Solitary Confinement Fact Sheet: What Other States Have Done to Address the Cost and Cruelty
1) "Solitary confinement wastes taxpayer dollars"--Southern Poverty Law Center…read more.
2) "Fact Sheet: The High Cost of Solitary Confinement” from SOLITARY WATCH…read more.
3) "Prisons Rethink Isolation, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity”—from the NY Times…read more.
4) "Solitary Confinement Reforms by State: 1998-2014”— from The Marshall Project…read more.
5) "Administrative Segregation in U.S. Prisons”—U.S. Department of Justice—March 2016—many research papers cited…read more.
6) "Public Health and Solitary Confinement in the United States”—from American Public Health Association--many references cited…read more.
7) “Resolution on Limiting the Use of Solitary Confinement”—American Legislative Exchange Council—November 2019…read more.
8) Solitary Confinement: Common Misconceptions and Emerging Alternatives—fromVERA Institute for Justice—May 2015…read more.
9) “California Expects to Save $28 Million by Reducing Solitary Confinement”—SOLITARY WATCH—January 2016—read more.
10) “Although there is little empirical evidence to support the efficacy of solitary confinement as a prison management tool, there is ample evidence that it is the most costly form of incarceration.” ACLU Briefing Paper—2014…read more.
11) "Solitary Confinement In America: Time for Change and a Proposed Model Of Reform”—University of Pennsylvania--October 2014--multiple references to unjustifiable cost—read more.
12) A summary of some of the findings:
a) “Mississippi heightened the criteria for placing individuals in administrative segregation, significantly reducing its overall population in solitary confinement and the associated costs. It was able to close a unit that once held up to 1,000 people in isolation, saving $8 million a year.” See #1 above.
b) “Segregation units can be two to three times as costly to build and, because of their extensive staffing requirements, to operate as conventional prisons are.” See #2 above.
c) “…(T)he GAO report found that, for fiscal year 2012, the total cost of housing 1,987 inmates in SMUs was $87 million (whereas it would have cost approximately $42 million to house those same inmates in a medium-security facility or $50 million in a high-security facility).” See #5 above.
d) “39 Other states (other than California) are recognizing that, at 2 to 3 times the cost of housing in the general jail or prison population, solitary confinement provides a poor return on investment.” See #6 above.
e) “…(I)n 2007, Mississippi had 1,300 people in solitary confinement while today there are only 300. This downsizing has saved Mississippi taxpayers $6 million, because solitary confinement costs $102 per day compared to $42 a day for inmates in the general population. Most importantly, violence within Mississippi’s prisons and the recidivism rate upon release are both down, with violence dropping nearly 70 percent.” See #7 above.
f) “…(I)n 2013, the estimated daily cost per inmate at the federal administrative maximum (supermax) facility was $216.12 compared to$85.74 to house people in the general prison population. In 2003, the daily per capita costs of operating a supermax prison in Ohio were estimated at two-to-three times that of regular security units—$149 per day compared to $63 per day, with one corrections officer for every 1.7 prisoners in supermax compared to one for every 2.5 in less restricted housing.” See #8 above.
g) “As our fact sheet on the issue of cost points out, solitary confinement routinely costs more. One estimate put the average difference at as much as $50,000 a year, per-individual. This, despite significant evidence that prolonged segregation may in fact be counterproductive… See #9 above.
h) “A 2007 estimate from Arizona put the annual cost of holding a prisoner in solitary confinement at approximately $50,000, prisoner in segregation is three times greater than in a general population facility; in Ohio and compared to about $20,000 for the average prisoner. In Maryland, the average cost of housing a prisoner in segregation is three times greater than in a general population facility; in Ohio and Connecticut it is twice as high; and in Texas the costs are 45% greater. See #10 above.
October 17, 2020