The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) confines 4.4 percent of its prison population in solitary confinement. Texas locks more people in solitary-confinement cells than twelve states house in their entire prison system. On average, prisoners remain in solitary confinement for almost four years; over one hundred Texas prisoners have spent more than twenty years in solitary confinement. The conditions in which these people live impose such severe deprivations that they leave prison mentally damaged; as a group, people released from solitary are more likely to commit more new crimes than people released from the rest of the prison system. Yet in 2013, TDCJ released 1,243 people directly from solitary-confinement cells into Texas communities. These prisoners return to society after living for years or decades in a tiny cell for twenty-two hours a day, with no contact with other human beings or access to educational or rehabilitative programs. As documented in our report, A Solitary Failure: The Waste, Cost and Harm of Solitary Confinement in Texas, this dangerous and expensive practice is making our state less safe.
Here’s a summary of the report, which explains why less solitary confinement is not about going “soft” on crime, it’s about being smart on crime.
- Background - Explore the the early failure of solitary confinement, the misguided return of solitary confinement int he late 20th century, and the renewed consensus: solitary is a dangerous and expensive correctional practice.
- Solitary Confinement increases crime - Solitary permanently damages people who will one day return to Texas communities. The consequences of overusing solitary is more crime in Texas communities.
- Solitary is a huge cost to taxpayers - Solitary confinement costs Texas taxpayers at leas $46 Million a year.
- Overuse of solitary increases prison violence – Solitary confinement makes prison less safe and deprives officers of the option to incentivize good behavior. Violence escalates when officers deny people in solitary basic needs. Other states have improved prison safety by reducing solitary confinement.
- Mentally ill people deteriorate - The universal consensus: never place the seriously mentally ill in solitary. Yet, Texas sends thousands of people with mental illnesses to solitary confinement and inadequately monitors and treats them.
A Solitary Failure: The Waste, Cost and Harm of Solitary Confinement in Texas was researched and written by Burke Butler, Arthur Liman Fellow, TCRP, and Matthew Simpson, Policy Strategist, ACLU of Texas, and edited by Rebecca L. Robertson, Legal and Policy Director, ACLU of Texas.
“Everyday from dusk to dawn theres noise, banging, clanking, yelling, screaming. Everyday someone is getting hurt or hurting themselves. Everyday theres fire and floods and complete chaos & hate. Everyday there’s loneliness. I woke up last night to someone screaming ‘Let Me Out of Here’ (again) over and over with so much anguish there was no doubt he was screaming from his very soul. But he was just screaming what we are all thinking. Everyday is a challenge here. A challenge against insanity.”
-Alex
Date
Thursday, February 5, 2015 - 12:00am
Featured image
Show featured image
Hide banner image
Related issues
Smart Justice
Documents
Show related content
Tweet Text
[node:title]
Type
Menu parent dynamic listing
Style
Standard without sidebar
Information for this report was compiled over 18 months of research and two staff investigative visits to the Valley. We have looked at major issues facing this historic part of Texas:
• growing numbers of detainees being held for long periods of time in substandard conditions;
• growing militarization along the border as local law enforcement becomes more and more involved in enforcement of federal immigration law;
• denial of passports to U.S. citizens born of midwives; and
• construction of the Border Wall.
Testimony from detainees, their attorneys and advocates, residents and officials has been compiled to paint a picture of systemic and systematic civil and human rights violations.
During the ACLU delegation visit, we interviewed detainees, some held for years without a hearing, and their attorneys who tell stories of little or no medical care, and, in some instances, life-threatening medical mistakes. They describe detainees’ lives without privacy, hunger because food is inedible or insufficient, isolation, deprivation, and assault. Held in a remote region with few resources, they are far from family and access to legal representation. They suffer with little or no access to counsel, friends or family.
Date
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - 12:00am
Featured image
Show featured image
Hide banner image
Related issues
Border and Immigrants’ Rights
Documents
Show related content
Tweet Text
[node:title]
Type
Menu parent dynamic listing
Style
Standard without sidebar
Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System (June 2014) documents our multi-year investigation into five Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) prisons run under contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in Texas. Our investigation uncovered evidence that the immigrants held in these private prisons are subjected to shocking abuse and mistreatment and discriminated against by BOP policies that impede family contact and exclude them from rehabilitative programs. Meanwhile, these private prisons operate in the shadows, effectively free from public scrutiny.
What are CAR prisons? Who is in them?
Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) prisons are private prisons operated under contract with BOP to hold low-security, non-U.S.-citizen prisoners. Unlike most federal prisons—which are run as publicly accountable federal institutions by BOP—these prisons are operated by for-profit companies (Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group, and Management & Training Corp.). There are thirteen CAR prisons around the country, located in Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Rising criminal prosecutions of immigrants for crossing the border, offenses previously handled almost entirely by the civil immigration system, are dramatically changing who enters the federal prison system—and fueling the growth of CAR prisons. Starting in 2009, more people entered federal prison for immigration offenses each year than for violent, weapons, and property offenses combined. By 2012, BOP was holding 23,700 people convicted of immigration offenses in its custody on a daily basis. People convicted of immigration offenses now represent one of the largest categories of people in CAR prisons and of non-citizens in BOP custody generally.
Our Privatization Problem
Mass incarceration has fueled the growth of the modern private prison industry—a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that depends on and profits from our national addiction to incarceration. From 1990 to 2009, as mass incarceration accelerated, the private prison industry grew by more than 1600%.
This growth has fueled rising fortunes in the private prison industry. The three corporations that operate CAR prisons nationwide—Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group (GEO), and MTC—reported nearly $4 billion in revenue in 2012. The private industry maximizes it’s profits by cutting costs where it can.
Cutting Corners to Increase Profits
Medical understaffing and extreme cost-cutting measures reportedly limit prisoners’ access to both emergency and routine medical care. Martin, a 36-year old Cuban immigrant, told us he woke up in the middle of a severe asthma attack one night and did not have access to his inhaler. There was no doctor on staff that night, so he waited nearly an hour to see a nurse who did not know how to properly intubate him.
Hidden Component of Immigration System
The truth about what happens behind the walls of these private prisons often stays hidden. BOP subjects CAR prisons to insufficient oversight and accountability and exempts CAR prisons from many of the policies, rules, and regulations intended to set baselines of safe and humane treatment in federal prisons. Meanwhile, external oversight and accountability is frustrated by the isolation of prisoners from attorneys and legal services. BOP even assists private prison companies in efforts to block BOP’s own records from public disclosure.
Cut off From Civilization
There is an overwhelming sense of despair at the CAR prisons we visited. Many of the men feel forgotten. They are far from family. They have little access to legal services. They feel like commodities exploited by the private prison companies that confine them. “You lose your memory in this place,” one prisoner told us. “You keep counting days until you give up hope.”
Date
Tuesday, December 1, 2015 - 12:00am
Featured image
Show featured image
Hide banner image
Related issues
Border and Immigrants’ Rights
Smart Justice
Documents
Show related content
Tweet Text
[node:title]
Type
Menu parent dynamic listing
Style
Standard with sidebar
