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Behind Prison Walls

Emma Karsten
Human Rights blog
Published in
6 min readMar 8, 2019

by: Ainsley O’Brien

When the death of a prisoner caused by abuse is plastered on a news channel, the feeling of shock is not always a common reaction. For many victims in the prison system, bringing awareness to the inequalities they faced is not exactly easy. Many feel their tragic experiences are humiliating and degrading to speak about, but some do have the courage to speak up, and although the number of those people is very few, their efforts to stop mistreatment inside prison walls has helped many not just to understand these frequent mistreatments, but also be a voice for others that are familiar to the struggle.

The mistreatment of inmates continues to occur across the country with distressing frequency. “You don’t have any rights once they have control of you. I would be gone for weeks being moved from place to place and my family would never be told where I was at. It was a nightmare for a while” explains Paul Anderson, a former inmate of Spring Field Missouri Prison.

People come out of prison so damaged. The abuse of inmates creates, and if not, worsens already pre-existing mental and physical health issues. And because of a lack of mental health services for former prisoners, a lot of those people find themselves behind prison bars once more. This is a common cycle in the United States prisons, and most arguably one of the most pressing issues calling for reform throughout the system.

A 2015 report by Human Rights Watch found that mentally ill inmates across the United States are subjected to routine physical abuse by guards. Although the number of casualties is unclear, jails and prisons classify them in various ways, but most commonly do not report the abuse.

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics explains sexual abuse, both verbal and physical, is extremely difficult to prove and rarely leads to the recovery of damages for the inmates. “I think the violence that happens in prisons depends on the situation. It’s all about what the relationship is with the correctional officers, and that of the inmates.” states Anderson. Sexual abuse is the most common and powerful tool of abuse in prison. Sex is used to establish dominance and power over prisoners and can be described as essential to achieve control.

Guards also cause violence indirectly by ignoring physical assaults by fellow prisoners. “The majority of the fights I saw were instigated by the officers. If not that then there was little to no intervention when a fight would break out. I know that the only thing I could do was keep away and not get involved with people. It was the only way to not start stuff” says Anderson.” and even if you ignore comments from the officers, they will get aggravated for your obedience and use that as a reason to continue the harassment.”

For inmates, achieving justice in the courts and preventing prisoner abuse is incredibly challenging. A federal law enacted in 1996 called the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), requires prisoners to clear drastic hurdles before being permitted to sue the Department of Corrections for assault or for the violation of civil rights. Before a prisoner is allowed to file a lawsuit in court, they must first take their complaints through the levels of the prisons or jails grievance system, obeying all deadlines and protocols. If and when they do so, they must come up with the money to pay for an attorney. For many, these fees fall onto family members of the inmates. Anderson explains that, “At times I thought my family had it worse than I did, strictly because of the money they now had to make up.” Many inmates hesitate to file grievances because of the relation most face from the officers. For instance, complaining prisoners can lose their access to the inmate library, and experience being denied from the few rights they have. Anderson goes on to say: “The hard truth, and worst part of our justice system is that there was never a search for justice. Only money. It’s always about the transfer of dollars from the packets of inmates, to the pockets of the lawyers and the government.” ()

So in all, the point of that PLRA act was to make it difficult for prisoners to get into court.

For those lucky enough who manage to make it into the courts usually encounter some form of discrimination. “A lot of the time people working throughout my case would assume me to be of less intelligence. I was even put into a physic ward early on in my trial because they thought a man at my level of intelligence must be crazy to be in prison,” explains Anderson ”At one point I had realized they were moving me around so much I would miss my court dates. Because of that they were able to take the lean off of the judge in my trial. ”According to the language of the PLRA, even if a prisoner wins a case, they may not recover compensation for “mental or emotional injury” if they don’t show any evidence of the abuse. Unfortunately, the brain can’t show physical scars. Many inmates hesitate to file grievances because they’re afraid of retaliation from prison staff and guards in forms of abuse, both physical, and verbal.

“I remember the time they wouldn’t let me get dental work done during the time of my trial. It was so bad at one point my face had swollen up. My mother didn’t even recognize me at first.” says Anderson.

In 2012 the Department of Justice released the final federal regulations implementing a federal law that is supposed to protect inmates proposed by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). The purpose of this act was to “provide analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape in Federal, State, and local institutions and to provide information, resources, recommendations and funding to protect individuals from prison rape.” It also offers information, training, and technical assistance to inmates, as well as producing its own report to Congress.

Even with these laws in place by activists to prevent violence in prison, it will undoubtedly continue to exist, for a variety of reason. Firstly, guards aren’t exactly making big bank. The average hourly rate for a correctional officer is $16.54 per hour. They usually have very little training before being put on staff. Prisons are often overcrowded and packed beyond their carrying capacity. For the guards, being thrown into the powerful role of watching over citizen, labeled to be of lesser value can be scary, and often times it’s traumatic. Changing the law is considerably easy compared to changing the mechanics of the human brain.For example, investigative journalist Shane Bauer spent four months working as a prison guard in Louisiana and eventually found himself feeling violent, fearful, and wanting to inflict his violent impulses on inmates, so you can see, it’s not uncommon for guards to turn off their empathy and compassion. Referring to the article — “Mass incarceration is a system. Part of dehumanizing inmates is to make guards feel better about hurting other people.”

While we may feel powerless to change the prison system, there are things we can do to break the cycle. First off, we need to stay alert and vote. We need to pay attention to incarceration policies and who the DA is that is running for election. Most DA’s are extremely conservative and think that it’s their job to put people in prison. But the thing is, its not. It’s their job to seek justice, not money. When they do, it only leads to more prison beds being filled and more justice lost.

Sources

Prison Reform

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Emma Karsten
Human Rights blog

Written by Emma Karsten

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