Judge
Orders California to Stop Isolation Housing of Disabled Inmates,” Los
Angeles Times, February 3, 2015. For New York City’s new policy, see
endnote 9.

86	

Alaska Delinquency Rule 13 (Oct. 15, 2012); Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 34-A §
3032 (5) (2006).

87	

Daniel P. Mears and William D. Bales, “Supermax Incarceration and
Recidivism,” Criminology 47, no. 4, 2009: 1135.

88	

U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), 2013, p. 32.

89	

Calculating costs from 2003, see Mears, 2006, p. 26.

90	

For information on California, see Keramet A. Reiter, “Parole, Snitch,
or Die: California’s Supermax Prisons & Prisoners, 1987 – 2007,”
Punishment and Society, 14 (2012): 552-553. For information on Texas,
see American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, 2015, p. 2.

91	

Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee, Recidivism
in Connecticut (2001), http://www.ct.gov/opm/lib/opm/cjppd/
cjresearch/recidivismstudy/2001recidivisminconnecticut.pdf.

92	

Mears and Bales, 2009, p. 1151. The study found no effect of supermax
incarceration on recidivism in general, but did find that supermax
incarceration was associated with an increase in violent recidivism. Ibid,
p. 1154.

93	

Maureen L. O’Keefe, Analysis of Colorado’s Administrative Segregation
(Colorado Springs, Colorado: Colorado Department of Corrections,
2005), iii, 25. This study of incarcerated people held in segregated

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

33

housing between 1995 and 2003 did not match incarcerated people
(for example on past offending record, current offense, behavior while
incarcerated) held in segregated housing with incarcerated people held
in the general population.
94	

One study shows that incarcerated people who are released from
segregated housing directly to the community reoffend more quickly
and at higher rates than those who spent at least three months back
in the general prison population before their return to the community.
See David Lovell, L. Clark Johnson, and Kevin C. Cain, “Recidivism of
Supermax Prisoners in Washington State,” Crime and Delinquency 53
no. 4 (2007): 649-650. However, a different study found no evidence
that the timing of the supermax experience influenced recidivism, see
Mears and Bales, 2009, p. 1154.

95	

Kellie Wasco, deputy director, Colorado Department of Corrections,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, April 17, 2015. Colorado
Department of Corrections has not released any incarcerated person
from administrative segregation or restrictive housing maximum
security status directly to the community since May 2014. See Office
of Planning and Analysis Prison Operations, Colorado Department of
Corrections (CDOC), 2015, p. 8.

96	

Gregg Marcantel, secretary, New Mexico Corrections Department,
e-mail exchange with Vera, Washington, DC, March 25, 2015.

97	

See In re Medley, 134 US 160, 168 (1890), per Mr. Justice Miller.

34

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND EMERGING SAFE ALTERNATIVES

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Christine Herrman and Fred Patrick for their insight and guidance throughout the drafting of this report. We would like to thank
Sara Sullivan for her review and comments and Angela Browne, Léon Digard,
and Ari Agha for their assistance in understanding and explaining the research
data. A special thank you to Patricia Connelly for her help and expertise in the
planning and editing of this report; Paragini Amin for designing the report; and,
finally, Mary Crowley for her generous assistance.
This publication is the first in a series about solitary confinement, its use
and misuse, and how to safely reduce it in our prisons and jails. This series was
made possible in part by the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust. Both during his
lifetime and currently through his charitable trust, Mr. Wilson supported Vera’s
work with government partners around the country to reduce our nation’s reliance on solitary confinement and improve conditions of confinement. We are
honored to name this series of publications in his memory.

About Safe Alternatives to
Segregation Initiative
In March 2015, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) launched the Safe Alternatives
to Segregation (SAS) Initiative—a two-year national campaign aimed at reducing
the number of incarcerated people held in segregated housing while simultaneously improving safety in prisons and jails. In addition to providing technical
assistance to state and local jurisdictions selected through a competitive bidding
process, SAS features a series of publications and an online resource center (to be
launched in June 2015) that highlight the latest research and policy analysis by
leaders in the field. For more information about SAS, contact Christine Herrman,
project director, Center on Sentencing and Corrections, at cherrman@vera.org.

© Vera Institute of Justice 2015. All rights reserved. An electronic version of this report is posted on Vera’s website at www.vera.
org/solitary-confinement-misconceptions-safe-alternatives.
Image credits: Cover, RIRF Stock/Shutterstock; Page 5, Ed Kashi/VII; Page 9, Frances A. Miller/Shutterstock; Page 13, trekandshoot/
Shutterstock; Page 19, Alexander Chaikin/Shutterstock; Page 21, schafar/Shutterstock; Page 23, Ed Kashi/VII; Page 25, Eddies
Images/Shutterstock; Page 27, photoiva/Shutterstock.
The Vera Institute of Justice is an independent nonprofit organization that combines expertise in research, demonstration projects,
and technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the systems people rely on for justice and safety.
For more information, visit www.vera.org.
For more information about this report, contact Ram Subramanian, director of publications, Center on Sentencing and Corrections,
at rsubramanian@vera.org.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

35

Suggested Citation
Alison Shames et al. Solitary Confinement: Common Misconceptions and Emerging
Safe Alternatives. New York, NY: Vera Institute of Justice, 2015.

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