Some types of US prisoners are disproportionately punished with solitary confinement

An article by author Brandy F. Henry, published early online this month in Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, makes use of the Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI), United States, 2016 (ICPSR 37692) to investigate “possible disparities by race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, adverse childhood experiences and mental disorders” when US prisons mete out disciplinary action in the form of solitary confinement for incarcerated adults. Designed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and conducted by the Bureau of the Census, the 2016 SPI is part of a series of surveys (which prior to 2016 were titled Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities) undertaken to assist policymakers in assessing and remedying deficiencies in the nation’s correctional institutions. The 2016 SPI was released in 2020 by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, which created a Resource Guide for anyone interested in making use of the 2016 study or any study in the Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI) Series, which gather responses in face-to-face interviews conducted with both male and female prisoners who were 18 or older and held in a state prison or were serving a sentence to federal prison in the US. Extensive information on prisoners’ demographic, socioeconomic, military, criminal, and prison histories were collected. Especially relevant to Henry’s analysis were responses about family history, health status and treatment history, prison program participation, and rule violations. With these data, Henry used logistic regression models to identify disparities in the use of disciplinary action and solitary confinement as a disciplinary action, while controlling for type of rule violation. Henry found that solitary confinement was used as a disciplinary action at higher rates for people who were: multiracial, or male, or bisexual, or who had multiple mental disorders, or who had had more adverse childhood experiences. Henry notes that these disparities remain, despite efforts in multiple states to reduce the use of solitary confinement as punishment, especially for people with mental health disorders. See hundreds of other publications using data from studies in the Survey of Prison Inmates Series by clicking here.