(NewsNation) — Prison staff shortages and inmate overcrowding have led to longer and more intense lockdowns confining prisoners to their cells for weeks and even months at a time.
While lockdowns are common and used for security or safety concerns they typically last hours or days, but that is now commonly occurring year-round in some prisons, reports Stateline.
A number of prisons across the county have increasingly implemented prolonged lockdowns, which have contributed to violence between prisoners and staff, increased drug use and deaths by suicide and harms rehabilitation efforts, the outlet reported.
During lockdowns prisoners are essentially isolated and cut off from access to work, classes, religious services and visits can be limited or completely banned. Meals are also provided in cells, the outlet reported.
Lockdowns are occurring largely as a response to sustained staff shortages coupled with an increase in prison populations.
“What’s unusual here is that you’ve got these more sustained lockdowns,” Michele Deitch, the director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, told Stateline. “People are not in that situation because of disciplinary reasons. They’re in there for the convenience and management of the institution.”
State prison populations also grew by 2% between 2021 and 2022, according to the most recent data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. That upward trajectory could increase as several states, including Arizona, Oregon, Colorado and Georgia, have recently passed tough on crime laws.
This is happening as prisons struggle with staff retention. In 2023, the number of people working in state prisons fell to its lowest level this century, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Illinois Department of Corrections operation and management reports show a major uptick in the number of lockdowns across facilities, with 635 in the fiscal year 2019 and 1,814 in fiscal year 2024, the outlet reported.
In Wisconsin, at least two prisons went into lockdown for more than a year, the outlet reported. In one of these facilities, the Waupun Correctional Institution, at least five incarcerated people have died since June 2023 and nine current and former staff members are facing felony charges in connection with two of the deaths, Stateline reported.
“You’re going to see a lot more tension rising among the population, which could lead to more assaults and other kinds of abuses. You’re more likely to see people using drugs or something to kind of escape from all of that,” Deitch told the outlet.