Time-In-Cell: A 2021 Snapshot of Restrictive Housing based on a Nationwide Survey of U.S. Prison Systems (2022)

This Overview previews some of the findings in this Report. Before turning to key facets, the contours and limits of the data collection need to be explained. First, as in the other volumes in the CLA-Liman series, this Report compiles information that prison systems provided in response to a survey questionnaire (“the Survey”) and does not rely on other sources, such as interviews of incarcerated people or research based on public data. Second, the Survey defined “restrictive housing” as isolation in a cell for an average of twenty-two or more hours per day for fifteen or more consecutive days. Thus, this data collection cannot inform discussions about other forms of isolation, such as conditions that restrict incarcerated individuals to their cells for seventeen to less-than-twenty-two hours per day