Corrections_Today_November_December_2022_Vol.84_No.6

Policy Statement: Correctional facilities sometimes find it nec essary to separate offenders and to restrict the contact of offenders with others for reasons of safety and security. To ensure restrictive hous ing status designations are applied appropriately and justifiably and offenders placed into such categories are treated justly, humanely and in a constitutionally correct manner, correctional agen cies should establish and maintain policies and procedures that: A. Are applied only when no alternative disposition would be adequate to manage the offender’s behavior or sufficient to alter the findings of objective classification review factors; B. Give due consideration to any identified and assessed special needs of offenders; C. Are utilized only in circumstances where no other available form of housing will accomplish the required levels of safety and security; D. Provide transitional programming to of fenders in restrictive housing to prepare for transfer to less restrictive housing in general population; E. Provide programs that are designed to potentiate for successful adjustment to reintegration into the community at large; F. Require periodic classification reviews to consider status reduction, confirm current status or recommend additional access to positive program incentives within the restrictive housing environment; G. Provide offenders in restrictive housing with appropriate and timely medical and mental health care;

H. Provide visitation opportunities, exercise opportunities and the ability to maintain proper levels of personal hygiene; I. Provide to staff assigned to restrictive housing the specialized training that reflects the challenges associated with this type of assignment; J. Strongly discourage agencies from con fining offenders under the age of 18 in extended restrictive housing; K. Strongly discourage agencies from plac ing offenders in restrictive housing on the basis of gender identity alone; L. Strongly discourage agencies from plac ing offenders with serious mental illness, neurocognitive or neurodevelopmental disorders that substantially interferes with the individual’s ability to meet the ordinary demands of living in extended restrictive housing, unless there is an im mediate and present danger to others or the safety of the institution; and M. Strongly discourage agencies from utiliz ing extended restrictive housing during known pregnancy. This policy was unanimously ratified by the American Correctional Association Delegate Assembly at the 146 th Congress of Correction in Boston, MA on August 9, 2016. It was last reviewed and affirmed at the 152 nd Congress of Correction in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 7, 2022.

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