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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:00 am
Time: 12:00 am
Results for conditions of confinement
2 results foundAuthor: Hafemeister, Thomas L. Title: The Ninth Circle of Hell: An Eighth Amendment Analysis of Imposing Prolonged Supermax Solitary Confinement on Inmates with a Mental Illness Summary: The increasing number of inmates with a mental disorder in America’s prison population and the inadequacy of their treatment and housing conditions have been issues of growing significance in recent years. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that “over one and a quarter million people suffering from mental health problems are in prisons or jails, a figure that constitutes nearly sixty percent of the total incarcerated population in the United States.” Furthermore, a person suffering from a mental illness in the United States is three times more likely to be incarcerated than hospitalized, with as many as forty percent of those who suffer from a mental illness coming into contact with the criminal justice system every year and police officers almost twice as likely to arrest someone who appears to have a mental illness. As a result, the United States penal system has become the nation’s largest provider of mental health services, a “tragic consequence of inadequate community mental health services combined with punitive criminal justice policies.” This growth in the number of inmates with a mental disorder, combined with the recent rise of prolonged supermax solitary confinement and the increasingly punitive nature of the American penological system, has resulted in a disproportionately large number of inmates with a mental disorder being housed in supermax confinement. The harsh restrictions of this confinement often significantly exacerbate these inmates’ mental disorders or otherwise cause significant additional harm to their mental health, and preclude proper mental health treatment. Given the exacerbating conditions associated with supermax settings, this setting is not only ill-suited to the penological problems posed by the growing number of these inmates, but intensifies these problems by creating a revolving door to supermax confinement for many such inmates who may be unable to conform their behavior within the prison environment. Housing inmates with a mental disorder in prolonged supermax solitary confinement deprives them of a minimal life necessity as this setting poses a significant risk to their basic level of mental health, a need “as essential to human existence as other basic physical demands . . . .”, and thereby meets the objective element required for an Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment claim. In addition, placing such inmates in supermax confinement constitutes deliberate indifference to their needs as this setting subjects this class of readily identifiable and vulnerable inmates to a present and known risk by knowingly placing them in an environment that is uniquely toxic to their condition, thereby satisfying the subjective element needed for an Eighth Amendment claim. Whether it is called torture, a violation of evolving standards of human decency, or cruel and unusual punishment, truly “a risk this grave — this shocking and indecent — simply has no place in civilized society.” Details: Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia School of Law; University of Virginia School of Medicine, 2012. 62p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 18, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2032139 Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2032139 Shelf Number: 125245 Keywords: Conditions of ConfinementInmatesMental HealthPrisoners (U.S.)PunishmentSolitary ConfinementSupermax Prisons |
Author: Rovner, Laura Title: Dignity and the Eighth Amendment: A New Approach to Challenging Solitary Confinement Summary: The use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails has come under increasing scrutiny. Over the past few months, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy all but invited constitutional challenges to the use of solitary confinement, while President Obama asked, "Do we really think it makes sense to lock so many people alone in tiny cells for 23 hours a day for months, sometime for years at a time?" Even some of the most notorious prisons and jails, including California's Pelican Bay State Prison and New York's Rikers Island, are reforming their use of solitary confinement because of successful litigation and public outcry. Rovner suggests that in light of these developments and "the Supreme Court's increasing reliance on human dignity as a substantive value underlying and animating constitutional rights," there is a strong case to make that long-term solitary confinement violates the constitutional right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. Details: Washington, DC: American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, 2015. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Issue Brief: Accessed May 6, 2016 at: Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 138961 Keywords: Conditions of ConfinementCruel and Unusual PunishmentInmatesMental HealthPunishmentSolitary Confinement |