Solitary Confinement—Effects and Practices from the Nineteenth Century until Today

Abstract

This chapter traces the history of solitary confinement practices and their effects in prisons and places of detention from the rise of the modern penitentiary in the United States and Europe during the nineteenth century and up until present day, examining methods used in different countries around the world. It discusses how various forms of isolation have been employed for very different purposes and demonstrates how the effects of solitary confinement have been discovered in different contexts during the last two centuries. Nevertheless, these effects have been forgotten or neglected at several important junctures during the history of imprisonment. Today, few doubt that solitary confinement often has powerful consequences for the mind and body of prisoners, but the degree to which lawmakers and prison administrators acknowledge this varies greatly.

Solitary Confinement of Inmates Associated With Relapse Into Any Recidivism Including Violent Crime: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…SC can typically be used as a disciplinary measure (disciplinary segregation [DS]), for the security of the establishment and other inmates (administrative segregation [AS]), or for the protection of segregated inmates themselves (protective custody [PC] or in AS; Shalev, 2008;Shames et al, 2015). The practice may also serve other areas such as pretrial and immigrationrelated detention (Smith, 2019). In all, an estimated 7% of federal inmates are placed in SC at any given time in North America, mainly in AS (Lynch et al, 2016;Zinger, 2013).…”

Rettspolitisk mobilisering og strategisk sakførsel mot isolasjon i norske fengsler

“…Vi tar for oss isolasjon som forekommer i politiarrest, under varetektsfengsling eller soning. Disse formene for isolasjon begrunnes etter mange ulike formål, slik som ro og orden, for å hindre bevisforspillelse, eller til og med av praktiske hensyn (for en typologi, se Rua et al, 2019;Smith, 2019). Et viktig skille går mellom domstolsbesluttet og fengselsbesluttet isolasjon.…”

Self-injury and the embodiment of solitary confinement among adult men in Louisiana prisons

“…Solitary confinement began in the 1790s in the U.S. as states constructed prisons as alternatives to corporal punishments of English colonialism and to replace dilapidated jails that had erupted into chaos, violence, and uprisings after the Revolutionary War ( Rubin, 2015 ). Early proponents were evangelicals and reformists who theorized that enforced silence and isolation would prompt an introspective process of moral repentance, spiritual reckoning, and social transformation and penologists who viewed silence and physical separation as necessary to address the problems plaguing the jails or “proto-prisons” that preceded the penitentiaries ( Meskell, 1998 ; Rubin & Reiter, 2018 ; Smith, 2019 ). Into the 1800s, the practice of solitary confinement evolved as states “experimented” with and debated the purported merits of two competing penological models of confinement.…”

“…By the early twentieth century, solitary confinement had been largely abandoned in U.S. prisons. Yet, it resurfaced in the 1960s, at a time when retribution began to supersede rehabilitation as a chief penological principle; educational, vocational, and rehabilitative programs in prisons were diminished and the demographics of prison reversed from majority white to majority Black, marking the start of a multi-decade prison boom ( Guenther, 2013 ; Sakoda & Simes, 2021 ; Smith, 2019 ). In the 1980 and 1990s, federal and state governments built or reconfigured thousands of prisons with spaces designed for prolonged isolation ( Reiter, 2016 ; Richards, 2015 ).…”