Ask The Inmate. Real answers from people who've been there.

Getting caught with either a cell phone or drugs inside a facility sets off an immediate response. The inmate gets taken into custody on the spot, handcuffed, and escorted directly to the Special Housing Unit, which is also called the SHU, the hole, or solitary confinement depending on the facility. They stay there until a Disciplinary Hearing is held to determine what the formal punishment will be. The consequences from that hearing are serious. A lengthy SHU stay is typical, often...

Administrative segregation refers to both a classification and a type of unit. There are at least three distinct types of segregation: administrative segregation, disciplinary segregation, and protective … Any of these types of segregation might involve a regimen of solitary (or near solitary) confinement. Administrative segregation (ad seg) is when an inmate is housed separately from the main prison population. In most prisons, ad seg is another term for solitary confinement. Typically, inmates get "put in the hole" if they violate prison rules,...

ST/SP is also referred to as protective custody (PC). This is a type of imprisonment to protect a person from harm, either from outside sources or other prisoners. Sometimes it is the administration that decides, other times the inmate asks for protection. This is isolation or solitary confinement, not necessarily a "punishment" but a safety concern and it's for their protection. Jail and prison officials must know of the signs and characteristics of inmates that may need protective custody. Inmates such as first time...

This is a serious situation and the frustration of watching someone you love get repeatedly denied protection while facing genuine danger is one of the hardest things a family can go through from the outside. The internal grievance process is the necessary first path even when it feels like it is going nowhere. A denied 805 request for administrative segregation is not the end of the road. The next step in the federal grievance process is a BP-9, which is a...

The box, also called the hole, SHU, or solitary confinement, has no fixed release timeline. How long someone stays there depends almost entirely on why they were placed there in the first place. There are two main types of segregation and they work differently. Disciplinary segregation is punishment for a specific rule violation. The length of time is determined by the disciplinary hearing process and is tied to the severity of the infraction. Minor violations might result in a few days to...