By Bruce Western

A large social science research literature examines the effects of prisons on crime and socioeconomic inequality, but the penal institution itself is often a black box overlooked in the analysis of its effects. This paper examines prisons and their role in rehabilitative programs and as venues for violence, health and healthcare, and extreme isolation through solitary confinement. Research shows that incarcerated people are participating less today than in the 1980s in prison programs, and they face high risks of violence, disease, and isolation. Prison conditions suggest the mechanisms that impair adjustment to community life after release provide a more complete account of the costs of incarceration and indicate the performance of prisons as moral institutions that bear a responsibility for humane and decent treatment.

Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 35, Number 4—Fall 2021—Pages 1–27

By Essex County Civilian Task Force (NJ)

In 2019, the New Jersey Legislature enacted the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act (“ICRA”), significantly limiting isolated confinement in jails and prisons throughout the state. The impetus for the legislation was twofold: a responsive effort to address citizen complaints about the misuse of isolated confinement, as well as a proactive effort by legislators to mitigate the adverse impacts of isolated confinement. As part of its mandate to oversee the policies and practices of the ECCF and in response to concerns raised and explored at public meetings, the SHU Subcommittee has conducted an extensive review of the use of isolated confinement at the facility. The Subcommittee addressed four related issues: (1) whether the ECCF is complying with ICRA; (2) if not, what conditions prevent full compliance; (3) what recommendations the Task Force might make to alter the conditions preventing compliance; and (4) what steps ECCF administrators could undertake to improve operations and inmate conditions in the SHU. The answers remain incomplete. Although the ECCF has made substantial efforts to comply with ICRA, we cannot conclude that the facility complies entirely with ICRA’s prohibitions against excessive time in “isolated confinement”1 and the “isolated confinement” of vulnerable populations2. One of

Newark, NJ: Essex County Civilian Task Force, 2023. 478p.