The Road From Rhodes: The Impact of Double Celling on State Investment in Incarceration

Abstract

Exactly forty years ago, the Supreme Court decided Rhodes v. Chapman, holding that Ohio’s practice of double celling prisoners did not violate the Eighth Amendment. In contravention of American Correctional Association and architectural minimum standards, the practice has since only continued to spread among prisons as a way to decrease the financial burdens of a rapidly expanding prison population. Both the COVID-19 pandemic and recent calls for prison abolition have brought the issues of overcrowding and carceral investment to the forefront of the national consciousness. This essay explores the financial costs of incarceration that states are able to avoid by virtue of their double celling practices. First, this essay provides a historical context to double celling, surveying prison space standards and variables designed to measure prison capacity, before drawing on Rhodes v. Chapman as a case study for estimating Ohio’s avoided costs before and after Rhodes. Second, this essay examines modern prison expenditures and overcrowding, using those figures to estimate the costs that Alabama’s prison system—which spends the least on its inmates— is able to currently externalize. Both federal and state prison systems should internalize these costs. Currently, governments simultaneously overinvest in the size of their carceral systems while underinvesting in the quality of prisons. This situation allows for the development of a carceral policy disconnected from the actual costs of incarceration. As a start, standards governing minimum space requirements exist and should be enforced. Individual state legislatures have near-plenary power over their prison systems, and Congress can provide incentives for states to comply with humane standards. Congress has direct powers over the federal system, and the executive branch can exercise control over the Federal Bureau of Prisons, an agency housed in the Department of Justice. In addition, much of the confusion around whether or not prisons meet minimum standards in the first place centers around inconsistent and incomplete data. Relevant government authorities should mandate—or at least heavily incentivize—data collection and standardization; otherwise, carceral systems will shield themselves through ambiguous and deficient data. Permitting double celling has created perverse incentives for prison systems, providing opportunities for prisons to minimize their financial costs at the expense of prisoners’ health and safety. COVID-19 has shown us the devastating consequences of such policies. The time to act to curtail Rhodes v. Chapman’s reach is now.