Federal Bureau of Prisons Details Plans for Limited “Audit” of Solitary Confinement Practices
by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
A cell at ADX Florence federal supermax, where individuals may spend years or decades in extreme solitary confinement.
Last
week, representatives of six nonprofit organizations critical of
solitary confinement met in a closed-door meeting in Washington, D.C.,
with the team hired to conduct an internal audit of the federal Bureau of Prisons' controversial "segregation" policies.
The
idea for an audit came out of Senator Dick Durbin’s June 2012 Senate
hearing on solitary confinement, where BOP director Charles Samuels was
grilled on the federal prison system's use of solitary, especially on
prisoners with mental illness. Further criticism emerged from media coverage, lawsuits, and a scathing report from the Government Accountability Office,
which found that the BOP did not know whether its use of “segregated
housing” had any impact on prison safety, how it affected the
individuals who endure it, or how much it all cost American taxpayers.
The audit team is led by Ken McGinnis, the former warden who directs correctional programs at CNA,
a Virginia think tank known primarily for military contracting. CNA is
beginning a one year, $498,211 contract to provide a "Special Housing
Unit Review and Assessment" for the National Institute of Corrections,
which is itself an arm of the Bureau of Prisons.
On
November 11, McGinnis and several colleagues met with representatives
from the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project,
National Religious Campaign Against Torture, CURE, Vera Institute for
Justice, National Association for Mental Illness, and Prison
Ministries--a group that, according to participants, hopes to function
as a sort of advisory committee to the auditors. Among other things this
group has asked to receive briefings as the study progresses and to
provide feedback to the final report. The group does not include any
formerly incarcerated people or family members of those currently held
in solitary.
According
to individuals who attended the meeting, McGinnis described his plans
to tour several different prisons, including the government’s notorious
supermax, ADX Florence in Colorado, as well as Special Housing Units
(SHUs) and Special Management Units (SMUs). An overview of the audit provided
by CNA states that the project will make "an operational assessment of 8
BOP special housing units that will include at a minimum 1) Florence
ADX, Florence SHU and Florence SMU; 2) Either Allenwood SHU and SMU or
Lewisburg SHU; 3) Three additional SMU’s are yet to be to be
determined." (For descriptions of SHUs and SMUs, see our earlier post on the subject.)
In
the end run, according to McGinnis, as many as 13 units may be
inspected. Teams of experts will be dispatched to these facilities over
the next few months to tour the facilities, and talk with the people who
run them and the prisoners held there. McGinnis did not say whether
prisoners would be interviewed without corrections staff present, or
given the opportunity to fill out anonymous surveys--methods that are
widely considered to be the only way to get candid information from
people who are currently incarcerated.
Among
CNA's tasks will be "a comprehensive review of the Bureau’s mental
health assessment process." This controversial subject has been
addressed in recent lawsuits and media reports, which show that
numerous individuals with serious mental illness are being held at ADX,
in violation of the BOPs own clear policy directives.
The
audit will also review "the application of inmate due process
rights…during duration of placement within SHU at ADX and or SMUS."
These due process rights, for the most part, consist of pro forma
hearings and reviews, presided over solely by prison officials. Some
critics argue that these processes lack even a semblance of fairness or
independence.
The
audit will pointedly not include "any inmates with Special
Administrative Measures (SAMs)," which ban virtually all communications
between those in prison and the outside world, and even permit
monitoring of attorney-client communications. The auditors will not
enter the section of ADX called H-Unit, which holds a group of the most
restricted, high-security prisoners, including Ramzi Yousef (1993 World
Trade Center bombings), Zacarias Moussaoui (9/11), and Ahmed Ghailani
(US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania).
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