Solitary Confinement - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition solitary-confinement

Definition :

Solitary confinement. The Criminal Law Consolida-tion Acts of 1861 each frequently provide for sentences of imprisonment 'with or without solit-ary confinement' in the discretion of the Court, and also that no offender shall be kept in solitary confinement for a longer period than one month to a time, nor there months in the space of a year 'but the Prison Act, 1865, has since, by s. 17, enjoined the prevention of criminal prisoners from holding any communication with each other, and these provisions of the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts have been consequently repealed by Statute Law Revision Acts.

Separate confinement that gives a prisoner extremely limited access to other people, esp. the complete isolation of a prisoner, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1399.