Work in Long-Term Restrictive Housing and Prison Personnel Perceptions of the Humanity of People Who Are Incarcerated

Abstract

The punitive era in the United States and other countries has included reliance on long-term restrictive housing (LTRH)—consisting of solitary confinement with few privileges—as a means of managing violent and disruptive individuals in prison. We examine how work in such housing may influence how personnel, including officers and staff, view individuals in prison and assess two hypotheses. First, those who work in LTRH will be more likely to hold a dehumanized view of these individuals. Second, the theoretical mechanisms through which such a view may arise involve brutalization, organizational context and culture, role conflict and distancing, and empathy fatigue. We assess these hypotheses using a mixed-methods study, analyzing data from a large-scale prison personnel survey ( n = 9,656) and qualitative focus group and interview data ( n = 144). Implications of the study’s findings for theory and research on restrictive housing, corrections, and the punitive era are discussed.