ARTICLE
Continuity in the Face of Penal Innovation: Revisiting the History of American Solitary Confinement
Ashley T. Rubin,
Keramet Reiter,
Ashley T. Rubin
Ashley T. Rubin: is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Her research examines punishment from historical and sociological perspectives. She is currently completing a book manuscript, The Deviant Prison: Eastern State Penitentiary and the Advantage of Difference, 1829–1913, which examines Eastern's long-term retention of solitary confinement despite intense national and international criticism and local incursions. She may be contacted at [email protected].
Search for more papers by this authorKeramet Reiter
Keramet Reiter: is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society and School of Law at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on prisons, prisoners' rights, and the impact of prison and punishment policy on individuals, communities, and legal systems. She is the author of 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement (Yale University Press 2016) and the coeditor of the anthology Extreme Punishment: Comparative Studies in Detention, Incarceration, and Solitary Confinement (Palgrave 2015).
Search for more papers by this authorAshley T. Rubin,
Keramet Reiter,
Ashley T. Rubin
Ashley T. Rubin: is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Her research examines punishment from historical and sociological perspectives. She is currently completing a book manuscript, The Deviant Prison: Eastern State Penitentiary and the Advantage of Difference, 1829–1913, which examines Eastern's long-term retention of solitary confinement despite intense national and international criticism and local incursions. She may be contacted at [email protected].
Search for more papers by this authorKeramet Reiter
Keramet Reiter: is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society and School of Law at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on prisons, prisoners' rights, and the impact of prison and punishment policy on individuals, communities, and legal systems. She is the author of 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement (Yale University Press 2016) and the coeditor of the anthology Extreme Punishment: Comparative Studies in Detention, Incarceration, and Solitary Confinement (Palgrave 2015).
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Solitary confinement has been a perennial tool of control in US prisons, despite its status as a repeatedly delegitimized practice. Although there have been significant changes in punishment over time, solitary confinement has remained, mostly at the margins and always as a response to past failures, part of an unending search for greater control over prisoners. This history raises the question of how a discredited penal technology can nevertheless persist. We locate the source of this persistence in prison administrators' unflagging belief in solitary confinement as a last-resort tool of control. To maintain this highly criticized practice, prison administrators strategically revise, but never abandon, discredited practices in response to antecedent legitimacy struggles. Using solitary confinement as a case study, we demonstrate how penal technologies that violate current sensibilities can survive, despite changing macro-level social factors that otherwise explain penal change and practice, provided those technologies serve prison officials' internal goals.
References
- 51st Annual Report of the Inspectors of the State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 1881. Philadelphia, PA: McLaughlin Brothers.
- Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) and the Arthur Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School. 2016. Aiming to Reduce Time in Cell: Reports from Correctional Systems on the Numbers of Prisoners in Restricted Housing and on the Potential of Policy Changes to Bring About Reforms. https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/liman/document/aimingtoreducetic.pdf (accessed October 7, 2017).
-
Barker, V. 2009. The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the Way American Punishes Offenders. New York: Oxford University Press.
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370027.001.0001 Google Scholar
-
Barnes, H. E. 1921. “The Historical Origin of the Prison System in America.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 12 (1): 35–60.
10.2307/1133652 Google Scholar
- Beck, A. J. 2015. Special Report: Use of Restrictive Housing in U.S. Prisons and Jails, 2011–12. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/urhuspj1112.pdf (accessed October 7, 2017).
- Beckett, K. 1997. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Bissonnette, J., with R. Hamm, R. Dellelo, and E. Rodman. 2008. When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story in the Movement for Prison Abolition. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
- Bourdieu, P., and L. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- BPDS. [1826] 1827. First Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Boston Prison Discipline Society. Boston: T. R. Marvin.
- Campbell, M. C. 2011. “Politics, Prisons, and Law Enforcement: An Examination of the Emergence of ‘Law and Order’ Politics in Texas.” Law & Society Review 45 (3): 631–65.
- Campbell, M. C. 2014. “The Emergence of Penal Extremism in California: A Dynamic View of Institutional Structures and Political Processes.” Law & Society Review 48 (2): 377–409.
- Crewe, B. 2011. “Soft Power in Prison: Implications for Staff-Prisoner Relationships, Liberty and Legitimacy.” European Journal of Criminology 8 (6): 455–68.
- Cummins, E. 1994. The Rise and Fall of California's Radical Prison Movement. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- De Avila, J. 2017. “Prisons Balk at Curbing Isolation.” US News, April 30, A-3.
- De Beaumont, G., and A. de Tocqueville. 1833. On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.
- Dickens, C. [1842] 2000. American Notes. Ed. Patricia Ingham. London: Penguin Books.
- Dolan, J. 2011. “Indefinite Solitary Confinement Persists in California Prisons.” Los Angeles Times, September 5.
- Doll, E. E. 1957. “Trial and Error at Allegheny: The Western State Penitentiary, 1818–1838.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 81 (1): 3–27.
- Durkheim, E. [1893] 1984. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.
-
Eason, J. M. 2017. Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.7208/chicago/9780226410487.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Feeley, M. M., and E. Rubin. 2000. Judicial Policy Making and the Modern State: How the Courts Reformed America's Prisons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Feeley, M. M., and J. Simon. 1992. “The New Penology: Notes on the Emerging Strategy of Corrections and Its Implications.” Criminology 30 (4): 449–74.
- Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.
- Garland, D. 1985. Punishment and Welfare. Brookfield, VT: Gower.
-
Garland, D. 1990. Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.7208/chicago/9780226922508.001.0001 Google Scholar
-
Garland, D. 2001. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.7208/chicago/9780226190174.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Garland, D. 2012. Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Goodman, P. 2008. “‘It's Just Black, White, or Hispanic’: An Observational Study of Racializing Moves in California's Segregated Prison Reception Centers.” Law & Society Review 42 (4): 735–70.
- Goodman, P., J. Page, and M. Phelps. 2015. “The Long Struggle: An Agonistic Perspective on Penal Development.” Theoretical Criminology 19 (3): 315–35.
-
Goodman, P.,
J. Page, and
M. Phelps. 2017. Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199976058.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Grassian, S. 2006. “Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement.” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 22: 325–83.
- Haney, C. 2017. “‘Madness’ and Penal Confinement: Some Observations on Mental Illness and Prison Pain.” Punishment & Society, online first. doi:10.1177/1462474517705389.
- Haney, C., and M. Lynch. 1997. “Regulating Prisons of the Future: A Psychological Analysis of Supermax and Solitary Confinement.” NYU Review of Law & Social Change 23: 477–570.
- Hepburn, J. 1985. “The Exercise of Power in Coercive Organizations: A Study of Prison Guards.” Criminology 23 (1): 145–64.
- Ibsen, A. Z. 2013. “Ruling by Favors: Prison Guards' Informal Exercise of Institutional Control.” Law & Social Inquiry 38 (2): 342–63.
- Illinois Department of Corrections. 2012. “Tamms Correctional Center Closing: Fact Sheet.” http://cgfa.ilga.gov/upload/TammsMeetingTestimonyDocuments.pdf (accessed October 7, 2017).
- Irwin, J. 2005. The Warehouse Prison: Disposal of the New Dangerous Class. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.
- Kennedy, J. E. 2000. “Monstrous Offenders and the Search for Solidarity Through Modern Punishment.” Hastings Law Journal 51: 829–908.
- Kumar, A. 2012. “Virginia Plans Changes in Prisoner Isolation Process.” Washington Post, March 30.
-
LaChance, D. 2016. Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.7208/chicago/9780226066721.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Lewis, O. F. 1922. The Development of American Prisons and Prison Customs, 1776–1845: With Special Reference to Early Institutions in the State of New York. Albany, NY: Prison Association of New York.
- Lichtenstein, A. 1996. Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South. London: Verso.
- Liebling, A. 2000. “Prison Officers, Policing and the Use of Discretion.” Theoretical Criminology 4 (3): 333–57.
- Liu, S. 2015. “Law's Social Forms: A Powerless Approach to the Sociology of Law.” Law & Social Inquiry 40 (1): 1–28.
- Lownes, C. [1793] 1799. An Account of the Alteration and Present State of the Penal Laws of Pennsylvania, Containing Also, an Account of the Gaol and Penitentiary House of Philadelphia—and the Interior Management Thereof. Boston: Young & Minns.
- Lynch, M. 2010. Sunbelt Justice: Arizona and the Transformation of American Punishment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- “ Mandela Rules” (UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners). 2015. UN Economic and Social Council, Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, 24th Session, Vienna, May 18–24, E/CN.15/2015/L.6/Rev.1. http://solitaryconfinement.org/uploads/MandelaRules2015UNdocRev.1.pdf (accessed October 7, 2017).
- Martin, J. 2013. “State Prisons Rethink Solitary Confinement.” Seattle Times, January 7. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/state-prisons-rethink-solitary-confinement/ (accessed October 7, 2017).
- McLennan, R. M. 2008. The Crisis of Imprisonment: Protest, Politics, and the Making of the American Penal State, 1776–1941. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Mears, D. P., and W. D. Bales. 2009. “Supermax Incarceration and Recidivism.” Criminology 47 (4): 1131–66.
- Mears, D. P., and W. D. Bales 2010. “Supermax Housing: Placement, Duration, and Time to Reentry.” Journal of Criminal Justice 38 (4): 545–54.
- Mears, D. P., and M. D. Reisig. 2006. “The Theory and Practice of Supermax Prisons.” Punishment & Society 8 (1): 33–57.
-
Melossi, D., and
M. Pavarini. 1981. The Prison and the Factory: Origins of the Penitentiary System. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books.
10.1007/978-1-349-27927-2 Google Scholar
- Meranze, M. 1996. Laboratories of Virtue: Punishment, Revolution, and Authority in Philadelphia, 1760–1835. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
- Mitford, J. 1974. Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business. New York: Vintage.
- National Prison Association. 1890. Proceedings of the Annual Congress of the National Prison Association of the United States, held at Cincinnati, September 25–30, 1890. Pittsburgh: Shaw Brothers.
- Odier, P. 1982. The Rock: A History of the Fort/the Prison. Eagle Rock, CA: L'Image Odier.
- O'Hearn, D. 2013. “Diaspora of Practice: Northern Irish Imprisonment and the Transnational Rise of Cellular Isolation.” Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies, April 12. https://breac.nd.edu/articles/diaspora-of-practice-northern-irish-imprisonment-and-the-transnational-rise-of-cellular-isolation/ (accessed October 7, 2017).
- O'Keefe, M. 2017. “Reflections on Colorado's Administrative Segregation Study.” National Institute of Justice Journal, 278: NCJ 250346.
-
Page, J. 2011. The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers' Union in California. New York: Oxford University Press.
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195384055.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Powers, G. 1826. A Brief Account of the Constitution, Management, & Discipline &c. &c. of the New-York State Prison at Auburn. Auburn, NY: U. F. Doubleday.
- Pratt, J. 2008. “Scandinavian Exceptionalism in an Era of Penal Excess: Part I: The Nature and Roots of Scandinavian Exceptionalism.” British Journal of Criminology 48: 119–37.
-
Reiter, K. 2012. “The Most Restrictive Alternative: A Litigation History of Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons, 1960–2006.” Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 57: 71–124.
10.1108/S1059-4337(2012)0000057006 Google Scholar
- Reiter, K. 2014a. “The Pelican Bay Hunger Strike: Resistance Within the Structural Constraints of a U.S. Supermax Prison.” South Atlantic Quarterly 113 (3): 579–611.
- Reiter, K. 2014b. “Punitive Contrasts: United States vs. Denmark—A Socio-Legal Comparison of Two Prison Systems.” In The Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Annual: Global Perspectives, ed. Larry Sullivan, Vol. 6.1, 139–76. New York: AMS Press.
- Reiter, K. 2016. 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Reiter, K. Forthcoming. “The International Persistence & Resilience of Solitary Confinement.” Oñati Socio-Legal Series.
-
Reiter, K., and
T. Blair. 2015. “Punishing Mental Illness: Trans-Institutionalization and Solitary Confinement in the United States.” In Extreme Punishment: Comparative Studies in Detention, Incarceration and Solitary Confinement, ed. K. Reiter and A. Koenig, 177–96. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
10.1057/9781137441157_10 Google Scholar
- Reiter, K., and S. Coutin. 2017. “Crossing Borders and Criminalizing Identity: The Disintegrated Subjects of Administrative Sanctions.” Law & Society Review 51 (3): 567–601.
-
Reiter, K., and
A. Koenig. 2015. Extreme Punishment: Comparative Studies in Detention, Incarceration and Solitary Confinement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
10.1057/9781137441157 Google Scholar
-
Rhodes, L. 2004. Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
10.1525/9780520937680 Google Scholar
- Riveland, C. 1999. Supermax Prisons: Overview and General Considerations. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections, Government Printing Office. http://static.nicic.gov/Library/014937.pdf (accessed October 7, 2017).
- Ross, J. I. 2013. The Globalization of Supermax Prisons. Newark, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
- Rothman, D. J. 1980. Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and Its Alternatives in Progressive America. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
- Rubin, A. T. 2013. Institutionalizing the Pennsylvania System: Organizational Exceptionalism, Administrative Support, and Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829–1875. PhD diss., U.C. Berkeley.
- Rubin, A. T. 2015a. “A Neo-Institutional Account of Prison Diffusion.” Law & Society Review 49 (2): 365–99.
- Rubin, A. T. 2015b. “Resistance or Friction: Understanding the Significance of Secondary Adjustments.” Theoretical Criminology 19 (1): 23–42.
- Rubin, A. T. 2016. “Penal Change as Penal Layering: A Case Study of Proto-Prison Adoption and Capital Punishment Reduction, 1785–1822.” Punishment & Society 18 (4): 420–41.
- Rubin, A. T. 2017a. “The Consequences of Prisoners' Micro-Resistance.” Law & Social Inquiry 42 (1): 138–62.
- Rubin, A. T. 2017b. “Resistance as Agency? Incorporating the Structural Determinants of Prisoner Behaviour.” British Journal of Criminology 57 (3): 644–63
- Rubin, A. T. Forthcoming a. “The Birth of the Penal Organization: Why Prisons Were Born to Fail.” In The Legal Process and the Promise of Justice, ed. H. Aviram, R. Greenspan, and J. Simon.
- Rubin, A. T. Forthcoming b. “The Prehistory of Innovation: A Longer View of Penal Change.” Punishment & Society.
- Rubin, A. T. In prep. The Deviant Prison: Eastern State Penitentiary and the Advantage of Difference, 1829–1913. Book manuscript.
-
Rusche, G., and
O. Kirchheimer. 1939. Punishment and Social Structure. New York: Columbia University Press.
10.7312/rusc92484 Google Scholar
- Sapien, J. 2017. “On Rikers Island, a Move Toward Reform Causes Trouble.” ProPublica, July 26. https://www.propublica.org/article/on-rikers-island-a-move-toward-reform-causes-trouble (accessed October 7, 2017).
- Schoenfeld, H. 2010. “Mass Incarceration and the Paradox of Prison Conditions Litigation.” Law & Society Review 44 (3–4): 731–68.
- Scott, M. B., and S. M. Lyman. 1968. “Accounts.” American Sociological Review 33 (1): 46–62.
- Shalev, S. 2009. Supermax: Controlling Risk Through Solitary Confinement. London: Willan.
- Shane, S. 2011. “Accused Soldier in Brig as Wikileaks Link Is Sought.” New York Times, January 13.
-
Sellin, T. 1953. “Philadelphia Prisons of the Eighteenth Century.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 43: 326–31.
10.2307/1005687 Google Scholar
- Simon, J. 1993. Poor Discipline: Parole and the Social Control of the Urban Underclass, 1890–1990. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
-
Simon, J. 2007. Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear. New York: Oxford University Press.
10.1093/oso/9780195181081.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Simon, J. 2014. Mass Incarceration on Trial. New York: New Press.
- Smith, P. S. 2006. “The Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prison Inmates: A Brief History and Review of the Literature.” Crime and Justice 34: 441–528.
- Smith, P. S. 2009. “Solitary Confinement: History, Practice, and Human Rights Standards.” Prison Service Journal 181: 3–11.
-
Sparks, R.,
A. Bottoms, and
W. Hay. 1996. Prisons and the Problem of Order. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198258186.001.0001 Google Scholar
- Stromberg, J. 2014. “The Science of Solitary Confinement.” Smithsonian.com, February 19. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-solitary-confinement-180949793/ (accessed October 7, 2017).
- Teeters, N. K. 1955. The Cradle of the Penitentiary: The Walnut Street Jail at Philadelphia, 1773–1835. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
- Thompson, H. A. 2016. Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. New York: Pantheon Books.
- Turnbull, R. J. 1797. A Visit to the Philadelphia Prison. Philadelphia: London; reprinted by James Phillips & Sons.
-
Wacquant, L. 2002. “The Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Ethnography 3 (4): 371–97.
10.1177/1466138102003004012 Google Scholar
- Ward, D. A., and A. F. Breed. 1984. The United States Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois: A Report to the Judiciary Committee, United States House of Representatives. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
- Wines, E., and Dwight, T. W. 1867. Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada Made to the Legislature of New York, January 1867. Albany, NY: Van Benthuysen and Sons' Steam Printing House.
- Zimring, F. 2003. The Great American Crime Decline. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cases Cited
- Adams v. Carlson, 352 F. Supp. 882 (E.D. Ill. 1973).
- Ashker v. Governor. Case No. 4:09-cv-05796-CW (N.D. of Cal., Oakland Div. 2015). “Expert Report of Juan E. Méndez.”
- Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940).
- Clonce v. Richardson, 379 F. Supp. 338, 345 (W.D. Mo. 1974).
- Davis v. Ayala, 576 U.S. ___ (2015), No. 13–1428.
- Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678 (1978).
- In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160 (1890).
- Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F. Supp. 1146 (1995).
- McElvaine v. Brush, 142 U.S. 155 (1891).
- Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 (1974).
- Ruiz v. Texas, No. 16–7792 (Mar. 7, 2017) (J. Breyer, dissenting).
- Toussaint v. McCarthy, 597 F. Supp. 1388 (N.D. Cal. 1984), aff'd in part, rev'd in part, 801 F.2d 1080 (9th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1069 (1987).
- United States v. Moreland, 258 U.S. 433, 449 (1922) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
Statutes Cited
- Pennsylvania. 1818. “An Act to Provide for the Erection of a State Penitentiary on the Public Land Adjoining the Town of Allegheny Opposite Pittsburg, in the County of Allegheny, and for Other Purposes.” In Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 138–40. Harrisburg, PA: C. Gleim.
- Pennsylvania. 1829. “No. 204: A Further Supplement to an Act, Entitled ‘An Act to Reform the Penal Laws of this Commonwealth.’” In Laws of the General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania, 341–54. Harrisburg, PA: Office of the Reporter.
