Punishing Status and the Punishment Status Quo: Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Prisons, 2013-2017

Abstract

We examine patterns in who experiences solitary confinement in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, as well as the stated reason for, and length of, their confinement. We reveal several findings. First, cases involving individuals with mental illnesses are overrepresented, more likely to occur without infraction, and to last longer, compared to cases involving individuals without mental illnesses. Second, solitary confinement cases involving immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are over-represented in comparison to the share of these groups in the overall detained population, and African immigrants are more likely to be confined for disciplinary reasons, compared to the average. Finally, placement patterns vary significantly by facility and institution type, with private facilities more likely to solitarily confine people without infraction, compared to public facilities. This study provides the first systematic, national analysis of administrative records of solitary confinement placements in any carceral setting. It thus offers us a lens through which to more precisely theorize the legal boundary-blurring of crimmigration and the relationship between prison and immigration detention policies, to better understand the practice of solitary confinement across carceral contexts, and to analyze the relationship between national-level policy and on the-ground implementation.

The role of Israeli judges in authorising solitary confinement placements: Balancing human rights and risk, or neutralising responsibility?

“…Furthermore, rather than establishing that the prisoner was not isolated because of their original crime, as required by the Mandela Rules, in 17% of the cases, especially those involving very serious crimes, the courts appeared to do quite the opposite. This reflects a ‘diffusion’ of sentencing logic to prison logic through the transformation of solitary confinment into a retributive ‘act of extreme punishment’ for the prisoner’s crime or depraved character (Polizzi, 2017: 39).This is further integrated with findings that solitary confinement may both be experienced as punitive and be often imposed for punitive purposes by prison officials, even when labelled as administrative (Franco et al., 2020; Shalev, 2013).…”

“…Furthermore, research in criminology (Logan et al., 2017; Shalev, 2013), law (Lobel, 2008; Schlanger, 2020), and ‘punishment and society’ (Franco et al., 2020; Reiter, 2016), problematises the application of administrative power to normalise the exceptional through routinised/bureaucratised solitary confinement decision-making (Reiter, 2016; Rhodes, 2009; Shalev, 2013). Prison officials’ discretion had been criticised as largely hidden, generic, arbitrary, racially-biased, and imposed through perfunctory discretionary hearings that lack ‘external oversight’ (Coppola, 2019; Franco et al., 2020; Reiter et al., 2020: 56; Schlanger, 2020; Shalev, 2013). Scholars also highlight the ongoing U.S. constitutional courts’ reluctance to ‘second-guess’ prison officials’ discretion, even where solitary confinement posed a risk of very significant harm to the prisoner (Coppola, 2019; Haney and Lynch, 1997; Schlanger, 2020).…”

“…It asks how they negotiate and rationalise the ‘pains of solitary confinement’. As solitary confinement policies are implemented differently across different systems, the paper also strives to expand the scholarship beyond its U.S.-British contexts (Franco et al., 2020).…”