Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9411050014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: E3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK E. CALL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This perception is related to the no-parole argument. There would be less crime, it is contended, if prospective criminals did not have it so good in the prisons and jails where they serve their sentences. They just sit around all day, watching cable TV, with stereos in their cells and all their needs provided at taxpayer expense.
It is high time to put these misconceptions to rest.
One of my academic interests is the legal status of prisoners. I read many judicial opinions resolving lawsuits brought by inmates complaining about some aspect of their conditions of confinement. These opinions nearly always include extensive descriptions of the conditions experienced by the inmate who filed the lawsuit.
After one reads dozens of these opinions, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that our prisons and jails are awful places. Anyone who thinks that the average person sent to prison is sent to a country-club atmosphere is living in a fantasy land.
I was reminded of this misconception recently while reading a Nebraska case. Two situations described in the case make my point.
In the first situation, inmate Jensen was a 145-pound 21-year-old incarcerated in the Nebraska State Penitentiary, a relatively new facility with 74-square-foot cells (smaller than 7 feet by 11 feet) intended to house one inmate.
Like many (probably most) prisons these days, the Nebraska State Penitentiary has more inmates than cells. Consequently, it has double-bunked most of its cells. Jensen was placed in a cell with Svitak, a tall, musclebound 250-pounder serving a life sentence.
Svitak had made it clear to prison officials that he did not like having cellmates. He conveyed this sentiment to Jensen as well, and suggested to Jensen that he should try to move out. Jensen indicated that he had already asked to be placed in a cell with his brother, also incarcerated at the prison, and had put in a general request to be removed from Svitak's cell.
Svitak apparently concluded that Jensen was not doing enough to try to get removed from the cell. A few days after being placed in Svitak's cell, Jenen was awakened one morning by Svitak punching him repeatedly in the face. Only after 10 to 15 minutes of being punched in the face did Jensen succeed in attracting a guard's attention.
If you do not find that incident particularly offensive, try this.
The court described inmate Hart as ``an aggressive, loathsome'' individual. While in an Oregon prison, Hart had used a razor blade to slit the throat of a cellmate, cutting all the way across his front and back side, then beat on him with a pall-peen hammer. Somehow, Hart's cellmate survived.
At the Nebraska State Penitentiary, Hart's request to be single-celled was not granted because of the overcrowding. Hart had chronic prostitus; to urinate, Hart had to insert a catheter in himself several times a day. This had to be done in his cell with his cellmate present. Hart also had a chronic abscess on his tailbone, and had to change bandages and remove material from the abscess several times a day, again in his cellmate's presence.
One cellmate had been an elderly, overweight man with a severe heart condition, who placed his life in jeopardy if he tried to climb into the top bunk. Hart. however, preferred the lower bunk and forced the ailing cellmate to sleep on the floor. He had placed Clorox in the eyedrops of another cellmate and toilet-bowl cleaner in the inhaler of yet another cellmate.
Hart was also homosexual. Of his 17 cellmates at the Nebraska prison, he testified, only four had he been unable to ``encourage or coerce into a homosexual act.'' (I oppose the death penalty, but I must concede that Hart presents a rather compelling case for it.)
These are only examples of what researchers call ``anecdotal evidence.'' We have no thorough studies to document the frequency of such incidents. From the research I have done, however, I can assure you that these certainly are not isolated incidents.
Even in the absence of exposure to incidents as extreme as the above, inmates are typically exposed to harsh conditions. Many prisons are not as new and modern as the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Ventilation and plumbing problems characterize many prisons, posing obvious threats to the health of inmates.
Many cells are equipped with toilets, but often the toilets are not functional and overflow. If they work, they are difficult to clean (and we have seen what may happen if inmates are provided materials so that they can do their own cleaning).
Prisons often fail to keep out insects and vermin. Cases often recount instances of inmates sharing cells with rats that sometimes have bitten inmates while asleep. The overcrowding that has become common exacerbates these and other problems.
The litany of problems quickly becomes mind-numbing. A lively debate could be had as to whether it is proper to subject inmates to such conditions. In such a debate, it should be stressed that not all inmates are murderers and rapists. Inmate Jensen, for instance, had been convicted of theft (not armed robbery, but theft).
I do not know of any country clubs with conditions like these.
Jack E. Call is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Radford University.
by CNB