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Restrictive housing

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Director's Message: New Research Projects Funded in Fiscal Year 2015

One of NIJ’s most crucial tasks as a science agency is making decisions about which research proposals to fund. I’m pleased to report that for fiscal year 2015, NIJ made over $156 million in grant awards to more than 210 research projects. These awards reflect NIJ’s commitment to funding rigorous research that helps practitioners and policymakers make criminal justice decisions based on sound scientific evidence.  

Director's Message: Setting the Agenda for Administrative Segregation Research

For most of my academic life, I have had an interest in corrections issues, especially the impact of incarceration on families and communities. When I arrived at NIJ, I was excited to be part of a national effort to reform sentencing and incarceration policies, including the use of solitary confinement.

As the nation examines administrative segregation, NIJ’s role will be to do what we do best: 1) Support empirical assessments to improve our understanding of the issues and 2) translate findings so criminal justice professionals can make informed decisions.

What We Know — and Don't Know — About Restrictive Housing

April 2016

What do we know about the use of restrictive housing in jails and prison in the U.S.? Leading practitioners and researchers discuss what the current evidence can tell us about how restrictive housing is used, who is in restrictive housing, its effects on inmate populations, and what else we need to learn to identify alternatives to restrictive housing.