Warning: This post includes descriptions of extreme violence and brutality.

There have been a couple of stories in the recent news exposing the brutality of prisons in the United States. First, the on-going travesty at Tutwiler women’s prison in Alabama was revisited by the New York Times over the weekend:

For a female inmate, there are few places worse than the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.

Corrections officers have raped, beaten and harassed women inside the aging prison here for at least 18 years, according to an unfolding Justice Department investigation. More than a third of the employees have had sex with prisoners, which is sometimes the only currency for basics like toilet paper and tampons.

But Tutwiler, whose conditions are so bad that the federal government says they are most likely unconstitutional, is only one in a series of troubled prisons in a state system that has the second-highest number of inmates per capita in the nation.

I’ve highlighted the situation at Tutwiler here a couple of years ago. Are sexual violence and brutality new for women prisoners? Of course not! In fact, in the mid-19th century after visiting Auburn State Prison in New York, the prison chaplain, Reverend B.C. Smith, remarked on conditions there: “To be a male convict would be quite tolerable; but to be a female convict, for any protracted period, would be worse than death” (Rathbone, 2005).

Randall G. Shelden (2010) wrote about how women prisoners were treated in the 19th century:

“The conditions of the confinement of women were horrible — filthy, overcrowded, and at risk of sexual abuse from male guards. Rachel Welch became pregnant at Auburn while serving a punishment in a solitary cell; she died after childbirth as the result of a flogging by a prison official earlier in her pregnancy. Her death prompted New York officials to build the Mount Pleasant Prison Annex for women on the grounds of Sing Sing in Mount Pleasant, New York in 1839. The governor of New York had recommended separate facilities in 1828, but the legislature did not approve the measure because the washing, ironing, and sewing performed by the women saved the Auburn prison system money. A corrupt administration at the Indiana State Prison used the forced labor of female inmates to provide a prostitution service for male guards (p.134).”

The guard who beat Rachel Welch so brutally was named Ebenezer Cobb. He was convicted of assault and battery and fined $25. He was allowed to keep his job.

The second development in the past few days involves the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern Law School which brought a class action lawsuit against Cook County Jail alleging a “sadistic culture.” Conditions are described as “hellish.” As someone who has had to visit the Jail pretty regularly, I concur with this assessment. I have written about the fruitless struggle to reform Cook County Jail dating back to the 1870s. Still, today, detainees continue to be abused and harmed even after countless lawsuits and federal intervention.

In the mid-1960s, a prisoner named Robert Charles Jordan filed a lawsuit against the Superintendent of Soledad prison charging “cruel and unusual” punishment. What was surprising about this case was that the court found in Jordan’s favor. Mr. Jordan was locked in solitary confinement from July 9 to 20, 1965 in a “strip cell” at Soledad. From his complaint:

“During the plaintiff’s confinement in said strip cell, plaintiff was forced to remain in said strip cell with said flaps and door of the second wall closed. As a result, plaintiff was deprived of light and ventilation for twelve days,except that twice a day the door of the second wall was opened for approximately fifteen minutes.

The interior of said strip cell is without any facilities, except that there is a raised concrete platform at the rear of the cell containing a hole to receive bodily wastes. There is no mechanism within the cell for “flushing” bodily wastes from this hole. “Flushing” is controlled by personnel of the Correctional Training Facility from the exterior of said strip cell. The hole was only “flushed” at approximately 8:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. on some of the twelve days plaintiff was confined in said strip cell.

During plaintiff’s confinement in said strip cell, the strip cell was never cleaned. As a result of the continuous state of filth to which plaintiff was subjected, plaintiff was often nauseous and vomited, and the vomit was never cleaned from the plaintiff’s cell. When plaintiff was first brought to the strip cell, the floor and walls of the strip cell were covered with the bodily wastes of previous inhabitants of the strip cell…

Plaintiff was forced to remain in said strip cell for twelve days without any means of cleaning his hands, body or teeth. No means was provided which could enable plaintiff to clean any part of his body at any time. Plaintiff was forced to handle and eat his food without even the semblance of cleanliness or any provision for sanitary conditions.

For the first eight days of plaintiff’s confinement in said strip cell, plaintiff was not permitted clothing of any nature and was forced to remain in said strip cell absolutely naked. Thereafter, plaintiff was given a pair of rough overalls only.

Plaintiff was forced to remain in said strip cell with no place to sleep but upon the cold concrete floor of the strip cell, except that a stiff canvas mat approximately 4 1/2 feet by 5 1/2 feet was provided. Said mat was so stiff that it could not be folded to cover plaintiff without such conscious exertion by plaintiff that sleep was impossible. Plaintiff is six feet and one inch tall and could not be adequately covered by said stiff canvas mat even when holding said mat over himself. The strip cell was not heated during the time that plaintiff was forced to remain there.

The complaint goes on to detail many more inhumane conditions and treatment. After the court ruled that Jordan had in fact been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, the Superintendent of Soledad, Cletus Fitzharris, remained at the head of the prison for 5 more years. He was then promoted to deputy director of the California Department of Corrections.

In 1971, Jordan reflected on his successful lawsuit against Soledad Prison:

“There were, it is true, some minor changes in certain procedures as they relate to the strip cells. But the changes were only slight physical adjustments to the mandates of the court order. The strip cells are still such that a human being should not be made to undergo incarceration in one. They are still dirty, they are still poorly ventilated, they are still poorly heated and most cases the lighting provided is deliberately not turned on by the pigs…The psychological aspects of the strip cells are unchanged. Strip cells were and are designed with one purpose in mind; to break the will and spirit of the inmate subjected to incarceration in such a cell. Not to “control” the inmate. Not to “quiet down” an inmate. Not to prevent an inmate from harming himself. Not to prevent an inmate from agitating others. But purely and simply to break the inmate’s will. To break the inmate’s spirit.”

All of this is to say that the prison IS violence. Until, we are honest about this fact, nothing can end the routine violation of the humanity and dignity of prisoners. We cannot “reform” prison brutality because once again the prison IS violence in and of itself. We must end prisons to end the violence. It’s the only way.