Life in the hole: The impact of solitary confinement in the United States
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| Author | Eman Tadros,Amber Carufel,Jennifer Smith |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12523 |
Received: 19 March 2022 Accepted: 13 January 2023
DOI: 10.1111/ho jo.12523
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Life in the hole: The impact of solitary
confinement in the United States
Eman Tadros1Amber Carufel2Jennifer Smith3
1Eman Tadros is Assistant Professor,
Governors State University, Illinois, USA
2Amber Carufel is a student, Governors
State University, Illinois, USA
3Jennifer Smith is a student, Governors
State University, Illinois, USA
Correspondence
Eman Tadros, Governors State University,
Illinois, USA.
Email: emantadros@gmail.com
Abstract
An estimated 84,000 incarcerated individuals face soli-
tary confinement in the United States criminal justice
system. Solitary confinement is seen as a cruel punish-
ment, with lasting effects, for incarcerated individuals.
Human rights organisations, medical associations, pol-
icymakers, and incarcerated people have argued for the
discontinuation of solitary confinement. After being in
solitary confinement for an extended period, incarcer-
ated people can suffer worsening and future mental
health issues, physical health concerns and issues with
relationships during and after serving their time in
prison. This article reviews the available research and
the purpose of the article is to show the detrimental
effects solitary confinement has on incarcerated individ-
uals. Clinical and policy implications for prisons that use
solitary confinement are discussed to dissuade usage.
KEYWORDS
incarceration, policy, solitary confinement
1 INTRODUCTION
Restrictive housing, or what is generally referred to as solitary confinement, is defined as ‘a form
of housing for inmates whose continued presence in the general population would pose a seri-
ous threat to life, property, self, staff, or other inmates, or to the security or orderly operation of
a correctional facility’ (Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA), 2013, p.1). The
use of solitary confinement has increased in recent decades (Digard, Vanko & Sullivan, 2018), as
© 2023 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
374 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hojo HowardJ. Crim. Justice. 2023;62:374–390.
THE HOWARDJOURNAL OF CRIME AND JUSTICE 375
the prison population has swelled (Cloud et al., 2021;Haney,2018a).In the United States, an aver-
age of 1.6 million incarcerated individuals have spent some time in solitary confinement (Reiter
et al., 2020), with 20% being sent to restrictive housing in the past twelve months (Beck, 2015). It is
estimated that 100,000 individuals are held in solitary confinement on a given day (Lobel & Akil,
2018). The United States has the dubious distinction of having the most significant number of its
citizens incarcerated and uses solitary confinement more than anyother nation (Cloud et al., 2015;
Haney, Williams & Ahalt, 2020). However, the exact numbers of individuals currently in solitary
confinement cannot be precisely judged, as most correctional systems do not accurately and con-
sistently report these statistics (Haney, 2018a). Several movements advocating for the reform or
abolishment of solitary confinement have not only led to successful mobilisation and advocacy
campaigns but have also pushed for and made legal reform possible.
Fetti g (2020) highlights severalways that the fight to reform solitary confinement in the United
States has continued to be galvanised, including: legislative allies; civil rights litigation; the out-
spokenness of those who were formerly held in solitary confinement; human rights campaigns;
media coverage; and leaders within the prison system. Fettig (2020) highlights severalimportant
milestones including the Unlock the Box campaign in 2018, the multistate introduction of leg-
islation that addressed solitary confinement reform in 2019, and recent federal legislation (i.e.,
Solitary Confinement Act of 2019, Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Act of 2019, and the
First Step Act of 2018). The Formerly IncarceratedReenter Society Transformed Safely Transition-
ing Every Person Act or what is known as the First Step Act (FSA)1was signed into law in 2018.
Among many reforms, the FSA 2018 prohibits solitary confinement for juveniles in federal cus-
tody.While finally being settled in 2020, Ashker v. Governor of California (2015) or Ashker v. Brown
(No. 09-cv-5796 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 1, 2015) serves as an example of prisoners exerting their rights to
basic human civil liberties (Haney,Willliams & Ahalt, 2020). The case sought to provide legal relief
to inmates confined in solitary confinement in Pelican Bay – California’s supermax prison. Key
to the plaintiff’s case was a first-hand account of the detrimental effects of solitary confinement,
along with expert testimony, that outlined the ‘psychological, neurological, and physical harm’
(Lobel & Smith, 2020, p.10). Because of this landmark suit, California’s prison system underwent
significant reform via restricted use of solitary confinement.
The use of solitary confinement is not a new practice, but it has mainly been reflective of West-
ern prison systems under the guise of maintaining order (Smith, 2006). Smith (2006) produced
an extensive literature review of the effects of solitary confinement on the incarcerated. Addi-
tionally, the author provideda brief history of solitary confinement throughout the United States,
Europe and South America and noted that in the 1820s, the goal of the New Yorkand Philadelphia
prison systems was ‘rehabilitation of criminals through the use of isolation’ (Smith, 2006,p.456).
In turn, these models influenced prison systems throughout Europe and South America. How-
ever, because of the adoption of the solitary confinement ideology, European nations soon began
to report an increase of mental health issues (Smith, 2006). More contemporarily,solitary confine-
ment resurged as a topic of discussion in the 1950s via the administration of sensory deprivation
studies, in the 1980s with the advent of supermax prisons, and during the United States’ ‘war on
terror’ campaign when detainees were held at Guantanamo Bay (Smith, 2006). Last, the author
noted varying literature that reflected the impact of solitary confinement on the health and men-
tal wellness of incarcerated individuals (e.g., psychosis, isolation, depression, anxiety and physical
pain), noting the seriousness of these effects, and offered policy responses to address the use of
solitary confinement.
In a seminal work, connected to the court case Madrid v. Gomez (889 F. Supp. 1146, 1261 (N.D.
Cal., 1995)), Haney studied the mental health of 1,000 incarcerated individuals at the Pelican Bay
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