Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Act of 2022
This bill establishes the National Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Commission to study the impact of solitary confinement on governments, communities, and social institutions. Additionally, the bill (1) directs the Department of Justice to publish national standards to reduce solitary confinement in correctional facilities; and (2) authorizes grants for community-based prevention and education programs, community-based mental health care, or community-based drug treatment or harm reduction.
[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8048 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
117th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 8048
To develop and implement national standards for the use of solitary
confinement in correctional facilities, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 13, 2022
Mr. Trone (for himself, Mrs. Bice of Oklahoma, and Mr. Meijer)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To develop and implement national standards for the use of solitary
confinement in correctional facilities, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Solitary Confinement Study and
Reform Act of 2022''.
SEC. 2. PURPOSES.
The purposes of this Act are to--
(1) develop and implement national standards for the use of
solitary confinement to ensure that it is used infrequently and
only under extreme circumstances;
(2) establish a more humane and constitutionally sound
practice of segregated detention or solitary confinement in
correctional facilities;
(3) accelerate the development of best practices and make
reforming solitary confinement a top priority in each
correctional facility at the Federal and State levels;
(4) increase the available data and information on the
incidence of solitary confinement, consequently improving the
management and administration of correctional facilities;
(5) standardize the definitions used for collecting data on
the incidence of solitary confinement;
(6) increase the accountability of correctional facility
officials who fail to design and implement humane and
constitutionally sound solitary confinement practices;
(7) protect the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of
incarcerated individuals at correctional facilities; and
(8) reduce the costs that solitary confinement imposes on
interstate commerce.
SEC. 3. NATIONAL SOLITARY CONFINEMENT STUDY AND REFORM COMMISSION.
(a) Establishment.--There is established a commission to be known
as the National Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Commission.
(b) Members.--
(1) In general.--The Commission shall be composed of 9
members, of whom--
(A) 3 shall be appointed by the President;
(B) 2 shall be appointed by the Speaker of the
House of Representatives, unless the Speaker is of the
same party as the President, in which case 1 shall be
appointed by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives and 1 shall be appointed by the
minority leader of the House of Representatives;
(C) 1 shall be appointed by the minority leader of
the House of Representatives (in addition to any
appointment made under subparagraph (B));
(D) 2 shall be appointed by the majority leader of
the Senate, unless the majority leader is of the same
party as the President, in which case 1 shall be
appointed by the majority leader of the Senate and 1
shall be appointed by the minority leader of the
Senate; and
(E) 1 shall be appointed by the minority leader of
the Senate (in addition to any appointment made under
subparagraph (D)).
(2) Persons eligible.--Each member of the Commission shall
be an individual who has knowledge or expertise in matters to
be studied by the Commission. Not less than three members of
the Commission shall be individuals who have been incarcerated
or have had an incarcerated family member.
(3) Consultation required.--The President, the Speaker, and
the minority leader of the House of Representatives, and the
majority leader and minority leader of the Senate shall consult
with one another prior to the appointment of the members of the
Commission to achieve, to the maximum extent possible, fair and
equitable representation of various points of view with respect
to the matters to be studied by the Commission.
(4) Term.--Each member shall be appointed for the life of
the Commission.
(5) Time for initial appointments.--The appointment of the
members shall be made not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this Act.
(6) Vacancies.--A vacancy in the Commission shall be filled
in the manner in which the original appointment was made, and
shall be made not later than 60 days after the date on which
the vacancy occurred.
(c) Operation.--
(1) Chairperson.--Not later than 15 days after appointments
of all the members are made, the President shall appoint a
chairperson for the Commission from among its members.
(2) Meetings.--The Commission shall meet at the call of the
chairperson. The initial meeting of the Commission shall take
place not later than 30 days after the initial appointment of
the members is completed.
(3) Quorum.--A majority of the members of the Commission
shall constitute a quorum to conduct business, but the
Commission may establish a lesser quorum for conducting
hearings scheduled by the Commission.
(4) Rules.--The Commission may establish by majority vote
any other rules for the conduct of Commission business, if such
rules are not inconsistent with this Act or other applicable
law.
(d) Comprehensive Study of the Impacts of Solitary Confinement.--
(1) In general.--The Commission shall carry out a
comprehensive legal and factual study of the penological,
physical, mental, medical, social, fiscal, and economic impacts
of solitary confinement in the United States on--
(A) Federal, State, and local governments; and
(B) communities and social institutions generally,
including individuals, families, and businesses within
such communities and social institutions.
(2) Matters included.--The study under paragraph (1) shall
include--
(A) a review of existing Federal, State, and local
government policies and practices with respect to the
extent and duration of the use of solitary confinement;
(B) an assessment of the relationship between
solitary confinement and correctional facility
conditions, and existing monitoring, regulatory, and
enforcement practices;
(C) an assessment of the characteristics of
incarcerated individuals and juvenile detainees most
likely to be referred to solitary confinement and the
effectiveness of various types of treatment or programs
to reduce such likelihood;
(D) an assessment of the impacts of solitary
confinement on individuals, families, social
institutions, and the economy generally;
(E) an identification of additional scientific and
social science research needed on the prevalence of
solitary confinement in correctional facilities as well
as a full assessment of existing literature;
(F) an assessment of the general relationship
between solitary confinement and mental and physical
illness;
(G) an assessment of the relationship between
solitary confinement and levels of training,
supervision, and discipline of the staff of
correctional facilities; and
(H) an assessment of existing Federal and State
systems for collecting and reporting the number and
duration of solitary confinement incidents in
correctional facilities nationwide.
(3) Report.--
(A) Distribution.--Not later than one year after
the date of the initial meeting of the Commission, the
Commission shall submit a report on the study carried
out under this subsection to--
(i) the President;
(ii) the Congress;
(iii) the Attorney General of the United
States;
(iv) the Secretary of Health and Human
Services;
(v) the Director of the Federal Bureau of
Prisons;
(vi) the Administrator of the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention;
(vii) the chief executive of each State;
and
(viii) the head of the department of
corrections of each State.
(B) Contents.--The report under subparagraph (A)
shall include--
(i) the findings and conclusions of the
Commission;
(ii) the recommended national standards for
reducing the use of solitary confinement
described in subsection (e); and
(iii) a summary of the materials relied on
by the Commission in the preparation of the
report.
(e) Recommendations.--
(1) In general.--As part of the report submitted under
subsection (d)(3), the Commission shall provide the Attorney
General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services with
recommended national standards for significantly reducing the
use of solitary confinement in correctional facilities.
(2) Matters included.--The information provided under
paragraph (1) shall include recommended national standards
relating to--
(A) how authorities can progress toward
significantly limiting the utilization of solitary
confinement so that an incarcerated individual may be
placed in solitary confinement only under extreme
emergency circumstances, as a last resort, for as short
a time as possible, subject to independent review, and
pursuant to the authorization of a competent authority;
(B) methods that can be employed to ensure that the
duration of solitary confinement of an incarcerated
individual at an institution can be limited to hours at
a time for purposes of emergency de-escalation, except
that if the head of a correctional facility makes an
individualized determination that the incarcerated
individual cannot be safely returned to the general
population, the head of the correctional facility may
continue to segregate the incarcerated individual from
the general population without the use of solitary
confinement, while ensuring that the incarcerated
individual has access to the type and hours of out-of-
cell congregate programming, activities, and engagement
comparable to the general population, in accordance
with best practices and model programs for improving
people's well-being and reducing violence in youth and
adult correctional settings, non-correctional settings,
and other mental health settings, and in accordance
with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules on the
Treatment of Prisoners;
(C) ensuring that prior to being classified,
assigned, or subject to long-term segregation, an
incarcerated individual shall be entitled to a
meaningful hearing on the reason for and duration of
the confinement and have access to legal counsel for
such hearings;
(D) ensuring that indefinite sentencing of an
incarcerated individual to long-term segregation will
not be allowed and that the incarcerated individual
will be afforded a meaningful review of the segregation
at least once every 30 days that the incarcerated
individual remains in segregation and that correctional
facility officials must record and provide a transcript
of the review proceedings for the incarcerated
individual under review to the incarcerated individual
or the incarcerated individual's designee;
(E) ensuring that correctional facility officials
design and implement programming that allows
incarcerated individuals subject to long-term
segregation to earn placement in less restrictive
housing through positive behavior;
(F) ensuring that protective custody and other
custody designations designed to protect vulnerable
incarcerated individuals, regardless of the reason for
vulnerability, are not characterized by solitary
confinement or other type of isolation conditions, and
that incarcerated individuals placed in protective
custody have access to programs, privileges, education,
and work opportunities commensurate with general
population incarcerated individuals to the extent
possible;
(G) ensuring that correctional facility officials
improve access to mental health treatment for
incarcerated individuals in solitary confinement;
(H) ensuring that correctional facility officials
do all that is feasible to make certain that
incarcerated individuals are not held in solitary
confinement for any duration;
(I) ensuring that correctional facility officials
develop alternative methods to manage issues with
incarcerated individuals other than solitary
confinement;
(J) ensuring that correctional facility officers do
all that is feasible to make certain that incarcerated
individuals with mental health, physical, or cognitive
disabilities are not held in solitary confinement for
any duration;
(K) ensuring that correctional facility officers do
all that is feasible to make certain that pregnant and
post-partum women are not held in solitary confinement
for any duration;
(L) ensuring that correctional facility officers
work towards systems that limit the circumstances and
conditions under which juveniles are placed in solitary
confinement, in compliance with section 5043 of title
18, United States Code;
(M) State and local governments making publicly
available, on a monthly basis, information,
disaggregated by the demographic characteristics of
incarcerated individuals, on the use of solitary
confinement, segregation, and any other form of
restrictive housing in correctional facilities in the
jurisdiction, including--
(i) the average daily number and percentage
of incarcerated individuals in each placement;
(ii) the total number of such placements;
(iii) the reasons for such placements;
(iv) the duration incarcerated individuals
spent in each placement;
(v) the duration of daily out-of-cell time
and congregate programming for incarcerated
individuals in each placement; and
(vi) the number and percentage self-harm
incidents, suicide attempts, suicides, and
deaths broken down by cause, for incarcerated
individuals in each placement;
(N) ensuring that correctional facilities have in
place an independent oversight processes related to the
use of solitary confinement and segregation; and
(O) such other matters as may reasonably be related
to the goal of reducing solitary confinement in
correctional facilities.
(3) Limitation.--The Commission shall not propose a
recommended standard that would impose substantial additional
costs compared to the costs presently expended by correctional
facilities, and shall seek to propose standards that reduce the
costs of incarceration at such facilities.
(f) Consultation With Accreditation Organizations.--In developing
recommended national standards for the reduction of solitary
confinement under subsection (e), the Commission shall consider any
standards, laws, and policies that have already been developed, or are
being developed simultaneously to the deliberations of the Commission.
The Commission shall consult with accreditation organizations
responsible for the accreditation of correctional facilities that have
developed or are developing standards related to solitary confinement.
The Commission shall also consult with national associations
representing the corrections profession, the legal profession, the
medical profession, people who are incarcerated, or any other pertinent
professional body that has developed or is developing standards related
to solitary confinement.
(g) Hearings.--
(1) In general.--The Commission shall hold public hearings.
The Commission may hold such hearings, sit and act at such
times and places, take such testimony, and receive such
evidence as the Commission considers advisable to carry out its
duties under this section.
(2) Witness expenses.--Witnesses requested to appear before
the Commission shall be paid the same fees as are paid to
witnesses under section 1821 of title 28, United States Code.
The per diem and mileage allowances for witnesses shall be paid
from funds appropriated to the Commission.
(3) Virtual hearings permitted.--Hearings held under this
subsection may be held virtually.
(h) Information From Federal or State Agencies.--The Commission may
secure directly from any Federal department or agency such information
as the Commission considers necessary to carry out its duties under
this section. The Commission may request the head of any State or local
department or agency to furnish such information to the Commission.
(i) Personnel Matters.--
(1) Travel expenses.--The members of the Commission shall
be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of
subsistence, at rates authorized for employees of agencies
under subchapter I of chapter 57 of title 5, United States
Code, while away from their homes or regular places of business
in the performance of service for the Commission.
(2) Detail of federal employees.--With the affirmative vote
of \2/3\ of the Commission, any Federal Government employee,
with the approval of the head of the appropriate Federal
agency, may be detailed to the Commission without
reimbursement, and such detail shall be without interruption or
loss of civil service status, benefits, or privileges.
(3) Procurement of temporary and intermittent services.--
Upon the request of the Commission, the Attorney General shall
provide reasonable and appropriate office space, supplies, and
administrative assistance.
(j) Contracts for Research.--
(1) National institute of justice.--With a \2/3\
affirmative vote, the Commission may select nongovernmental
researchers and experts to assist the Commission in carrying
out its duties under this Act. The National Institute of
Justice shall contract with the researchers and experts
selected by the Commission to provide funding in exchange for
their services.
(2) Other organizations.--Nothing in this subsection shall
be construed to limit the ability of the Commission to enter
into contracts with other entities or organizations for
research necessary to carry out the duties of the Commission
under this section.
(k) Termination.--The Commission shall terminate on the date that
is 60 days after the date on which the Commission submits the reports
required by this section.
(l) Exemption.--The Commission shall be exempt from the Federal
Advisory Committee Act.
(m) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be
appropriated $500,000 for each of fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
SEC. 4. ADOPTION AND EFFECT OF NATIONAL STANDARDS.
(a) Publication of Standards.--
(1) Final rule.--Not later than one year after receiving
the report specified in section (3)(d)(3), the Attorney General
shall publish a final rule adopting national standards for the
reduction of solitary confinement in correctional facilities.
(2) Independent judgment.--The standards referred to in
paragraph (1) shall be based upon the independent judgment of
the Attorney General, after giving consideration to the
recommended national standards provided by the Commission under
section 3(e), and being informed by such data, opinions, and
proposals that the Attorney General determines to be
appropriate to consider.
(3) Limitation.--The Attorney General shall not establish a
national standard under this section that would impose
substantial additional costs compared to the costs presently
expended by Federal and State correctional systems. The
Attorney General may, however, provide a list of improvements
for consideration by correctional facilities.
(4) Transmission to states.--Not later than 60 days after
publishing the final rule under paragraph (1), the Attorney
General shall transmit the national standards adopted under
that paragraph to the chief executive of each State, the head
of the department of corrections of each State, the head of the
department of juvenile justice of each State, and to the
appropriate authorities in those units of local government who
oversee operations in one or more correctional facilities.
(b) Applicability to Federal Agencies.--Immediately upon adoption
of the final rule under subsection (a)(1), the national standards
referred to in subsection (a) shall apply to each Federal agency that
detains or incarcerates individuals (including aliens), and to any
entity with which a Federal agency has a contract for the detainment or
incarceration of individuals.
SEC. 5. GRANT PROGRAM FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES.
(a) Authorization.--Beginning in the first fiscal year that begins
after the date on which the Attorney General issues the final rule
under subsection (a)(1), the Attorney General is authorized to make
grants to States for the purposes described in subsection (b).
(b) Uses of Funds.--Grants under this section shall be used solely
for purposes of community-based prevention and education programs,
community-based mental health care, or community-based drug treatment
or harm reduction, including for purposes of diversion from
incarceration or release from incarceration.
(c) Application.--The chief executive of a State seeking a grant
under this section shall submit to the Attorney General an application
at such time, in such manner, and containing such information as the
Attorney General may reasonably require.
(d) Eligibility.--In order to be eligible for a grant under this
section, a State shall be in compliance with the national standards for
the reduction of solitary confinement in correctional facilities
described in section 4(a)(1).
(e) Allocation.--Of the total amount appropriated under this part
in any fiscal year--
(1) 0.4 percent shall be allocated to each of the
participating States;
(2) 7 percent shall be reserved to provide technical
assistance to States in complying with the national standards
for the reduction of solitary confinement in correctional
facilities described in section 4(a)(1); and
(3) of the total funds remaining after the allocation under
paragraph (1), there shall be allocated to each of the
participating States an amount which bears the same ratio to
the amount of remaining funds described in this paragraph as
the State correctional facility population of such State bears
to the total correctional facility population of all the
participating States.
(f) Limitation.--Not more than 5 percent of grant funds received by
a State may be used for administrative purposes.
(g) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be
appropriated $20,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2023 and 2024 to
carry out this section.
SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS.
For purposes of this Act, the following definitions shall apply:
(1) Attorney general.--The term ``Attorney General'' means
the Attorney General of the United States.
(2) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the National
Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Commission established
under section 3 of this Act.
(3) Long-term.--The term ``long-term'' means any period
lasting more than 15 days in a 60-day period.
(4) Solitary confinement.--The term ``solitary
confinement'' means confinement of an incarcerated individual
or juvenile detainee in a cell or other place, alone or with
other persons, with severely restricted activity, movement, and
social interaction.
(5) Segregation.--The term ``segregation'' means housing of
an incarcerated individual separate from the general population
of a correctional facility.
(6) Correctional facility.--The term ``correctional
facility'' means a Federal, State, local, or privately run
prison, jail, or juvenile detention facility.
(7) State.--The term ``State'' means any State of the
United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the
Northern Mariana Islands.
SEC. 7. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION RELATED TO BIVENS REMEDIES.
Consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in Carlson v. Green,
446 U.S. 14 (1980) and Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994), Congress
recognizes that people in prison and detention may bring a Bivens
action to seek damages for violations of their Constitutional rights in
prison, and nothing in this Act may be construed to limit that remedy.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
Llama 3.2 · runs locally in your browser
Ask anything about this bill. The AI reads the full text to answer.
Enter to send · Shift+Enter for new line