SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

DEFINITION
• A form of punishment used for criminals
• Inmates isolated from human contact
• Used as a protection of vulnerable prisoners
E.g. prisoners vulnerable for suicide
(Desgranges,2017)
 HISTORY
• Begun in the late 18th centaury
• was invented by Quakers as a humanitarian intervention
• Later on many worst inmates were placed in D’block in
1934
• In 1950s the CIA fully implemented the return of the
practice
• 1983 two officers killed leading to confinement of an
entire prison
• 1990 first Super-max built (Ewing Adam,2016).
 Effects
• Physiological
• Psychological
• Emotional (Birckhead, 2015)
 Public opinion
• Many people are against solitary confinement
• Many states have abolished the practice
• Others have reduced the sentence to solitary
confinement units
• Others believe the practice is effective
ALTERNATIVES TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

• There are many alternatives to solitary

confinement
• Care for the mentally ill
• Reassessing the practice to lessen the
conditions
• Excluding minors from solitary confinement
• Racial balance
 RESEARCH QUESTION
• Effectiveness of solitary confinement in
reducing prison violence
• Effectives of solitary confinement in reducing
recidivism
• Psychological , physiological and emotional
effects of solitary confinement
 RESEARCH DESIGN
• The research design will be descriptive
• The study will adopt surveys, case studies and
observations to make conclusions (Berg, Lune,
& Lune, 2004).
 ACTIVITY SCHEDULE
ACTIVITY WK1 WK W W W W W W
2 K K K K K K
3 4 5 6 7 8
Acceptance of research proposal
Local representatives of the study
Development of research tools
Sample selection and talks with
community
Training enumerators
Pilot study
Validation of equipment's
 SCHEDULE
ACTIVITY WK 9 WK 10 WK 11 WK 12
Data collection
Data entry and analysis
Report presentation
 BENEFITS OF THE STUDY
• Analyse the effectiveness of solitary
confinement
• Offer more data to stakeholders e.g policy
makers
• Provide data for future research
 References
• Birckhead, T. R. (2015). Children in isolation:
the solitary confinement of youth. Wake
Forest Law Review, 50(1), 1-80.
• Desgranges, P. (2017). A reaction to Ian Kysel's
"banishing solitary: litigating an end to the
solitary confinement of children in jails and
prisons". Review Of Law & Social Change,
41(4), 295.
 References
• Ewing Adam, A. (2016). In/visibility: Solitary
Confinement, Race, and the Politics of Risk
Management. Transition: An International
Review, (119), 109.
doi:10.2979/transition.119.1.13
• Berg, B. L., Lune, H., & Lune, H. (2004).
Qualitative research methods for the social
sciences (Vol. 5). Boston, MA: Pearson.