Working to Limit Restrictive Housing: Efforts in Four Jurisdictions to Make Changes

Abstract

This monograph, Working to Limit Restrictive Housing: Efforts in Four Jurisdictions to Make Changes, is related to Reforming Restrictive Housing: The 2018 ASCA-Liman Nationwide Survey of Time-in-Cell, the fourth in a series of ASCA-Liman research projects focused on restrictive housing — or what is popularly known as “solitary confinement” — defined as placement of an individual in a cell for an average of 22 hours or more for 15 days or more. In Working to Limit Restrictive Housing, directors of prison systems in Colorado, Idaho, Ohio, and North Dakota detail how they were limiting and, in Colorado, abolishing the use of restrictive housing. Correctional administrations’ efforts to reduce the numbers of people in restrictive housing are part of a larger picture in which legislatures, courts, and other institutions are seeking to limit holding people in cells 22 hours or more for 15 days or more. These endeavors reflect the national and international consensus that restrictive housing imposes grave harms on individuals confined, on staff, and on the communities to which prisoners return. Once solitary confinement was seen as a solution to a problem. Now prison officials around the United States are finding ways to solve the problem of restrictive housing.