In 1965, James Ridgeway helped launch the modern muckraking era by revealing that General Motors had hired private eyes to spy on an obscure consumer advocate named Ralph Nader. He worked for many years at the Village Voice, has written 16 books, and has codirected Blood in the Face, a film about the far right. In 2012, he was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow.
Serving time in prison is not supposed to be pleasant. Nor, however, is it supposed to include being raped by fellow prisoners or staff, beaten by guards for the slightest provocation, driven mad by long-term solitary confinement, or killed off by medical neglect. These are the fates of thousands of prisoners every year—men, women, and children housed in lockups that give Gitmo and Abu Ghraib a run for their money.
While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. These dishonorable mentions make up the final installment of our 11-part series, a subjective ranking based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy.
The uprising made headlines in 1971. NYSL archives
Attica Correctional Facility (Attica, New York): More than four decades after its famous uprising, New York's worst state prison still lives up to its brutal history. According to the Correctional Association of New York, which has a legislative mandate to track prison conditions, Attica is plagued by staff-on-prisoner violence, intimidation, and sexual abuse.
Communications Management Units (Marion, Illinois, and Terre Haute, Indiana): These two federal prisons-within-prisons, whose populations are more than two-thirds Muslim, were opened secretly by the Bureau of Prisons during the Bush administration, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is challenging the facilities in a federal lawsuit. "The Bureau claims that CMUs are designed to hold dangerous terrorists and other high-risk inmates, requiring heightened monitoring of their external and internal communications," notes a lawsuit fact sheet. "Many prisoners, however, are sent to these isolation units for their constitutionally protected religious beliefs, unpopular political views, or in retaliation for challenging poor treatment or other rights violations in the federal prison system." (Also see: Pelican Bay.)
Serving time in prison is not supposed to be pleasant. Nor, however, is it supposed to include being raped by fellow prisoners or staff, beaten by guards for the slightest provocation, driven mad by long-term solitary confinement, or killed off by medical neglect. These are the fates of thousands of prisoners every year—men, women, and children housed in lockups that give Gitmo and Abu Ghraib a run for their money.
While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. Our subjective ranking was based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy. Last, but certainly not least, on our list of bad actors is a dismal facility where the guards allegedly run amok. Our series wraps up tomorrow with a handful of dishonorable mentions.
Who's in charge: Evelyn A. Mirabal, chief; Dora Schriro, commissioner, of the New York City Department of Corrections
The basics: When it comes to ignominies, New York City's island jail complex has it all: inmate violence, staff brutality, rape, abuse of adolescents and the mentally ill, and one of the nation's highest rates of solitary confinement. Rikers, which hosts 10 separate jails, has been the target of dozens of lawsuits and numerousexposés. Yet the East River island remains a dismal and dangerous place for the 12,000 or more men, women, and children held there on any given day—mostly pretrial defendants who can't make bail and nonviolent offenders with sentences too short to ship them upstate.
The backlash: In 2008, 18-year-old Christopher Robinson, who had violated his probation for a juvenile robbery offense, was beaten and stomped to death in his cell in Rikers youth unit. An investigation revealed that the killers, two fellow prisoners, were part of what was known as "the program," described by the Bronx DA as a "secret society run by correctional officers at Rikers Island to extort and beat other inmates," supposedly in the name of maintaining order. Two of the facility's guards pleaded guilty to assault and to charges related to running the extortion program—see the TV report below—although the DA presented no evidence connecting them to Robinson's death.
Serving time in prison is not supposed to be pleasant. Nor, however, is it supposed to include being raped by fellow prisoners or staff, beaten by guards for the slightest provocation, driven mad by long-term solitary confinement, or killed off by medical neglect. These are the fates of thousands of prisoners every year—men, women, and children housed in lockups that give Gitmo and Abu Ghraib a run for their money.
While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. We've compiled this subjective list of America's 10 worst lockups (plus a handful of dishonorable mentions) based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with criminal-justice reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy.
We will roll out the final contenders this week, complete with photos and video. Number 9 is a corporate-run facility where children allegedly have been subjected to a heartrending pattern of brutal beatings, rapes, and isolation.
Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Leake County, Mississippi)
Number of prisoners: Capacity 1,450 (actual population in flux)
Who's in charge: (current) Lawrence Mack, warden; (former) George Zoley, CEO, the GEO Group; Christopher B. Epps, commissioner, Mississippi Department of Corrections
The basics: Efforts are underway to clean up and clear out Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, which one federal judge called "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts" visited upon children as young as 13. For years, the kids at Walnut Grove were subjected to a gauntlet of physical and sexual assaults, and psychological abuse including long-term solitary confinement. All of this took place under the management of private prison conglomerate the GEO Group.
Check out photographer Richard Ross' Juvenile-in-Justice project, with stories from youth facilities all over America. (And don't forget his awesome photo book.)
The backlash: Evidence gathered for a report by the Justice Department and a lawsuit by the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center "paints a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world," Federal District Judge Carleton Reeves wrote in a 2012 court order. The court found that conditions at Walnut Grove violated the Constitution, not to mention state and federal civil and criminal laws. Guards regularly had sex with their young charges and the facility's pattern of "brutal" rapes among prisoners was the worst of "any facility anywhere in the nation" (court's emphasis). Guards also were deemed excessively violent—beating, kicking, and punching "handcuffed and defenseless" youths and frequently subjecting them to chemical restraints such as pepper spray, even for insignificant infractions.
The guards also sold drugs on site and staged "gladiator-style" fights. "It'd be like setting up a fight deal like you would with two dogs," one former resident told NPR. "They actually bet on it. It was payday for the guards." Said another: "A lot of times, the guards are in the same gang. If the inmates wanted something done, they got it. If they wanted a cell popped open to handle some business about fighting or something like that, it just pretty much happened.” Kids who complained or tried to report these incidents faced harsh retribution, including long stints in solitary.
Judge Reeves wrote that the state had turned a blind eye to the prison company’s abuses: Walnut Grove's charges, "some of whom are mere children, are at risk every minute, every hour, every day." In accord with a court decree, the facility's youngest residents have been moved to a state-run juvenile facility, and Mississippi canceled its contract with GEO—which still runs some 65 prisons nationwide. The contract was handed over to another private prison company, Management and Training Corporation, which also has been a target of criticism for advocates of criminal justice reform.
Also read: "The Lost Boys," about what happens when you put kids in an adult isolation facility.
Watch: Local news report on a protest by Walnut Grove parents.
Research for this project was supported by a grant from the Investigative Fund and The Nation Institute, as well as a Soros Justice Media Fellowship from the Open Society Foundations.Additional reporting by Beth Broyles, Valeria Monfrini, Katie Rose Quandt, and Sal Rodriguez.
Serving time in prison is not supposed to be pleasant. Nor, however, is it supposed to include being raped by fellow prisoners or staff, beaten by guards for the slightest provocation, driven mad by long-term solitary confinement, or killed off by medical neglect. These are the fates of thousands of prisoners every year—men, women, and children housed in lockups that give Gitmo and Abu Ghraib a run for their money.
While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. We've compiled this subjective list of America's 10 worst lockups (plus a handful of dishonorable mentions) based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with criminal-justice reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy. We will roll out the remaining contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Number 8 on our list is a corporate-managed Texas facility where Tylenol apparently passes for significant medical treatment.
Who's in charge: Dwight Sims, (former) warden; George Zoley, CEO, the GEO Group; Matthew Nace, Chief, BOP Acquisitions Branch
The basics: Reeves houses so-called criminal aliens, held for various types of nonviolent violations—some three-quarters of them are held there merely for entering the country without permission. Like thousands of other migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they have been placed in the hands of a private prison company under contract with the Bureau of Prisons. The GEO Group, which operates Reeves, proudly declares itself "the largest detention/correctional facility under private management in the world."
Border Patrol agents stood watch during the riots. Dept. of Homeland Security
Overcrowded and understaffed, Reeves has a reputation for horrifically inadequate medical care. In 2008, an epileptic 32-year-old detainee named Jesus Manuel Galindo died of a seizure in his solitary confinement cell. His death, on the heels of at least four others at Reeves over the previous two years, followed repeated pleas from Galindo, his family, and fellow inmates to provide him with effective medication—the prison medical staff only offered him Tylenol—and to move him out of isolation so he could get help quickly when he had seizures.
The sight of Galindo's body being carried out of the prison in what appeared to be a plastic garbage bag sparked the first of several riots in which detainees took hostages and set fire to parts of the mammoth detention complex.
Prisoners fear "that it's not safe to take a shower, that it's not safe to go to sleep...that you can be manipulated into sexual favors, it's really horrific."
Serving time in prison is not supposed to be pleasant. Nor, however, is it supposed to include being raped by fellow prisoners or staff, beaten by guards for the slightest provocation, driven mad by long-term solitary confinement, or killed off by medical neglect. These are the fates of thousands of prisoners every year—men, women, and children housed in lockups that give Gitmo and Abu Ghraib a run for their money.
While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. We've compiled this subjective list of America's 10 worst lockups (plus a handful of dishonorable mentions) based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with criminal-justice reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy. We will be rolling the remaining contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Our seventh contender is an Alabama women's facility where guards impregnate inmates and federal consultants report an environment that's "repressive and intimidating."
Julia Tutwiler Prison(Wetumpka, Alabama)
Number of inmates: 400
Who's in charge: Bobby Barrett, warden (recently replaced longtime warden Frank Albright); Kim Thomas, commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections
The basics: This maximum-security lockup near Montgomery includes women's death row. For decades, it also included a special segregation unit for the quarantine of female prisoners with HIV. Under a policy that echoed both the pre-civil-rights-era South and the AIDS panic of the 1980s, women prisoners who tested positive in Alabama were quarantined from the general prison population and barred from most work, education, rehab, and mental health treatment programs. In a letter to the warden, one woman wrote that prisoners were treated "like we are contagious animals…It's like punishment 3 times over. Prison, the virus, then the denial of an education, or trade. We are secluded from everyday life."
Tutwiler guards have raped and impregnated prisoners. Rivers Langley/Wikipedia Commons
Women in all sections of Tutwiler face the prospect of sexual abuse, including rape by prison staff, according to a complaint filed with the US Justice Department by the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative (PDF). From 2009 through 2011, six Tutwiler employees were indicted on charges of custodial sexual misconduct or custodial sexual abuse. (All pled guilty, but only two served time.)
Several Tutwiler prisoners have become pregnant after being raped by guards. And women who complained about staff abuse were often placed in solitary. The women of Tutwiler, EJI executive director Bryan Stevenson told Birmingham TV station WBRC, live with "this fear that you're always at risk, that it's not safe to take a shower, that it's not safe to go to sleep when certain officers are in the dorm, that you can be extorted, that you can be manipulated into sexual favors, it's really horrific."
