Prisoners of isolation: Research on the effects of administrative segregation.(response to article by Ivan Zinger, Cherami Wichmann, and D.A. Andrews in this issue, p. 47)

Publication: Canadian Journal of Criminology

Publication Date: 01-JAN-01

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Canadian Criminal Justice Association

The research reported by Zinger, Wichmann, and Andrews in this issue of the journal raises some familiar themes. As Landreville and Lemonde observe in their commentary, the debate over the effects of imprisonment goes back some time. In October 1984, the Canadian Journal of Criminology devoted a special issue to the effects of incarceration. More recently, Bonta and Gendreau (1990) reviewed the literature on the effects of incarceration and concluded that they were not as negative as many people to that point had asserted.(1) They came to this conclusion based on a review of the published, quantitative literature. Michael Jackson and I demurred (Roberts and Jackson 1991).

The article by Zinger et al. is in the same mould; the authors provide a review of the quantitative literature, report the findings from an empirical study testing the effects of administrative isolation, and conclude that "segregation for 60 days.., does not negatively affect prisoners' mental health and psychological functioning". The article makes a useful contribution to the debate by presenting fresh research on an important correctional issue, and also by focussing our minds on some of the methodological problems confronting researchers working in this area. Prisoners of correctional isolation are doubly outcast, and represent the ultimate in social exclusion: involuntary committals are first sequestered from the general population (in prison) and then isolated from the inmate community (in isolation). It is vital that we have good research on the effects of this correctional practice.

The contributions by Michael Jackson, Pierre Landreville and Lucie Lemonde deal with a number of problematic issues in the Zinger research. In this article, we explore some methodological and statistical problems and evaluate the validity of Zinger et al.'s conclusions about the effects of administrative segregation. First, however, a word about terminology is in order. Throughout this article we use the phrase "isolation" interchangeably with "segregation", since the former seems to us a more accurate term. Segregation implies collective separation, as in racial segregation. In a racially-segregated school, Black children were separated from White, but they were not individually isolated. Prisoners subject to administrative segregation are isolated, not segregated. So the term should be prisoners of isolation.(2)

Zinger et al. begin with a thorough review, indeed a veritable catalogue of the methodological shortcomings of previous research on the effects of correctional isolation. Having established the pitfalls to be avoided, they then describe the findings from their own empirical investigation. Zinger et al. describe their study as "the most comprehensive empirical review of the psychological effects of administrative segregation". They acknowledge some limitations on their research, but the most critical are overlooked. There are in fact more than a few snakes on the loose in this methodological Garden of Eden. In this article we draw attention to some of these problems, beginning with the question of sample size.

1. Sample Size

At the end of the day, our insight into the effects of isolation from this study comes from only 10 individuals. Why only 107 The study had three phases. There were 23 segregated individuals in the 60 day study at the end of the third session, but of these 13, or over half, had volunteered to be isolated. This is significantly higher than the percentage of voluntary committals in previous research. For example, in the study by Suedfeld, Ramirez, Deaton and Baker-Brown (1982), only 3 of 54 subjects were in isolation of their own volition (Table 3). Zinger et al. are aware of the problem of using volunteer subjects -- indeed it is the first deficiency that they identify with respect to the selection of subjects in previous research. In light of this awareness, it is curious that they seem unconcerned with the volunteer effect not as it applies to the study, but to participation in the "experimental" condition in their own research.

Volunteers of isolation: Castaways or survivors?

The debate about the effects of correctional isolation is not about the impact on prisoners who choose segregation...

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