The Fight Against Supermax Prisons By Jessica Pupovac

[Demeter]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19601.htm

In supermax prisons, 23 hours a day of solitary confinement is the norm. How did our prison system become so cruel?

25/03/08 "AlterNet" -- -Imagine living in an 8-by-12 prison cell, in solitary confinement, for eight years straight. Your entire world consists of a dank, cinder block room with a narrow window only three inches high, opening up to an outdoor cement cage, cynically dubbed, "the yard." If you're lucky, you spend one hour five days a week in that outdoor cage, where you gaze up through a wire mesh roof and hope for a glimpse of the sun. If you talk back to the guards or act out in any way, you might only venture outside one precious hour per week...You go eight years without shaking a hand or experiencing any physical human contact. The prison guards bark orders and touch you only while wearing leather gloves, and then it's only to put you in full cuffs and shackles before escorting you to the cold showers, where they watch your every move.

You cannot make phone calls to your friends or family and must "earn" two visits per month, which inevitably take place through a Plexiglass wall. You are kept in full shackles the entire time you visit with your wife and children, and have to strain to hear their voices through speakers that record your every word. With no religious or educational programs to break up the time or elevate your thoughts, it's a daily struggle to keep your mind from unraveling.

This is how Reginald Akeem Berry describes his time in Tamms Correctional Facility, a "Supermax" state prison in southern Illinois, where he was held from March 1998 until July 2006. He now works to draw attention to conditions inside Tamms, where 261 inmates continue to be held in extreme isolation...Once exclusively employed as a short-term punishment for particularly violent jailhouse infractions, "supermax" facilities, or "control units," are today designed specifically to hold large numbers of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. A concept that spread like wildfire in the 1990s, today an estimated 20,000 prisoners in 44 states live in these modern-day dungeons, judged to be "unmanageable" by prison officials and moved from other penitentiaries to the nearest supermax...Life in supermax institutions is grueling. Inmates stay in their cells for at least 23 hours per day, and never so much as lay eyes on another prisoner. While many live under these conditions for five years, others continue, uncertain of how to earn their way out, for 10, 15 or even 20 years.

The effects of such extended periods of isolation on prisoners' physical and mental health, their chances of meaningful rehabilitation, and, ultimately, on the communities to which they will eventually return are coming under increasing fire, from lawyers, human rights advocates and the medical professionals who have treated them. Bolstered by growing concern over the United States' sanctioning of torture, and the effect it's had on the country's international standing, their calls to action are gaining ground. In 2000, and again in 2006, the United Nations Committee Against Torture condemned the kind of isolation imposed by the U.S. government in federal, state and county-run supermax prisons, calling it "extremely harsh." "The committee is concerned about the prolonged isolation periods detainees are subjected to," they stated, "the effect such treatment has on their mental health, and that its purpose may be retribution, in which case it would constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."....

Jessica Pupovac is an adult educator and independent journalist living in Chicago

[mainegreen]

1. I think we should keep at least one supermax.

Then we can put el Presidente in it, with his cronies. Well then deny him a right to speak with a lawyer or a right to trial.

That will be nice.

[Demeter]

2. We Already Have Gitmo

We could put them all there, turn it over to Cuba, and wash our hands of the whole nasty business.

[madrchsod]

3. they are in there for a very good reason

they are a the worse of the worse..they have earned the right to be locked up in a super max..they put themselves in there and they can get themselves out-if they chose to.

[Demeter]

4. All of Them? Are You Sure?

What of all the documented innocents executed, and the luckier ones, exonerated after years of confinement?

What of the plethora of judicial misconduct, prosecutorial abuse, and incompetent defense that is the scandal of the world?

And what purpose does such "rehabilitation", if I may so defame the word, serve?


This is a throwback to the Middle Ages and the Inquisition's darkest practices. Is this what we want for a nation?

[depakid]

6. He doesn't know what he's talking about

Aside from notorious or political prisoners- inmates get placed there for a variety of reasons

Criteria for Supermax Confinement

Many correctional authorities use overly broad and vague criteria for determining supermax eligibility and fail to exercise appropriate control over placement decisions. As a result, inmates are placed in supermax confinement even when such restrictive controls are clearly excessive in light of their behavior-for example, prisoners who are difficult but not dangerous, who have been involved in a single fight, who have accumulated a record of minor, non-violent disciplinary infractions, or who are gang members but have not been involved in any misconduct.

Thoughtful corrections professionals would acknowledge that such inmates could be managed adequately through other avenues of control. But if a state has a supermax facility, there are overwhelming institutional temptations to send any troublesome inmate there.

The temptations are particularly difficult to resist when a state has a shortage of prison beds at lower security levels. Faced with prison population pressures and unwilling to leave expensive supermax facilities half empty, officials in practice expand the criteria for supermax eligibility. Corrections officials also frequently place disruptive, mentally ill inmates in supermax confinement because they lack other housing options, such as secure mental health treatment units or segregation units specifically designed for mentally ill offenders.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/supermax/Sprmx002.htm#P73_8787

[libodem]

5. I don't think it takes very long

with that much sensory deprivation to start having hallucinations. It makes human beings insane. Prolonged isolation is inhumane and cruel and unusual punishment. There should be limits. No wonder men come out of there shell shocked and unfit to manage in society. It teaches one how to behave in a box. Yet these idiots, in control of 'justice', don't believe in having abortions or that we are overpopulated. What's the difference in snuffing a fetus and snuffing the brain of a live human? The live human will suffer for 20 years and the fetus about 5 seconds. I know it's a poor analogy but the RW gets so bent out of shape over some societal tragedies and condones others.