Behind Bars in America
By Joanne Mariner
Judging
simply by the numbers, one might expect that the subject of incarceration
in the United States would be too big to be ignored. Some two million
adults are behind bars, and over $40 billion a year is budgeted toward
keeping them there. But despite the enormous human and financial costs,
there is little public debate over the country’s imprisonment policies,
certainly much less than that accorded education, health care, and other
serious issues of the day.
Recently, although with little fanfare,
the country seems to have reached a turning point in its reliance on
incarceration. For the past more than two decades, inmate populations
across the United States have risen steadily. But in late 2000, according
to the most recent official figures, the overall number of state prisoners
began to decrease. Indeed, several states showed substantial reductions
in the numbers of people they imprisoned, marking an important change
from past years.
There are other signs, as well, that the
country is taking at least tentative steps toward a new approach to
incarceration. In recent years, if the topic was discussed publicly
at all, incarceration meant little more than long-term incapacitation
and wholesale punishment. "Three strikes" laws, mandatory
minimums, and "no frills" prisons were the order of the day.
Now, although talk of rehabilitation still
sounds incongruous, the pendulum may have begun to swing away from the
harshest forms of imprisonment. Public animosity toward prisoners, encouraged
by opportunistic politicians, probably reached its peak in the mid-1990s.
At present, with so many "tough" sentencing laws having been
passed, so many prisons built, and so many people incarcerated, the
flaws in this punitive approach are becoming more obvious.
Accordingly, it seems like a good moment
to examine the state of the nation’s prisons and jails. Where did we
end up, after this more than two decades-long incarceration boom? In
this article, I identify a few of the most serious problems that face
aspiring prison reformers.
Two Million People
By any measure, the United States has an
unprecedentedly large population of prisoners. In sheer numbers, its
two million prisoners represent the largest known inmate population
in the world, dwarfing that of most other countries. In terms of per
capita rate of incarceration, the United States also ranks higher than
almost every other country. Most European countries, for example, imprison
fewer than 100 people per 100,000 residents, a rate more than seven
times lower than that of the United States.
The racial make-up of the U.S. prisoner
population also merits scrutiny. The inmate population is heavily weighted
toward ethnic and racial minorities, particularly African Americans.
Overall, African Americans make up some 44 percent of the prisoner population,
while whites constitute 40 percent and Hispanics 15 percent (other minorities
fill out the remainder). Relative to their proportions in the U.S. population
as a whole, black males are more than twice as likely to be incarcerated
as Hispanic males and seven times as likely as white males.
Mentally ill people are overrepresented
among inmates as well, leading some experts to view the nation’s prisons
and jails as its default mental health care system. According to government
figures, there are almost five times more mentally ill people behind
bars in the United States than in state mental hospitals. Nearly 16
percent of all inmates are mentally ill, a much higher rate of mental
illness than is found outside of the incarceration context.
Overcrowded and Overwhelmed Facilities
The enormous increases in prisoner numbers
have led to impressive growth in state and local incarceration budgets,
but still not enough to support the operation of high quality facilities.
Prisons in this country are, in general, overcrowded, understaffed,
and lacking in services. On this front, moreover, their problems appear
to be worsening.
The country’s overall prison capacity has
expanded significantly as a result of new prison construction, but construction
has not kept pace with the growth in inmate numbers. Many state prison
systems squeeze in many more prisoners than they were designed to hold,
and some, like Alabama’s, are bursting at the seams. Although the degree
of overcrowding varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, state
prison systems are operating at an average of 15 percent above capacity,
while the federal prisons are operating at 31 percent above their recommended
capacity.
In general, corrections officials lack
the funds necessary to recruit, train, and retain adequate numbers of
staff, let alone to provide inmates with work, training, educational,
or substance abuse treatment programs. High turnover in many prison
systems—Texas being one of the most glaring examples—leads to chronic
staff shortages. Besides working in a difficult and stressful job, correctional
officers in many states are quite poorly paid, and thus likely to quit
their jobs as soon as alternative opportunities present themselves.
The insufficient staff numbers and lack
of programs are even more glaring now than in the past, as the recession
has begun to have a negative impact on prison and jail conditions. Last
year, for example, the Washington corrections department eliminated
its law libraries, library staff, and college-level vocational education
programs. The Arizona corrections department, similarly, cut inmate
education, substance abuse treatment, and religion programs. According
to the Corrections Professional, an industry publication, every
state corrections department in the country was facing a reduced budget
at the start of 2002.
Violence and Sexual Abuse
Violence, particularly by other inmates,
but also by guards, is endemic to U.S. prisons and jails. In 1999, the
most recent year for which data are available, more than 31,000 inmates
were assaulted while incarcerated, a quarter of them receiving injuries
that required medical attention. According to a U.S. Department of Justice
study, 10 percent of state inmates reported they had been injured in
a fight while in prison.
Rape is common and is a psychologically
and physically devastating form of violence among inmates. Certain prisoners
are targeted for sexual exploitation upon entering a penal facility,
particularly those who are young, small, physically weak, white, gay,
first offenders, or convicted of a sexual offense against a minor. In
extreme cases, prisoners become the "slaves" of their rapists,
even being "sold" or "rented" to other prisoners.
Although no conclusive national data exist showing the prevalence of
prisoner-on-prisoner rape, the most recent statistical survey showed
that 21 percent of inmates in seven prisons had experienced at least
one episode of pressured or forced sex since entering prison. Some rapes
are extremely violent, leaving victims beaten, injured, and, in the
most extreme cases, dead. Staff frequently ignore or even react hostilely
to inmates’ complaints of rape, and generally fail to implement reasonable
prevention and punishment measures.
Corrections authorities in some prisons
and jails are directly implicated in abuses, beating inmates, stunning
them with electronic devices, or even raping them. In Florida last year,
an inmate died after being kept for a day in a restraining chair that
immobilized him. In Virginia last year, prison officials suspended the
use of the Ultron II stun gun, which delivers 50,000 volts of electricity,
after an autopsy implicated the weapon in the death of Lawrence Frazier
the previous year. Frazier, an insulin dependent inmate at Wallens Ridge
State Prison, began struggling with corrections officers at a moment
when his blood sugar was dangerously low. The officers stunned him three
times with the Ultron II stun device and then placed him in restraints.
Frazier lapsed into a coma and died several days later.
In some instances, entire state prison
systems are pervaded with abuse. A March 1999 federal court decision
concluded, for example, that the frequency of "wholly unnecessary
physical aggression" perpetrated by guards in Texas prisons reflected
the "culture of sadistic and malicious violence" found there.
The problem of custodial sexual misconduct
last year—generally male guards sexually abusing female inmates—remains
all too common. In recent years, however, many states have enacted laws
criminalizing such misconduct and corrections departments have adopted
programs to address this problem. Nonetheless, the investigation and
prosecution of such cases are frequently hampered by lack of commitment
or resources.
Super-maximum Security Confinement
Reliance on super-maximum security forms
of confinement increased dramatically during the 1990s, as part of the
trend toward "tougher," more punitive forms of incarceration.
Inmates in such facilities endure twenty-three-hour-per-day lockdown,
extreme social isolation, reduced environmental stimulation, and an
increased likelihood of physical abuse by guards.
Last year, class action lawsuits challenged
allegedly abusive conditions in super-maximum security prisons in Illinois,
Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia. A suit filed on behalf of Connecticut
inmates housed at Virginia’s Wallens Ridge State Prison alleged that
excessive force was endemic to the facility. According to the inmates’
legal counsel, prison records revealed that over a single nineteen-month
period guards shocked the Connecticut prisoners with stun weapons thirty-three
times, and placed them in five-point restraints seventy-nine times.
Over the course of a year, thirty-seven Connecticut inmates were hit
by rubber rounds fired by guards.
Wisconsin prisoners filed a suit last year
challenging conditions in that state’s two-year-old ultrahigh security
prison in Boscobel. Among the conditions described in the complaint
were round-the-clock confinement for all but a few hours a week in small
windowless cells, exercise limited to solitary activity in tiny, unheated
rooms that lacked exercise equipment, and twenty-four-hour video surveillance
that allowed female guards to watch male inmates shower and urinate.
Those confined at the facility included eight inmates under the age
of eighteen.
Mentally ill inmates were also held at
Boscobel, a problem that drew judicial scrutiny. Plaintiffs claimed
that the conditions of social isolation, idleness, and limited sensory
stimulus aggravated the symptoms of mentally ill inmates. In October,
a federal judge ordered the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to remove
five seriously mentally ill inmates from the prison, to arrange for
an independent psychiatric examination of all inmates with certain characteristics
suggesting mental illness, and to remove from the prison any inmate
revealed to be seriously mentally ill.
Closed to Scrutiny
There is little effective monitoring of
conditions in U.S. prisons and jails. Unlike some countries, the United
States has no official prison monitoring body. Responsibility for outside
oversight of detention conditions varies from state to state, with some
jurisdictions having few, if any, monitoring mechanisms. The American
Correctional Association, a private nonprofit organization, administers
a voluntary accreditation program for U.S. prisons and jails under which
conditions and policies are evaluated, yet the majority of state and
local penal facilities choose not to participate in this scheme. Some
states have inspector generals or other outside monitors who visit penal
institutions, while others have investigatory bodies within corrections
departments that operate with a degree of independence. These states
are the exception, however, while a lack of oversight is the rule.
Local jails, even more than state correctional
facilities, tend to escape outside oversight. Some states have established
state jail standards by which to evaluate the conditions in their jails,
but compliance with such standards is largely unenforced.
The lack of comprehensive and effective
outside monitoring mechanisms has meant that the federal judiciary has
become, however reluctantly, a sort of default national prison oversight
body. But over the past decade, even as the inmate population has grown,
judicial monitoring of prison abuses has declined in effectiveness.
The 1996 passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act has, in particular,
made it much more difficult for inmates to secure legal remedies for
abuses.
Future Reforms?
It is difficult to imagine that any country
could house such an enormous number of inmates in decent conditions.
Yet, as this brief overview is meant to suggest, much could be done
to improve the treatment of our nation’s prisoners. Overcrowding should
be alleviated; guard abuses should be investigated and punished; programs
should be added; sufficient staff should be hired. Perhaps, however,
the most effective first step toward reform would be to reduce the size
of inmate populations by reducing reliance on strict drug sentencing
and "three strikes" laws.
But an even more necessary first step,
of course, is to engage in a public discussion of the country’s incarceration
policies.
Joanne Mariner is deputy director of
the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. She has inspected prisons
around the world, including U.S. state and federal prisons. The views
expressed in her article are her own, and do not necessarily reflect
those of Human Rights Watch.
