But after you've tried environmental design, incentives, threats, guards, and surveillance, then can it be accomplished without the small, windowless room? I'd guess not at a reasonable cost.
In the first 14 years of Norway's Highest Security Department (SHS), their version of solitary confinement, they only had to put 11 prisoners there! [0]
The Wikipedia descriptions of Anders Breivik's confinement describe SHS [1]
According to a recent Business Insider video [2]:
- "With few exceptions, judges can only sentence criminals to a maximum of 21 years" which is less then these three men did in solitary!
- "In Norway, only 20% of prisoners return to jail. Compared to the US where 76.6% of prisoners are re-arrested within five years."
Which is even more impressive when you learn that as of August of 2014 Norway's incarceration rate was 75 per 100,000 people, in contrast to 707 per 100,000 in the U.S. [3]
So we Americans incarcerate almost 10 times as many people as Norway with a recidivism rate more than 3.8 times as high as Norway - clearly our focus on "reasonable cost" is justifiable!</sarcasm>
You should look at photos. Most prisons don't have single cells, they have large rooms with bunks, or they have shared cells with 2 or more people in each one.
They should make cells that are tiny and fit one person - but have lots of opening and permission to talk to anyone around them.
That way there is physical isolation, but not mental isolation.
That's not entirely true. If the cell was large people would attempt to get into them on purpose to get a private room.
The cell has to be small enough that no one would prefer it over general.
Additionally if the cell was larger then the number of neighbors each prisoner could interact with is reduced. But the goal is to give them the opportunity to interact with as many people as possible.
The Wikipedia descriptions of Anders Breivik's confinement describe SHS [1]
According to a recent Business Insider video [2]:
- "With few exceptions, judges can only sentence criminals to a maximum of 21 years" which is less then these three men did in solitary!
- "In Norway, only 20% of prisoners return to jail. Compared to the US where 76.6% of prisoners are re-arrested within five years."
Which is even more impressive when you learn that as of August of 2014 Norway's incarceration rate was 75 per 100,000 people, in contrast to 707 per 100,000 in the U.S. [3]
So we Americans incarcerate almost 10 times as many people as Norway with a recidivism rate more than 3.8 times as high as Norway - clearly our focus on "reasonable cost" is justifiable!</sarcasm>
[0]: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik#Prison_...
[2]: http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-norways-luxurious-maxi...
[3]: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-...
--- edited to separate bullet points