Solitary confinement often isn’t solitary

…over 80 percent of the 10,747 federal prisoners in solitary have a cellmate.

In many places, prisons have turned to double celling to cope with overcrowding. “If you can come up with a better way to do this, understanding the fact that we are 162 percent of capacity without double celling, I’m willing to listen to you,” an Illinois Corrections Department spokesman told reporters and mental health advocates in 1994, when the state faced criticism for doubling up the mental health units at Menard. Illinois is under particular pressure as one of the most over-stuffed prison systems in the country.

“We’ve done this utterly bizarre thing, which is to put two people in cells that were built for one and leave them both in there for 23 or more hours a day,” says Craig Haney, a psychologist who has studied solitary for more than 30 years.

That is from Christie Thompson, via The Browser.

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