Solitary Confinement in an Era of Mass Incarceration

• In Event: Institutional Corrections: Policies and Practices

Abstract

Despite a large research literature on the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, few studies examine the conditions of penal confinement in the wake of prison capacity expansion for solitary confinement. We study solitary confinement by estimating the cumulative risk of going into administrative or disciplinary segregation for incarcerated black, white, and Hispanic men and women. Using a rare longitudinal dataset of prison records from Kansas, we estimate that 38 percent of whites and 46 percent of blacks experienced solitary confinement at least once in their prison term. The risk of solitary confinement is highly stratified by age. Among those under 25, the cumulative risk of solitary confinement is 52 percent. The expansion of prison capacity began an era of longer average lengths of stay in solitary and significantly more releases from custody directly from solitary confinement. We find the emergence of very harsh prison conditions in the wake of the prison boom. Solitary confinement has become a common part of the experience of punishment in the United States.

Authors

• Ryan Sakoda, Harvard University

• Jessica T. Simes, Boston University