Against optimization: Solitary confinement and the research-policy nexus

Abstract

This article identifies and analyzes interrelated research and policy debates over how to appropriately define, measure, and operationalize different aspects of solitary confinement. Specifically, we focus on five persistent and emergent debates: competing definitions of what constitutes solitary confinement, ambiguity about procedures sorting people into solitary confinement, confusion over whether solitary confinement is a singular or repetitive experience, challenges isolating and describing the harms of solitary confinement, and lack of attention to the experiences and influence of line staff working in solitary confinement. Drawing on our own work studying solitary confinement in California and Washington over more than a decade, as well as a growing body of solitary confinement research across multiple U.S. and international jurisdictions, we argue for the importance of understanding institution-level contexts, integrating qualitative observational and interview data with quantitative administrative data, and re-thinking assumptions about how solitary confinement is defined, deployed, and experienced. Better understanding what solitary confinement is, how it is used, and how it is experienced by those living and working in these spaces will generate new theoretical insights about how we study and understand punishment more broadly, as well as new policy insights with the potential to de-legitimize a perpetually harmful practice.