(Feb. 28, 2017) An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 inmates are reported to be in solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day in the United States – roughly one in every six or seven prisoners. The practice that has been condemned worldwide and challenged on legal, legislative and other fronts at the state and federal level in the nation.
Among the most widely denounced prisoner segregation practices is confining individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) or other vulnerabilities, such as pregnancy or youth, in such isolation.
In the latest of a series of surveys on so-called "restricted housing," Yale Law School and the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) have published the most detailed data to date on the population of isolated prisoners in the US states and the Virgin Islands, including individuals with SMI, and the conditions under which they are confined.
Findings and Limitations
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| Credit: Yale Law School |
The data are based on answers to 15 survey questions sent to directors of prison systems by ASCA and Yale Law School's Arthur Liman Public Interest Program in fall 2015. The survey defined restrictive housing as detention in separation from the general population for 22 hours per day or more and for 15 continuous days or more. Only the state of Maine did not respond to the survey, but many other states provided incomplete responses, especially on the topic of SMI, according to the report.
Nonetheless, because of the state-level detail, the survey results are illuminating. From the states reporting, we learn that Utah incarcerates the highest number of male inmates with SMI in its state prisons (44.4%) and North Carolina the lowest (0.9%). Louisiana reports the highest percentage of male inmates with SMI in isolation (38.7%) and New Mexico the lowest (0%).
Four states - Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon and Utah - report "SMI issues" in at least half their total female inmate populations, but isolation of women is much less common: eight states report segregating no females with SMI and an additional five states report holding fewer than 1%. Utah and Louisiana report the highest rate of segregating females: 13.9% and 13.1% respectively.
As illuminating as the survey is, its findings fall far short of providing a comprehensive picture of SMI in the general populations or isolated populations in state prisons. Barely 60% of the states and territories surveyed responded to survey questions about their SMI populations, and among the non-responders were Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan and Virginia-states with some of the largest state prison populations in the nation. The absence of their data inevitably results in significant understatement of total numbers.
Even more significantly, city and county jails were outside the scope of the survey. "The dearth of information on county jails is important to underscore because counties were responsible, as of 2016, for 91% of the jails in the United States," the study said, with 11.4 million individuals booked into them annually. The Treatment Advocacy Center and Public Citizen's Health Research Group in 2016 found that 68.7% of responding corrections officers in a national survey reported segregating inmates with SMI, indicating the absolute number of inmates with SMI who are segregated is significantly higher than the ASCA/Yale report was able to capture.
Private prisons, estimated to incarcerate 7% of prisoners in the states, also were outside the scope of the study.
The 21st Century Cures Act, enacted at the end of 2016, mandates improved data collection on SMI in federal, state and local corrections facilities. When implemented, the mandate is expected to fill in some of these statistical gaps. Until then, it has taken a university and professional organization to provide the basic data detailing the overrepresentation of inmates with SMI who are isolated.
Survey Results
Based on the responses, the study identified 67,442 prisoners in solitary confinement in jurisdictions that account for 96.4% of the US state prison population. When inmates held in isolation for at least 16 hours a day are included, the total of confined prisoners was 83,897 in the responding jurisdictions. In addition to jail inmates, federal prisoners were not included in the survey.
The following chart summarizes the results from the 34 jurisdictions that reported data about male inmates with SMI and the 32 that reported about female inmates.
SMI in State Prisons Reporting
| Males w/SMI in general population |
Males w/SMI in segregated population |
Females w/SMI in general population |
Females w/SMI in segregated population |
Total w/SMI in general population |
Total w/SMI in segregated population |
| 54,025 / 7.2% of all male inmates | 5,146 / 0.7% of all male inmates | 9,573 / 15.6% of all female inmates | 297 / 0.5% of all female inmates | 63,598 / 7.8% of all inmates | 5,443 / 0.7% of all inmates |
1Based on 34 jurisdictions reporting
2Based on 32 jurisdictions reporting
As it is throughout the body of research about SMI, the lack of a consensus definition as to what constitutes "serious mental illness" means there is no assurance the numbers are counting the same population in every state, the authors said. "How jurisdictions defined what constituted 'serious mental illness' varied widely," they wrote. "The 2015 survey made plain that correctional agencies do not have a uniform definition of either 'mental illness' or 'serious mental illness.'"
The reported prevalence of SMI in state prisons was significantly lower than widely circulated estimates of 30% to 40%. Beyond the study's limitations, this may be a sign that the virtually universal condemnation of segregating mentally ill inmates - who typically become only more ill in isolation - is having the intended effect of reducing a practice that is several degrees of magnitude worse than even the universal practice of using jails and prisons as de facto psychiatric facilities.
To see whether and what your state reported to the survey about the prevalence, gender, race and ethnicity of inmates with SMI in solitary confinement, see pages 48-52 of Resnik et al. in References below.
Doris A. Fuller
Chief of Research and Public Affairs
References:
- Resnik, J. et al. (November 2016). Aiming to reduce time-in-cell: Reports from correctional systems on the numbers of prisoners in restricted housing and on the potential of policy changes to bring about reforms. Association of State Correctional Administrators and the Arthur Liman Public Interest Program, Yale Law School
- AbuDagga, A. et al. (July 2016). Individuals with serious mental illnesses in county Jails: A survey of jail staff's perspectives. Public Citizen's Health Research Group and the Treatment Advocacy Center.
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Research Weekly is a summary published as a public service of the Treatment Advocacy Center and does not necessarily reflect the findings or positions of the organization or its staff. Full access to research summarized may require a fee or paid subscription to the publications.
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