In the United States penal system, upwards of 20 percent of state and federal prison inmates and 18 percent of local jail inmates are kept in solitary confinement or another form of restrictive housing at some point during their imprisonment. Solitary confinement (sometimes euphemistically called protective custody, punitive segregation (PSEG) or room restriction) generally comes in one of two forms: "disciplinary segregation," in which inmates are temporarily placed in solitary confinement as punishment for rule-breaking; and "administrative segregation," in which prisoners deemed to be a risk to the safety of other inmates, prison staff, or to themselves are placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time, often months or years.
Solitary confinement first arose in the United States in the 1700s among religious groups like the Quakers, who thought isolation with a Bible would lead to repentance and rehabilitation. The practice expanded significantly in the nineteenth century, when it was viewed as a humane alternative to prevailing methods of punishment like public floggings. However, by the early 1900s it had largely passed into disuse due to its high cost and the view that it was unethical. It would return as a common form of incarceration during the tough on crime political period in the 1980s and 1990s.
Today, solitary confinement is a controversial form of punishment that studies suggest has long-lasting detrimental effects on inmates' psychological health. Prison officials argue that solitary confinement is a necessary method of separating violent prisoners from the general population, separating vulnerable inmates (such as juveniles) from other inmates, and punishing prisoners who attempt to cause riots or try to escape. Critics argue that it is a cruel form of punishment which has been demonstrated to have long-lasting negative psychological effects on inmates (with some critics further contending that long-term solitary confinement is a form of torture) and is an unnecessary method of sequestering violent or vulnerable inmates, who can be safely separated through more humane means. Court cases arguing that solitary confinement violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment have had mixed success, with solitary confinement found to constitute cruel and unusual punishment when applied to mentally ill inmates but deemed permissible for sane adults.
History The penal system in the United States developed under two separate systems known as the Auburn system and Pennsylvania system. The current system of solitary confinement was derived originally from the Pennsylvania model which was characterized by "isolation and seclusion." Evidence has shown that Quakers and Calvinists supported solitary confinement as an alternative form of punishment. At the time it was meant to provide a prisoner with solitude "to reflect on his misdeeds" and restore his relationship with God. Solitary confinement was intended as an alternative to public floggings which were common at the time. In 1818, New York reformer and Friend, Thomas Eddy, lobbied for inmate labor and solitary confinement in place of other forms of punishment such as hanging. Shortly after, New York decided to include solitary confinement and inmate labor into their penal system.
In the United States federal prison system, solitary confinement is known as the Special Housing Unit (SHU),Institution Supplement – Visiting Regulations, USP McCreary (from the Bureau of Prisons, US Department of Justice website. Retrieved 1 May 2008.) pronounced like "shoe" (). California's prison system also uses the abbreviation SHU, but it stands for Security Housing Units.Visitors, State Prison, Corcoran (CSP-COR), from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website. (Retrieved 12 June 2016.) In Oregon, solitary confinement units are known as Intensive Management Units (IMUs), while in Pennsylvania, they are Restricted Housing Units (RHUs). According to a 2023 report from Solitary Watch and Unlock the Box, it is estimated that more than 122,000 individuals are held in solitary confinement in state and federal prisons and local jails on any given day.
The inmate held in solitary confinement for the longest time in U.S. federal prison was Thomas Silverstein, held in solitary confinement at the ADX Florence federal penitentiary in Colorado. beginning in 1983. Silverstein died in late May 2019. The inmate held in solitary confinement for the longest time in the United States is Albert Woodfox, the last of the Angola Three, in solitary in Louisiana State Penitentiary from 1972 to 2016. A May 2013 report on California's Pelican Bay State Prison in Mother Jones magazine also cites one inmate there who "recently marked his 40th year in solitary".The inmate is not named.
Legality Opponents of solitary confinement have argued with varying success that the practice violates prisoners' constitutional rights. Despite the long history of litigation over the practice, the US Supreme Court has yet to definitively state whether or not solitary confinement is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of long-term solitary confinement only once, in Wilkinson v. Austin. In contrast to the Supreme Court's inaction, lower courts have imposed constitutional limitations on the use of solitary confinement. Despite such limitations, the federal courts have refused to find that solitary confinement is per se unconstitutional. The U.S. has also effectively "insulated itself from any official sanction for international violations by not submitting to the jurisdiction" of committees that enforce the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) or of the Committee Against Torture (CAT).
Eighth Amendment Since solitary confinement has been designated as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" under international law, many lawyers have argued that it is also the kind of "cruel and unusual punishments" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Proving this to be the case, however, has been a difficult task for attorneys at every level of the court system. The lack of clarity of the Eighth Amendment has raised questions with the use of solitary confinement that specifically constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."
In light of the serious, long-lasting psychological effects solitary confinement can have, inmates have argued that the mental injuries they suffer qualify as "cruel and unusual punishment." Prison officials contend that placing inmates in prolonged solitary confinement is necessary for various reasons. Some of these reasons include separating violent prisoners from the general population, separating vulnerable inmates (such as juveniles) from others, and punishing those prisoners who attempt to cause riots or try to escape. Prisoners argue, however, that the nature of these kinds of offenses does not justify the use of solitary confinement; in their eyes "there is simply no strong security need for the total social isolation that exists at some supermax prisons".
A large portion of the court cases addressing solitary confinement have approached the practice as a violation of Eighth Amendment rights. Courts have generally agreed that solitary confinement is, indeed, a violation of the Eighth Amendment for inmates with preexisting mental illness or juveniles. However, the Supreme Court concluded that "while there was a risk of serious psychological injury to inmates, that risk was not of 'sufficiently serious magnitude' to find a 'per se' violation of the Eighth Amendment for all prisoners placed in long-term solitary confinement". Despite recognition of the negative consequences of forced isolation in prisons, the practice of solitary confinement remains constitutional in the United States.
Showing that solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment has proven difficult for inmates and their attorneys. The Supreme Court requires 'extreme deprivations' in order to have merits for a 'conditions-of-confinement claim' and courts have also held that inmates are only protected against "certain kinds of extreme deprivations" by the Eighth Amendment. In Farmer v. Brennan, the Supreme Court set two requirements that must be fulfilled in order to challenge solitary confinement as "cruel and unusual". First, prisoners must show that a "substantial risk of serious harm to inmates" exists and second, that the prison officials were "deliberately indifferent" to such risk. To prove a prison official's "deliberate indifference," the prisoner must "show evidence that the official was 'actually' aware of a prisoner's serious need and chose to ignore it". Since the psychological impact of solitary confinement is not believed to be "objectively" cruel and unusual within the U.S. legal system, and because it is difficult to establish that prison officials are "indifferent" to prisoner health and safety, inmates and attorneys alleging these two requirements have faced limited success.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) further complicates inmates' ability to claim that solitary confinement's psychological damage constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Section 1997e(e) of the PLRA states that This demonstrates that the Eighth Amendment provides "greater protection" against physical injury than against mental pain. Therefore, unless a prisoner can demonstrate physical injury as a result of solitary confinement, he or she is unable to recover damages for any "mental or emotional injury" the confinement causes. As a result, the Eighth Amendment has not always been proven to be the most effective approach to argue against the practice of solitary confinement.
Due process and the Fourteenth Amendment Litigating against solitary confinement on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment and its Due Process Clause is another less common strategy inmates have used. The Fourteenth Amendment limits the "types of prisoners" that can be placed in solitary confinement and the time the prisoners can be confined. The Due Process Clause within the Fourteenth Amendment also regulates solitary confinement in that prisoners must be given reviews before and during their placement in solitary confinement. Court cases made on these bases do not necessarily address any "underlying problems" of solitary confinement, but they do call for increased monitoring, hearing, and reviews.
Inmates who are placed in solitary confinement "must be accorded meaningful periodic review to ensure that segregation [solitary confinement] is not a 'pretext for indefinite confinement'". As Jules Lobel, professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, explains, Lobel contends that the trend in U.S. supermax prisons is to not submit these reviews at all or to provide a review with a predetermined outcome to keep the prisoner in solitary confinement. If this is indeed the case, then such inmates' due process rights are violated.
In Wilkinson v. Austin, the Supreme Court held that, in addition to the due process right to meaningful review, prisoners also have a due process right to "a statement of the reasons why they were placed or retained at the supermax" so they can better understand how to behave in the future in order to be released from solitary confinement. Lobel argues that this "implies that the officials must provide something more than a general statement that the prisoner is very dangerous". According to Lobel this is not what usually happens at supermax facilities, so the inmates' due process rights are violated in this way as well.
In recent circuit court cases, courts have ruled that solitary confinement of 305 days or more constitutes an "atypical and significant hardship" that implicates due process.
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