In accordance with trends in federal prison reform, President Barack Obama is moving to ban solitary confinement for juveniles and stop the overuse of it in American prisons in general, according to a Jan. 25 White House release.

“The United States is a nation of second chances, but the experience of solitary confinement too often undercuts that second chance,” Obama wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

The Daily Orange interviewed Thomas Keck, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University; Paul Gardner, a post-doctoral fellow in the political science department at SU; and, via email, Lauryn Gouldin, an associate professor in SU’s College of Law.

The Daily Orange: What do you think of Obama’s proposal to ban solitary confinement in federal prisons for juveniles and reform the rules for other prisoners?

Lauryn Gouldin: I applaud the move — there is really no other conclusion that people who study the data about solitary confinement could draw — but this will extend only to federal inmates. I believe a number of states have already implemented reforms to their solitary confinement practices, but there is much more reform that needs to happen across the country.

Paul Gardner: It seems to be in the direction that things have been moving already, and not just within the executive branch but in particular in the Supreme Court, which has also been making a lot of similar movements in this direction … It’s very consistent with the way the policy has been developing for the last 10-15 years — so first with the Supreme Court’s elimination (of) the death penalty for juveniles and then in 2012 the elimination of life without parole for juveniles. It seems like there’s more of a focus on the way the criminal justice system deals with juveniles in particular.

The D.O.: Do you think banning solitary confinement will help with prisoners’ reintegration into society?

L.G.: It will help. Solitary confinement increases violent behavior, increases anxiety and other mental illness, and generally increases rates of recidivism. Putting inmates (who will eventually be released) in solitary confinement is just an irrational policy choice, except as a last resort to manage otherwise unmanageable threats to safety.

Thomas Keck: For sure, that’s the goal. Most people in prison are eventually released; at least theoretically one of the goals of prison should be to help folks live more functional, legal and socially desirable lives once they get out. There’s evidence that long-term use of solitary confinement is very damaging to a person’s mental health, so it won’t help anyone if prisoners are being released in worse shape than they were in before.

The D.O.: How might this affect the justice system?

T.K.: I think the immediate short-term impact of the policy affects a relatively small number of prisoners, since there are not that many juveniles in federal prison, but it’s not unusual for the policies of federal prisons to serve as models for state prisons where there are a lot more juveniles, so if that happens then over time it will have a lot more of a snowball effect. I think there’s good reason to believe that this is not just one single policy announced by the president, but is part of an ongoing reconsideration by many individual state justice systems.

P.G.: Recently when Obama’s been taking executive actions on different issues, there’s been a lot of pushback from the Republican Congress. Right now prison reform seems to be a fairly bipartisan issue. I’d expect it to be a relatively successful independent action being taken by the president in comparison to some other issues where there’s been more pushback.

The D.O.: Obama is the first president to try reforming the federal prison system. Will he be successful?

T.K.: He doesn’t have a lot of time left in office, so not by himself he’s not, but because of the ongoing reconsideration even some Republicans in Congress have been actively questioning policies that were once broadly supported. When Bill Clinton — the last Democratic president — was in office, he signed a very harsh criminal justice policy reform that was supported among Republicans and Democrats, including Hillary Clinton. But now, I think most Democratic political leaders have concluded we should go in a different direction, along with some Republicans. So is Congress on the verge of adopting radical changes to criminal sentencing policies? No, but it’s a conversation that’s still ongoing.

P.G.: There seems to be a consensus that this is something we should be doing. For Democrats, there are some criminal justice concerns and on the Republican side there seems to be concerns both about criminal justice, but also about cost-cutting, so because of the way the political winds are blowing, I would expect this to be more successful than some of the other independent executive actions.

Published on February 1, 2016 at 10:40 pm

Contact Caroline: cbarthol@syr.edu