Over the last two decades, super-maximum custody (or ‘supermax’)
prisons have become increasingly common throughout the American correctional
landscape. Although these institutions can be justified using a variety of arguments
(e.g. retribution), one of the most commonly used rationalizations is that they
promote higher levels of prison order throughout the systems in which they are used.
Because of the lack of direct empirical evidence to support this claim, we refer to
this argument as the ‘system-wide order’ conjecture. In this
essay, we explore the different pathways through which supermax prisons may
achieve system-wide order. Our analysis suggests that the conceptual foundation upon
which the system-wide order conjecture rests is unstable, and that empirical
research is needed to resolve debates about the merits of supermax prisons in
contributing to order in prison systems. We conclude by identifying critical
research gaps that must be addressed to better understand the effects of this
high-cost correctional approach.
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