Disciplinary Segregation

Types of Segregation

As a generic term, disciplinary segregation subsumes more specific forms of punitive prison confinement. For example, some prisons practice a form of disciplinary segregation known as confinement to quarters (CTQ). Prisoners usually are placed on CTQ status as a result of having violated relatively minor prison rules. Generally, they are not permitted to leave their cells and cannot participate in the normal routines of the prison including work, education or vocational training, or recreation.

Disciplinary segregation also includes various forms of solitary or near-solitary confinement, where prisoners are placed—generally for specific terms of punishment—because they have been found guilty of violating more serious prison rules. Most prisons have separate housing units that are devoted to some form of solitary-like confinement. Terms of such disciplinary confinement typically vary as a function of the severity of the infraction and range from a few days to months and, in extreme cases, a year or more.

More recently, a number of prison systems in the United States have created an especially severe [Page 241]form of disciplinary segregation—imprisonment in so-called supermax facilities. These are often free-standing housing units or entirely separate prisons devoted to this form of disciplinary segregation. In them, prisoners generally are subjected to extreme forms of solitary-like confinement, unprecedented levels of monitoring and surveillance (because of the technological sophistication that is brought to bear in many such units), and very severe restrictions on movement and property. Prisoners often are placed in supermax for long and potentially indefinite periods of confinement. They may be placed in this form of disciplinary segregation for a number of reasons. Either they have committed what are regarded as very serious disciplinary infractions, or they have been judged to pose a very serious threat to the security of the institution, and/or because they have been labeled by prison authorities as gang members or associates.

Finally, administrative segregation (“ad seg”) is a form of disciplinary segregation that is used for a variety of reasons in many correctional systems. In some systems, prisoners are placed in ad seg because they are suspected of having violated prison rules and are awaiting a prison disciplinary hearing or other procedure used to adjudicate their case. In some instances, prisoners are placed in ad seg because they represent what is perceived to be a general threat to prison security. And, although it technically falls outside the scope of disciplinary segregation, prisoners may be held in ad seg for their own protection, as a form of protected custody or what, in some prison systems, is known as “safekeeping.” Even though these prisoners are not being disciplined for any infractions that they committed, they may be held under conditions of segregated confinement that are similar or identical to those of prisoners who are being punished and may be experienced by the prisoners themselves as punitive in nature.

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