Throwing Away the Key / 'SuperMaximum' Prisons

Virginia Gets Even Tougher on Its Convicts
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Service

BIG STONE GAP, VirginiaOn a 3,000foot elevation surrounded by
the lush, wooded Appaiachian Mountains, a new definition of hard
time in Virginia is rising in a series of bunkerlike buildings.
This is where Virginia is building one of two "supermaximum"
prisons, harsh institutions that have become common in the United
States. An identical 1,267inmate facility is being built 35 miles
northeast of here on Red Onion Mountain, near Pound. Both will open
next year.
The inmates in the new prisons will be divided into two groups:
general population and segregated. Those in segregationas many as
192 prisoners in eight units at each prisonwill be in 23hour
lockdown. Their tiny cells have narrow slats to let in natural sunlight.
Through the slats, there is a spectacular view here of the valley below,
but prison officials plan to smoke the windows before the prison opens
so inmates can't see out.
For the segregated prisoners, there will be no group activities,
no educational or vocational programs, no television and no sports.
Some of them also may be denied reading material. Exercise will be
limited to an hour a day of pacing alone in a narrow concrete yard.
When visitors are allowed, they will not be permitted to touch the
prisoners; even the most secure of Virginia's current prisons allow an
embrace at the beginning and end of a visit.
Such supermaximum prisons have drawn criticism from prison
rights advocates and human rights groups. But prison officials say they
are essential to manage the most violent and incorrigible convicts.
Ronald Angelone, director of the Virginia Department of
Corrections, said the abolition of parole for all crimes committed in the
state after Jan. 1, 1995, means that the state will have many more
prisoners to handle in coming years. So the state needs tougher prisons
to house them, he said.
Although the rate of violent crime in Virginia has remained
steady or dropped every year since 1993, the number of state
prisoners has increased, from 17,000 in 1993 to 24,000 today, and
will reach 40,000 in 2002, state officials said.
Because of that projected growth, the state is in the midst of a
$420 million prison building boom. In addition to the two super
maximum facilities, officials are building two maximumsecurity prisons,
a women's prison and the state's first private prison.
The two supermaximums will be needed to handle the larger
number of violent inmates serving true life sentences, Mr. Angelone
said. *'Prisoners will be totally under the control of correctional
officers," he said. When prisoners are taken out of their cells, whether
for showers, exercise, or legal, medical or family visits, they will be
shackled, handcuffed and accompanied by two guards. Above them, at
all times, more guards will watch from gun ports. The guards will be
armed with guns and, for use in less serious situations, such nonlethal
weapons as rifles that can fire up to 300 rubber balls.
"The prison is designed so that there are always sight lines for
the officers," said Mr. Angelone, who noted that older prisons have
corners where prisoners, they can escape scrutiny.
The segregated units mostly will be used to house prisoners
who have committed offenses inside prison. Depending on the crime,
some will be held in segregation for years. "We are dealing here with
the worst of the worst," Mr. Angelone said.
State correctional systems have been building supermaximum
prisons, modeled after the federal prison at Marion, Illinois, since the
1980s. At least 40 states have such facilities.

THE TREND concerns some human rights groups, who say the
complete isolation of prisoners is degrading and has spawned violence
and other abuses by guards.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and
the American Friends Service Committee have complained of beatings
and hog tying of inmates and of guards forcing prisoners to lap food
from plates because their hands are cuffed behind their backs.
Some of the stun weapons that Virginia is introducing across its
prison system which every officer at the supermaximums will carry,
have been condemned by Amnesty International as "cruel and
inhumane." Mr. Angelone said such weapons protect inmates and
guards without the need to resort to lethal force.
"There needs to be security, yes, but it always needs to be
done in a humane fashion," said Jenni Gainsborough, public policy
coordinator for the ACLU's National Prison Project. "There is
tremendous potential for abuse in these places: the isolation, the
weapons, the lack of any clear independent oversight. And the mental
effect on people, particularly those who come in with mental problems,
can be horrifying."
Indeed, one federal judge found that putting inmates with
mental illness in such isolation was akin to "putting an asthmatic in a
place with little air to breathe. " The judge, in a California case, found
that the mentally ill should not be so isolated, but he said such harsh
conditions do not violate the constitutional rights of the prison
population as a whole.
Officials here plan mental testing before confining prisoners to
segregation. And Mr. Angelone, without commenting directly on
conditions in supermaximumprisons in other states, said Virginia's
would be different from most of the others.
Unlike most supermaximum prisons in the United States,
Virginia's will have some generalpopulation prisoners. Those inmates
violent, longterm felons who nonetheless obey the ruleswill have
some privileges denied to those in segregation. They will be allowed to
congregate in the yard, and will have limited educational programs.
But even compared with maximumsecurity prisons in Virginia,
those opportunities will be scant. At nearby Keen Mountain
Correctional Center, a maximumsecurity facility, prisoners can
participate in a variety of work programs, including silkscreening and
making Tshirts, soap and license plates.
At Wallens Ridge and Red Onion, the only work will be
janitorial, and educational programs will be limited to obtaining a
General Educational Development diploma.
"What do we expect when these prisoners get out if there is no
effort at rehabilitation and we just isolate them and encourage their
antisocial tendencies?" Ms*Gainsborough of the ACLU asked.
But in Virginia, society's interests in rehabilitation will be moot
for many supermaximum prisoners. Because of their sentences and
because the state has abolished parole, many will probably die in
prison.

[Just like the Gulag]