Key points • Isolated prisoners spend most of their time inside their cell. Cells should therefore be designed to accommodate this regime and, as a minimum, contain a toilet and a wash-basin. • Allow segregated prisoners to exercise some degree of autonomy and control over their immediate environment. • Encourage visits by family and friends and ensure that visiting areas are clean and in good decorative order. • Ensure that isolated prisoners have as much human contact as possible with people from outside the prison and with custodial, educational, religious and medical staff. • Allow for as many activities as possible, for example meals, to take place in association with other prisoners. • Where this is not possible, creative solutions should be sought to ease the restrictive monotonous environment and impoverished regime in segregation units. • Small concessions go a long way. Be flexible and think creatively. • One size does not fit all. Additional restrictions may be unavoidable for certain prisoners at certain times, but should not be applied as a matter of course. • The recommendations discussed in this chapter set out minimum standards which prison administrations should strive to improve on. • Further standards and safeguards need to be developed to ensure that prisoners are protected against the harm that solitary confinement causes. 54 Sourcebook on solitary confinement: Design, physical conditions and regime in solitary confinement units