As If Prison Isn't Bad Enough-Ohio's Sumermax

AS IF PRISON ISN’T BAD ENOUGH ALREADY

The OSP facility mission is to protect Ohio’s citizens, employees, and inmates by confining those inmates who pose a threat to staff, other inmates, or institutional security in a controlled setting that is conducive to self-improvement.

Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Corrections

Inmates watched from isolation cells Monday as a federal trial opened in a makeshift prison courtroom on a lawsuit alleging the lockup's conditions are inhumane. U.S. District Judge James Gwin held the opening statements at the Ohio State Penitentiary, the state's only super-maximum security prison, so inmates could watch the proceedings. The courtroom was arranged in the center of a cell block in an unused part of the prison with about a dozen inmates watching through food slots in cell doors and attorneys sitting at folding tables covered in green plastic tablecloths. The law suit was filed last January on behalf of the prisoners by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The suit challenges conditions at the "supermax" Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) in Youngstown, Ohio and, ultimately, seeks an end to this brutal and damaging form of incarceration everywhere. The suit alleges that intake procedures violate the due process rights of inmates, that conditions violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment - especially for mentally ill prisoners - and that the OSP is in violation of international law concerning the treatment of prisoners. In addition, the complaint also alleges that the rules for transferring prisoners into and out of the Supermax are essentially arbitrary, allowing for frequent and widespread abuse by prison officials, and that incarceration at the Supermax constitutes an unwarranted increase in the level of punishment. A year of litigation and intense negotiations have already produced substantial changes at the facility. In late 2001, for example, U.S. District Judge James Gwin issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the incarceration of seriously mentally ill inmates there. Ray Vasvari, legal director of the Ohio ACLU says, "The inhumane conditions at the Supermax are not something that just happened because of bad management or neglect: they were part of the state's plan from the start."
The 500 prisoners housed at the Ohio State Penitentiary are doing the hardest of hard time: solitary confinement, with few recreation or educational opportunities, often for years on end. Inmates spend at least 23 hours per day in a small cell, with a light constantly burning overhead. They have no contact with other prisoners and only limited calling and visitation privileges. Medical or psychiatric interviews are initiated through a slot in the door, forcing inmates to discuss their problems publicly. "It's classic sensory deprivation," says CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman. " When allowed out of their cells, inmates are routinely shackled and strip-searched. The OSP, like supermax prisons across the country, is designed to shred the human spirit. While the state claims the prison is designed to handle the most violent offenders, it appears that in reality it is serving as a warehouse for those who are emotionally disturbed.

There are currently more than twenty thousand prisoners in the United States, nearly two percent of the prison population, housed in special super-maximum security facilities or units. Elected officials advancing tough-on-crime policies have promoted these large supermax prisons for their symbolic message, regardless of actual need. Fearful of being accused of "coddling inmates" or being "soft on crime," few politicians have been willing to publicly challenge supermaxes on human rights grounds. A report by Human Rights Watch said, "The conditions of confinement impose pointless suffering and humiliation. The absence of normal human interaction, of reasonable mental stimulus, of almost anything that makes life bearable, is emotionally, physically and psychologically destructive."

The legal action is the culmination of a long investigation by well-known civil rights activists Staughton and Alice Lynd of Niles, who have tracked complaints of abuse at the Supermax since it opened in April 1998.
Sources: Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU, AP, Human Rights Watch, Akron Beacon Journal, Reuters

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