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History of Control Unit Prisons
History of Control Unit Prisons
In 1963 the Federal Bureau of Prisons closed down Alcatraz
Prison as its highest security prison. Prisoners from Alcatraz
were moved into Marion Prison in Illinois, which was placed in
lockdown. Before this, lockdown was used to control and suppress
disruptions within a prison by severely restricting prisoners'
rights. Marion was the first prison to make lockdown a permanent
condition. Marion combined permanent lockdown with sensory
deprivation and administrative (rather than disciplinary)
classification to create a streamlined machine for repressing
those people the Department of Corrections (DOC) finds
objectionable, whether for political, economic, racial, or
religious reasons.
Management Control Units, or "supermax" prisons, have become
the new model for prisons. As of 1993, 25 states have control
units, as do the US federal government and Canada. At least 6
states were planning to build "supermax" prisons in 1993. A new
control unit has just opened in Florence, Colorado, which is to
replace Marion as the highest security federal prison. Prisoners
are kept in permanent solitary confinement, and are not even
allowed to congregate for religious services. The cells are set
up so that prisoners can't see each other, and can go days
without seeing guards. The furniture in their cells is not
movable, physical contact is prohibited among prisoners and
during visits, and telephone calls are limited even more than in
regular prisoners. Florence is located in an area whose water,
soil, and air is known to be contaminated with dangerous
radiation levels from a nearby uranium milling plant. (These are
the "official" conditions, according to the DOC. The reality
remains to be seen.)
Historically, there have been many reports of human rights
violations within control units, ranging from denial of medical
care and arbitrary beatings to psychological torture and sensory
deprivation. There is no evidence that such abuse decreases
violence within the overall prison system.
How We Define "Control Unit"
Control Units go beyond the usual constraints of even
maximum security prisons in an attempt to defeat revolutionary
attitudes, prisoner organization and militancy, jailhouse legal
and administrative challenges, and anything else prison
administrators deem objectionable.
While conditions vary from prison to prison, the goal of
these units is always to cause spiritual, psychological, and
physical breakdown of the prisoners. Included in the oppressive
conditions are:
- Years of isolation from both prison and outside communities
while being housed in solitary or small group isolation (celled
22.5 hours / day).
- denial of access to educational, religious, or work programs.
- physical torture such as forced cell extractions, four point
restraint and hogtying, caging, beating after restraint, back
room beatings, and set-up fights.
- mental torture such as sensory deprivation, forced idleness,
verbal harassment, mail tampering, disclosing confidential
information, confessions forced under torture, and threats
against family and visitors.
- denial of access to medical and psychiatric care.
Prisoners are placed in Control Units for administrative
and/or disciplinary reasons. The classification hearings, if they
occur at all, can only be called a "kangaroo court" at which the
prisoner is denied due process.
Various names are assigned to Control Units: Adjustment
Center, Security Housing Unit, Maximum Control Complex,
Administrative Maximum (Ad-Max), Special Housing Unit, Violence
Control Unit, Special Management Unit, Intensive Management Unit,
etc. While every prison has Administrative Segregation cells
(Ad-Seg) used for holding prisoners in short-term disciplinary or
protective custody, Control Units are used for long-term
punishment and campaigns against many prisoner groups and
activities.
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