From the Editor - Prison Legal News

Over the years, PLN has frequently
reported on the efforts of legislators
and prisoncrats to seize money from
prisoners, the vast majority of whom are
poor. This trend has sharply accelerated
in recent years. The cover story of this issue
of PLN is excerpted from the recent
PLN anthology, Prison Profiteers: Who
Makes Money from Mass Incarceration,
published earlier this year by the New
Press. The book is available from PLN
and documents the growing practice of
further impoverishing and penalizing
those enmeshed in the criminal justice
system. Kristen Levingston does a great
job showing how these efforts to further
immiserate the poor only make a bad situation
worse. If you like this article I hope
you consider reading the entire book,
it’s well worth the read as we show who’s
benefitting from policies of mass imprisonment.
Not just who is harmed. Prison
Profiteers is available from PLN and fine
book sellers everywhere. Only PLN has
the paperback edition at this time.
I would like to thank everyone who
donated to PLN’s annual fundraiser this
year. We extended it to the end of March
as our mailing was delayed going out. I
will report the outcome in next month’s
editorial once we have added up the results.
All support, whether large or small,
is much needed and appreciated. Prisoner
readers who have not yet returned their
surveys should do so as soon as possible
so we can tabulate the results. We want to
know what you think of PLN and how we
can better serve your needs.
Among our goals for this year are
expanding PLN’s size to bring readers
even more news and information. But we
want to make sure we can sustain it and
not have to cut back in size. We are also
working hard to expand our readership.
The more subscribers PLN has the lower
our per issue cost is. Between now and the
end of July we are running our subscription
madness sale. Buy gift subscriptions
of PLN for non subscribers as an introductory
offer and get low prices! It costs
a lot of money and takes a lot of time to
do sample mailings of PLN to potential
subscribers. By letting readers buy introductory
gift subscriptions for potential
subscribers we pass the savings on. If there
is someone you think might be interested
in PLN, buy them a gift subscription and
April 2008
From the Editor
by Paul Wright
they can check us out. Potential subscribers
include legislators, judges, journalists,
family members, prisoners, pen pals, and
anyone else interested in the criminal
justice system in general and prisons in
particular.
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Expanding the number of advertisers
we have is another way we can grow in size.
If you patronize PLN advertisers, let them
know you saw their ad in PLN.
Enjoy this issue of PLN and please
encourage others to subscribe!
Buried Alive: Solitary Confinement
in Arizona’s Prisons and Jails
Review by David M. Reutter
here have been a couple of
“Ttimes that I’ve tried to end
my life in here, but they keep reviving me
and bringing me back. When I asked why,
I was told, “You’re not going to die on us;
we’re not through punishing you.”
That quote is part of the prisoner
testimony in a report published by American
Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
Arizona. The report is a critical evaluation
of solitary confinement in Arizona
prisons and jails. The key findings are
that prisoners in supermax units have
higher rates of mental illness, those units
damage prisoner’s mental health, they do
not reduce prison violence, and the units
increase recidivism.
This report is a compelling presentation
that is of interest to anyone in the
nation with an interest in supermax confinement
conditions and its effects. The
uniqueness of this comprehensive report
is that it is a compilation of governmental
statistics and mainstream media investigative
reports into the supermax phenomena.
While the report focuses on the conditions
of solitary confinement in Arizona, the
material could be used to dissect any prison
system’s solitary confinement unit.
In fact, that is the long term goal
of AFSC. The report is part of AFSC’s
Stopmax national campaign and launches
the stopmax Arizona campaign. It focuses
on solitary confinement in the Arizona
Department of Corrections (ADOC), the
Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections
(ADJC), and the Maricopa county
Fourth Avenue Jail.
The first supermax unit was established
in 1972 at the U.S. Penitentiary
in Marion, Illinois. By 1985, there were
about half a dozen such units. By 1997,
45 states, the federal Bureau of Prisons,
and the District of Columbia were operating
control units that house prisoners in
a cell about the size of a bathroom for at
least 23 hours a day. In 2002, over 20,000
prisoners, almost 2 percent of the U.S.
prison population was being held in long
term solitary confinement.
The report finds the investigation
of supermax prisons is needed because
of its effect on community life. “Most
people are aware of research documenting
the arrested developments of infants in
orphanages in which they are rarely held
or cuddled. Studies have likewise documented
how adults in sensory deprivation
environments such as prisoners of war
or scientists living in extremely remote
areas begin to develop a discrete set of
emotional and psychological symptoms,”
the report states.
The use of supermax prisoners in
America has been condemned by the
international community. “In May 2000,
the U.N. Committee against torture called
the ‘excessively harsh regime’ of supermax
prisons a violation of the Convention
Against Torture and made it clear that the
practice is widespread in the US,” says the
report. The isolation of supermax makes
the use of torture tools such as physical
restraints, chemical agents, stun guns, and
other forms of cruelty easily hidden.
One thing prison officials would like
to keep hidden is the high rate of mentally
ill in solitary confinement. According to
ADOC statistics, 16.8 percent of the
prisoner population is mentally ill. Yet, 26
percent of prisoner in ADOC supermax
prisons are mentally ill. Between 25 to 35
percent of ADJC prisoners are mentally
ill, with up to 50 percent of juveniles under
its care taking psychotropic medications.
Because the mentally ill cannot fully
comprehend the expectations of complex
prison rules or the consequences, they
Prison Legal News