Security Housing Unit (SHU)

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back 

TERRY A. KUPERS, MD / California Prison Focus - Fall 2004 1oct04

[Also see: Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis]

 

Editor's note: California Prison Focus (CPF) has been meaning to dedicate an issue of Prison Focus to the topic of control units for some time. We wanted to write about SHU (Security Housing Unit) for women, the history of control units, activism today, how Administrative Segregation—used for short-term removal from general population—is sometimes used like a control unit, about who is housed in these places and more. We wanted to hear from prisoners’ personal experience. We’ve got some of this discussion accomplished below, but it is only a start. Be warned, this is the beginning of another series so please send your submissions to us for the future.

The prison-building binge that gathered momentum in the 1980s was accompanied by a love affair with supermaxes. Most states and the feds built them. And a growing proportion of maximum security prisoners wound up in some form of long-term segregation. (If you build them, they will fill).

Meanwhile, courts have been recognizing the fact that long-term confinement in segregation units causes or exacerbates mental illness and suicide. Litigation has focused on inadequate mental health services for the growing proportion of prisoners who suffer from serious mental illness, and the toxic effects of relegating prisoners with serious mental illness to 23-plus hour segregation and lock down. Some of the better-run departments are even deciding that the supermax venture is a failure— psychiatric breakdown inside the supermaxes has reached epidemic proportion, the recidivism rate is higher, especially for individuals who “max out of the SHU” (i.e. leave prison straight out of supermax confinement), and the rate of violence on the yards has not diminished. The fiscal value of mass segregation is also being questioned. Last year Maryland decided to close its supermax and other states are considering following suit.

Inadequate treatment for prisoners suffering from serious mental illness is only one of many problems with supermaxes. Relationships between staff and prisoners break down and there is widespread and well-documented sadism on the part of some of the keepers toward the people they keep under total control. American courts, since the Madrid vs. Gomez decision regarding the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison, have consistently found violations of prisoners’ 8th Amendment rights (protection from cruel and unusual punishment). In the international discussion, equivalent abuses are called torture. But Madrid was a “split decision.” After all, the plaintiffs argued that supermax confinement is entirely unconstitutional, the court ruled that they failed to prove (to the satisfaction of the court) that supermax confinement is unconstitutional per se, but did find that for prisoners suffering from serious mental illness long-term segregation is cruel and unusual. Federal courts in other states have determined that the Madrid decision must be applied in their jurisdictions.

I have testified as a psychiatric expert in quite a few class action lawsuits in several states. And the prisoners (plaintiffs) have won substantial improvements in their conditions of confinement, including upgrading of mental health and rehabilitation services. Lately, in large part because previous cases resulted in victories for prisoners, states have been eager to settle class action lawsuits almost as soon as they are filed. The states know that the plaintiffs can win on certain points, so they decide it would be better to spend the public dollars on making the improvements the courts would inevitably order than to spend a bundle on defending the case. The plaintiffs and their attorneys are willing to settle only if they determine they would not actually win more concessions by prevailing at trial. And a negotiated settlement has a further advantage over victory at trial. Often, when a court rules in the prisoners’ favor, the state balks at implementing the remedy ordered by the court. But in the settlements in which I have participated, the mental health administrators for the department take part in the negotiation, and when they are convinced by plaintiffs’ experts that certain improvements are needed, they are more likely to cooperate in their implementation.

Of course, there is always a double edge to class action litigation. Improvements are won. But in drawing a line and saying that a department of corrections cannot perpetrate a certain evil – e.g., confining prisoners with serious mental illness in long-term isolation—the court is implicitly ruling that if a department halts the identified cruel and unusual practices, then it is OK to keep on confining other prisoners under the same dreadful conditions. I always argue that what is bad for people with mental illness is bad for everyone, but the courts rarely agree. So, in effect, the victories prisoners win in class action litigation can serve to certify the legality of some of the other practices – including long-term segregation itself – even though the plaintiffs and their attorneys may have entered the fray hoping to make supermax confinement entirely illegal. This is not to say that litigation is ineffectual, merely that other concurrent actions are required if more substantial change is to occur. And this is precisely what is going on. For example, Critical Resistance, the Prison Moratorium Project and California Prison Focus are calling for a moratorium on prison construction and a halt to construction of a maximum security facility at Delano, and some organizations, including California Prison Focus, continue to call for closure of the SHUs. And a significant number of journalists, legislators and the public are listening.

source: http://www.prisons.org/ 17feb2005