I may be wrong but aren’t rapists, pedophiles and the like kept away with the general population to protect them because so many were getting jailhouse justice?
Nope. The only time they were removed from general population was if a credible threat was made against them, or they requested being put into protection. And whether they got that protection in the segregation unit, was determined by the Deputy Superintendent for Security. He didn't have to approve it. I don't know if things have changed with that in the 20 years I've been retired.
We had a big problem because as a medium security facility, we were limited in the number of cells in our two boxes. You'd lock a guy up for fighting, or because he was ordered to be locked up based on the punishment doled out from a misbehavior report, and most of the time, the inmate would be kicked out of the box in a week or less, back into general population, to make room for the newest troublemaker. It was like a revolving door.
About 5 years before I retired, the State constructed new buildings in some of the facilities that contained 200 cells for the most incorrigible inmates in the State's prisons. Ours was full. Everything was on camera. The cells had their own separate outside exercise area where the inmates would get their one hour of rec each day mandated by the courts.