The population in American prisons and jails has tripled in the past 15 years. Prison facilities are overcrowded; medical systems overwhelmed; work, education, and treatment programs are inadequate; and prisoner idleness and stress has lead to greater levels of violence within our criminal justice system. The ACLU of Minnesota has fought and continues to fight these conditions through successful litigation on behalf of prisoners.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT  

Across the country, states are waking up to the fact that we must address our overreliance on solitary confinement. Long-term isolation costs too much, does nothing to rehabilitate prisoners, and exacerbates mental illness - or even causes it in prisoners who were healthy when they entered solitary. Officials in some states that formerly relied heavily on solitary confinement are now realizing that they should use public resources on proven policies that promote safe communities and fair treatment, and are successfully reducing the use of solitary - at the same time saving their states millions and reducing violence in the prisons. It's time for more states, and the federal Bureau of Prisons, to follow suit.

Over the last two decades corrections systems have increasingly relied on solitary confinement as a prison management tool – even building entire institutions called “supermax prisons” where prisoners are held in conditions of extreme isolation, sometimes for years or decades. But solitary confinement jeopardizes our public safety, is fundamentally inhumane and wastes taxpayer dollars. We must insist on humane and more cost-effective methods of punishment and prison management.

MEDICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH CARE

Each day, men, women, and children behind bars suffer needlessly from lack of access to adequate medical and mental health care. Chronic illnesses go untreated, emergencies are ignored, and patients with serious mental illness fail to receive necessary care. For some patients, poor medical care turns a minor sentence into a death sentence.

The failure to provide prisoners with access to needed health care too often results in tragedy. It also violates the U.S. Constitution. Nearly forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Estelle v. Gamble that ignoring a prisoner’s serious medical needs can amount to cruel and unusual punishment, noting that “[a]n inmate must rely on prison authorities to treat his medical needs; if the authorities fail to do so, those needs will not be met. In the worst cases, such a failure may actually produce physical torture or a lingering death[.] … In less serious cases, denial of medical care may result in pain and suffering which no one suggests would serve any penological purpose.”

The overwhelming majority of people behind bars will someday be released. Providing prisoners with care today means having healthier neighbors and communities tomorrow.

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BY THE NUMBERS

  • The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world—a rate five to ten times higher than those of countries like Canada, France, and the United Kingdom.
  • A Black man is six times more likely to be incarcerated in the United States than a white man is.
  • The United States is the only democracy in the world that has no independent authority to monitor prison conditions and enforce minimal standards of health and safety.

CIVIL LIBERTIES IN PRISON

The ACLU’s National Prison Project fights to protect the Constitution’s guarantee that individuals who are incarcerated retain basic rights, including the right to free speech, the freedom to practice their religion, and the right to access the courts and counsel. 

In Turner v. Safley (1987), the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that “[p]rison walls do not form a barrier separating inmates from the protections of the Constitution.” Individuals retain certain fundamental rights, even when incarcerated. The Constitution protects these rights for good reason. Incarceration can have a drastic effect on a person. Oftentimes, a prisoner’s connections to their family or religious community may be their only source of hope. Stripped of these connections, a person will not only endure more difficulties during incarceration, but may also lack the community ties necessary to assist them upon release.  

Despite the important role that these rights play, correctional officials frequently attempt to restrict them, whether in the form of policies restricting a person’s ability to communicate with family members, limiting access to religious material, or inhibiting a person’s ability to seek relief for abuse suffered while incarcerated.

This is where the ACLU steps in. Prisoners often lack the resources and the opportunity to fight these unconstitutional policies. The ACLU’s National Prison Project works to ensure that prisoners are able to exercise these basic rights.

ACCESS TO THE COURTS AND COUNSEL

Access to justice is an essential right for all victims of abuse, especially those who have been abused while incarcerated. The ACLU regularly receives reports of prisoners who have been subjected to physical and/or sexual assault, denied necessary medical care, or subjected to other cruel and inhumane conditions of confinement. 

In 1996, Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), severely curtailing the rights of prisoners to seek redress for abuses committed against them. Since its enactment, the PLRA has had a disastrous effect on the ability of prisoners to seek relief for violations of their rights. The PLRA creates numerous burdens and restrictions on lawsuits brought by prisoners in federal court. As a result of these restrictions, prisoners seeking either a remedy for injuries inflicted by prison staff and others or the protection of the courts from dangerous or unhealthy conditions of confinement have had their cases dismissed. The restrictions of the PLRA apply only to prisoners; the United States is the only country in the world that has a law specifically targeting prisoners’ access to the courts. 

The ACLU’s National Prison Project works to assist prisoners seeking relief from abuse by fighting to limit new policies further restricting prisoners’ access to the courts and counsel, assisting prisoners in understanding the processes by which they must pursue relief for any harms they have suffered, and representing classes of prisoners seeking relief from abuse.

FREE SPEECH IN PRISON

The ACLU regularly receives reports of prisons and jails restricting the rights of prisoners to communicate with their family members and the public. Prohibiting prisoners from communicating with the outside world can violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment entitles prisoners to receive and send mail, subject only to the institution’s need to protect security. Many restrictive policies serve neither this nor any other legitimate purpose. 

These policies harm not only prisoners, but also their families, friends, and the public. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the First Amendment protects not only the rights of prisoners to send and receive mail, but also the rights of free people to communicate with prisoners. Communication between prisoners and the outside world permits prisoners to preserve ties with their families and friends, while also allowing the public a means of oversight over conditions inside these closed facilities.

For these reasons, the ACLU’s National Prison Project vigorously fights to defend the free speech rights of prisoners and those who seek to communicate with them. 

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