The U.S. federal prison system’s use of solitary confinement and other forms of “segregated housing” has increased substantially over the past five years, according to new data released by the U.S. Congress’s official independent watchdog.

Inmates are held in solitary confinement for around 23 hours a day, often for months or even years at a time. Credit: Bigstock

Inmates are held in solitary confinement for around 23 hours a day, often for months or even years at a time, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is warning in a major new report. More damningly, the country’s federal prisons authorities have failed to carry out studies on the effects of this practice.

“[The Bureau of Prisons] has not assessed the impact of segregated housing on institutional safety or the impacts of long-term segregation on inmates,” the report, released Friday, states.

“…[W]ithout an assessment of the impact of segregation on institutional safety or study of the long-term impact of segregated housing on inmates, [the bureau] cannot determine the extent to which segregated housing achieves its stated purpose to protect inmates, staff and the general public.”

From 2008 through February this year, the total number of U.S. inmates in segregated housing rose by around 17 percent, to nearly 12,500 people, the GAO states. During the same period, the number of inmates under the federal Bureau of Prisons increased by just six percent.

Critics say the lack of assessment is potentially dangerous for society at large. After all, a broad body of global research – stretching back centuries – has been resounding in its findings on the deleterious impact of social seclusion on the human psyche.

“For almost all people, sustained social isolation is very damaging, causing extreme suffering that can lead to permanent psychiatric damage,” David Fathi, director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a watchdog group, told IPS.

“Solitary confinement is clearly very damaging and counter-productive. But we also know that people who have been in solitary confinement have higher recidivism rates than comparable prisoners, particularly those that have been released directly after their solitary confinement.”

There’s an argument to be made, Fathi says, that solitary confinement has direct negative ramifications for the rest of society.

Historically unprecedented

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons operates with relatively little public oversight, with journalists typically not allowed into its most sensitive installations. It is answerable to Congress, however, and the new GAO report, compiled at the request of three members of Congress, thus offers unique insight into some of the functioning of this massive system.

The U.S. prison system is by far the world’s largest. In a January report by the official Congressional Research Service (CRS), the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. was found to have grown by almost 800 percent over the past three decades, to around 219,000.

That’s 716 out of every 100,000 people, indicative of a growth rate the CRS said was “historically unprecedented”.

According to the new GAO report, around seven percent of those inmates are kept in segregated housing, which Fathi says makes the United States an “egregious global outlier in this area – there is no other country of any description that has made long-term solitary confinement such an integral part of its prison system.”

Still, the question of why this practice has become so integrated – which the new report doesn’t delve into – is harder to discern.

“A lot of corrections people think that solitary confinement promotes prison safety, and overall I think it just reflects an unthinking response,” Fathi says.

“Solitary confinement is where prisoners who are problematic or difficult to manage or just plain different tend to end up. In addition, this tends to be a one-way ratchet – it’s relatively easy to get in but difficult to get out.”

Others point to how overstretched the crowded U.S. prison system has become, noting that solitary confinement has become an important if questionable method of dealing with inmates with special needs.

“Problems with overcrowded prisons force officials to be more strategic with how they deal with vulnerable populations, particularly those who are mentally ill – there are just not enough resources,” Nicole Porter, director of advocacy for the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group, told IPS.

“We don’t accept that as good correctional policy, of course, but these are pressures that correctional officers have to deal with. Isolating prisoners becomes one way to address inmates with particular vulnerabilities.”

This approach came in for some high-profile criticism late last week. On Friday, a federal investigation found that a state prison in Pennsylvania was misusing solitary confinement, keeping prisoners with serious mental problems segregated for upwards of 23 hours a day, often for years.

According to Justice Department officials, the practice violated the inmates’ constitutional rights, and a probe has now been expanded to the entire state.

States leading

Each of the GAO’s four recommendations deals with strengthening the Bureau of Prisons’s monitoring and assessment on these issues, including specifically studying the impact of long-term segregation.

Porter says it is unsurprising that the Bureau of Prisons has failed to undertake any long-term studies on the effects of solitary confinement, as “Doing so would open them up to having to actually do something about it.”

According to the GAO, however, the bureau has “agreed with these recommendations and reported it would take actions to address them”. Further, in January prisons officials authorised a study on segregated housing and at the time was also considering “conducting mental health case reviews for inmates held in [segregated housing] for more than 12 continuous months”.

While observers are welcoming these steps, it remains to be seen how independent and rigorous those assessments are.

At the same time, however, significant changes are already taking place in the state-level prison systems, the recent Pennsylvania findings notwithstanding. Three states – Colorado, Maine and Mississippi – have recently cut down dramatically on their use of solitary confinement, and other states are reportedly taking keen notice.

“In the last few years, we’re seeing a sea change at the state level,” the ACLU’s Fathi says.

“This is partly a result of concern about the effects of solitary, but also partly about cost, as solitary confinement costs two to three times as much per prisoner even as an ordinary maximum security prison. So far, none of these three states have reported any adverse impact on prison safety.”

While the Bureau of Prisons was long seen as a leader and innovator, Fathi says it is now “very much on the wrong side of history” on this issue.

Agriculture Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Service (FFAS) Michael Scuse (left) speaks to farmers about the drought conditions being felt across the country. Credit: USDA photo by Jacob Maxwell

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Feb 15 2013 (IPS)

For the first time, a U.S. government auditor has added climate change to a list of issues that pose the greatest financial risk to the government and country. It is also warning that Washington is markedly unprepared to deal with the scope of the problem.

The admonitions, coming amidst a newly strengthened public discussion here on climate change, could offer an opportunity for some conservative lawmakers to re-engage with what has been one of the most fractious political issues of recent years.

“(T)he impacts and costliness of weather disasters will increase in significance as what are considered ‘rare’ events become more common and intense due to climate change,” a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns. “However, the federal government is not well positioned to address this fiscal exposure.”As usual, this issue has bubbled up from the local level, and now the federal government has put its imprimatur on it.

According to the GAO, the federal government’s primary financial watchdog, its “high risk” list currently includes 30 issues, covering concerns of efficiency, effectiveness or fraud, with a particular focus on defence and health systems. However, this year’s inclusion of the financial risk to the government posed by the effects of climate change has the possibility to outweigh much of the rest of the list combined.

“This is of great significance, and follows trends already taking place in the private sector and local government,” Keith Gaby, communications director for climate change with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an advocacy group, told IPS. “As usual, this issue has bubbled up from the local level, and now the federal government has put its imprimatur on it.”

In part, the federal government’s financial exposure is so great because Washington directly oversees such a massive swath of land – some 650 million acres, nearly 30 percent of the entire country. That’s a huge amount of infrastructure – including that meant to safeguard human communities – that could be endangered by unforeseen or dramatic changes to weather systems.

In addition, the government operates two huge insurance schemes that could be particularly stretched, covering flood damage and crops. The GAO warns that these remain based on decades-old conditions and approaches.

The issue that will most readily catch the eye of legislators is how the government’s aid responsibilities following major disasters have been increasingly called upon in recent years. This is a particular concern given that the federal government’s annual budgets do not include specific allocations for such aid.

The GAO reports that disaster declarations have steadily increased to a record 98 in 2011, compared with 65 in 2004, requiring a total 80 billion dollars during that period. Further, this figure was nearly equalled by the single request, late last year, for more than 60 billion dollars in response to Superstorm Sandy, the hurricane that ravaged much of the country’s northeast.

That storm, coupled with a severe drought last summer and strong mention of climate issues in recent weeks by President Barack Obama, has led to a sudden strengthening of the public discussion here.

“Climate is clearly back on the political agenda in major way,” Jamie Henn, communications director for 350.org, an environment advocacy group organising a major Washington rally on Sunday, told IPS.

“This report strongly underlines key points that we’ve been making about the risks of climate change and the country’s continued reliance on fossil fuels. The White House has made it clear it doesn’t yet have a full agenda, so it’s still open for input – and that’s what we’ll be providing on Sunday.”

Non-partisan issue

While Washington has engaged in nascent adaptation activities regarding the effects of climate change, the GAO auditors warn these efforts remain merely “ad hoc”. That is almost surely a result of the politicisation of climate change here, which has led to almost complete legislative paralysis on the issue.

In this case, the GAO refuses to weigh in on the politics – or human causes – of global warming.

Yet it is clear that the auditors feel that “adaptation” requirements should include policy actions for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and other causes of global warming. For instance, they prominently reference findings by two other U.S. government offices that “the nation’s vulnerability can be reduced by limiting the magnitude of climate change through actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

The decision to focus on the effects – and economics – rather than the causes of climate change could now offer ideological cover for some conservatives to engage constructively on the climate discussion.

“This clearly opens up the conversation between people who are worried about expenditures and future deficits and those working directly on climate change, as well as those focused on energy issues and local politicians across the country,” EDF’s Gaby says.

“Particularly due to the money spent on Sandy, the deficit hawks are waking up and saying we have to deal with this. They’re not changing their base position on climate change, but they are engaging with the issue in a way that could bring the conversation forward.”

This approach has already reaped some political rewards. Appearing at the new report’s launch on Thursday, the Republican head of the House of Representatives’ primary investigative committee offered strong report for the GAO findings.

“We in the federal government must do oversight about how you mitigate what nature either has been doing to us or may do to us, and I think that’s a non-partisan issue,” Representative Darrell Issa stated.

“I hope that all members of Congress on both sides of this issue recognise that it’s really not about where you are on climate change … it’s really about recognising that Congress has not adjusted for the amount of money we’re paying out.”

Also on Thursday, a Democratic senator, Bernard Sanders, proposed sweeping new climate-related legislation, which would aim to reduce the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

The bill – which the head of the Senate’s environment committee, Senator Barbara Boxer, described as the “gold standard” on the issue – is extremely ambitious. It includes what would be a highly contentious carbon tax, the revenues from which would be ploughed back into renewable energy and efficiency.

While Senator Sanders admits his bill has almost no prospect of being adopted, he says its details are meant to add specific policy proposals to a public discussion that has ramped up significantly in recent weeks. Senator Boxer has pledged to move the legislation through her committee by the summer.