It didn’t take much reading between the lines to decipher the central message of last week’s Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on solitary confinement. Lawmakers and witnesses alike appeared to agree: There are people in solitary confinement in American prisons who just don’t belong there. And then, there are other people who do.
In taking this approach, the hearing reflected a growing consensus on how to deal with the more than 80,000 people held in isolation in U.S. prisons. An increasing number of elected officials, corrections departments, and even some prison reform advocates are condemning not solitary confinement itself, but the “overuse” of solitary. They call for a “reduction” in the numbers of individuals held in isolation, beginning with vulnerable groups like children and people with mental illness, and moving on to those who commit minor infractions.
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