Seeing Solitary

U.S. prison systems have policies governing many facets of their practices. All 50 of the states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have regulations on solitary confinement, and their content varies widely. The most recent Time-in-Cell Report on solitary confinement analyzed the policies of fourteen jurisdictions. Four – Colorado, Delaware, North Dakota, and Vermont – reported holding no one for fifteen days or more for 22 hours or more in cell in July of 2019. We also looked at the ten jurisdictions -- the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia – which had the largest prison populations as of the spring of 2021.

These fourteen jurisdictions’ policies differed on several dimensions, including the criteria used to justify placement in isolation. In three of the four states reporting that they held no one in solitary confinement for fifteen days or more for twenty-two hours or more in 2021 (as well as in 2019 when the prior survey was done), their policies specified criteria limiting the use of solitary confinement to people who exhibited forms of aggressive misbehavior; thus, a narrower category of individuals could be considered for solitary confinement. For example, North Dakota’s Restrictive Housing policy stated that “adults in custody may be placed in a form of restrictive housing when awaiting hearing or investigation” for violating prison rules banning “assault and battery on staff,” “sexual abuse,” “taking hostages,” or “arson.” Under a Colorado Department of Corrections regulation, placement in “Special Management” was warranted if a person was found to have commited disciplinary infractions including murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, rape, or arson.

In contrast, nine of the ten jurisdictions with the nation’s highest prison populations had policies that gave prison staff broad discretion to put an individual into isolation for behavior perceived generically to be threatening. For example, Michigan’s policy was that “[a] prisoner may be classified to administrative segregation . . . [if] the prisoner is a serious threat to the physical safety of staff or other prisoners or to the good order of the facility. . . .” Georgia’s policy stated that “[t]he Warden or Superintendent and their designee may place an offender in the Tier I Segregation Program in the following circumstances: . . . The offender is noted as a threat to the safe and secure operation of the facility . . . .”

In terms of exiting solitary, all fourteen jurisdictions had policies providing for the use of what are called “step-down programs,” which aim to help individuals make a transition from solitary confinement to less restrictive housing. Many policies described using incentives in a step-down program. Pennsylvania authorized staff to “approve additional privileges,” including telephone calls, commissary, television, and tablet and kiosk access, “based on individual needs, safety and security, and the behavioral progress.” However, these “privileges” could be withdrawn if the “Management Team provide[d] a written justification.”

For more discussion of these fourteen policies, the section of the 2022 CLA-Liman Report can be found here.

The jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction policies, as of the spring of 2022, are below.