A new report by the bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons has found that violence and abuse are common for prisoners confined in the United States’ prisons. As the prison population has surpassed 2.2 million in the United States, approximately 13.5 million people spend some time in jail or prison each year. It is not just “violent” murderers and rapists that are subjected to dehumanizing conditions and physical abuse, but people guilty of other minor crimes as well. The 128 page report released earlier this month documented several disturbing aspects of confinement:
- Violence remains a serious problem in the country’s prisons and jails with both corrections officers and prisoners describing to the Commission how they feared being assaulted and witnessed gang violence, rape, and beatings by officers.
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High rates of disease and illness among prisoners and insufficient funds for health care within prisons is a public safety risk. Due to poverty, substance abuse, and years of poor health care that are common for prisoners in the United States, more than 1.5 million people are released from prison or jail each year carrying life-threatening contagious diseases. Additionally, 350,000 prisoners suffer from serious mental illness.
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Segregation of “violent” prisoners from the general population has created a situation where some prisoners are kept in their cells 23 hours per day with no opportunity to prepare for release. In some prisons, these prisoners are also subjected to constantly bright or dim light and eventually suffer from mental deterioration. Between 1995 and 2000, the number of people housed in segregation grew by 40%.
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Due to high turnover and an institutional culture that centers on the idea that prison guards have absolute power over prisoners, there is an “us verses them” attitude where guards see prisoners as their enemy rather than people that need assistance to improve their lives.
The report also offers a number of solutions to these problems:
- Despite the frequency of violence within prisons, there are numerous ways to reduce the violence within yet these measures have been largely ignored by the prison system. Overcrowding brought on by budget cuts and idleness caused by reducing funding for educational and other programs within prisons can be solved in part by increasing funding. Training to reduce use of force by prison guards, easing of restrictions governing contact between prisoners and their families, use of video surveillance to monitor guards and prisoners, and better grouping of prisoners can all reduce violence.
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Health care in prisons could be improved through better partnerships with medical facilities outside of the prison system and Medicare and Medicaid dollars could improve funding as many prisoners would qualify for such assistance if they were outside of the prison system.
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To combat the mental deterioration that comes with isolation, the Commission recommends that segregation be made a last resort and that isolation be ended and that prisoners be allowed meaningful human contact.
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Better training programs designed to foster a culture of mutual respect could improve relations between guards and prisoners and reduce violence.
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Improved government oversight is drastically needed. The report recommends that each state create an independent agency to monitor prisons and jails, that a national non-governmental organization be setup to inspect conditions, that there be increased transparency within the prison system, that meaningful complaint processes are developed, and that practice, not just policy, are monitored within prisons.
