{"id":26742,"date":"2021-09-12T04:23:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-12T04:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=26742"},"modified":"2021-09-13T04:54:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T04:54:08","slug":"on-50th-anniversary-of-attica-uprising-4-essential-reads-on-prisoners-rights-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/on-50th-anniversary-of-attica-uprising-4-essential-reads-on-prisoners-rights-today\/","title":{"rendered":"On 50th anniversary of Attica uprising, 4 essential reads on prisoners\u2019 rights today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matt Williams<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sept. 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 incarcerated men at Attica Correctional Facility in New York state took control of the facility<\/a>, prompting a multiday standoff<\/a> with authorities that ended in a massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident resulted in the deaths of 43 people, many of them inmates, and marked an important moment in the prisoners\u2019 rights movement<\/a> in the United States. The men behind what has variously been described as a \u201criot,\u201d \u201crebellion\u201d and \u201cuprising\u201d at Attica were demanding improvements<\/a> to medical and food supplies behind bars, greater visitation rights and an end to insanitary conditions and guard brutality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The uprising took place before the huge increase in America\u2019s prison population<\/a> in the 1980s and 1990s. But as The Conversation\u2019s authors have explained in recent months, many of the grievances raised by the Attica prisoners \u2013 health care, visitation rights, brutality and neglect \u2013 remain a concern for today\u2019s incarcerated men and women. Here are four essential reads:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind bars and suffering from dementia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

America\u2019s prisons are facing a growing aging population. Research shows that by 2030, almost one-third of all incarcerated people<\/a> will be over the age of 55. Rachel Lopez, a law professor at Drexel University<\/a> and former commissioner on Pennsylvania\u2019s Sentencing Commission, explains how the aging population will place an additional burden on authorities<\/a>: Research has shown that by the end of this decade, up to 210,000 elderly prisoners<\/a> will have dementia. The cost of their medical upkeep will fall on taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A prisoner on the hospice wing of California Medical Facility. Andrew Burton\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, keeping someone with dementia behind bars is, Lopez argues, an affront to human dignity and may even violate the United States Constitution\u2019s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cForcing those who cannot understand their punishment to live the remainder of their days behind bars appears to be exactly the type of excessive and cruel punishment that the Eighth Amendment was meant to protect against,\u201d Lopez writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more: Prisoners in US suffering dementia may hit 200,000 within the next decade \u2013 many won’t even know why they are behind bars<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prisoners with intellectual disabilities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The elderly are not the only vulnerable population being kept behind bars. In March 2021, the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that around a quarter<\/a> of the 24,848 incarcerated people it surveyed across 364 prisons had an intellectual, developmental or cognitive disability. Across the entire prison and jail network, that would equate to some 550,000 people. Jennifer Sarrett of Emory University<\/a> conducted in-depth interviews with several adults within the criminal justice system who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/aZQHB\/3\/\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPrisoners with these disabilities are at greater risk of serving longer, harder sentences,\u201d Sarrett notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also run the risk of exploitation and abuse<\/a> \u2013 both from other incarcerated people and from prison staff. As one man explained to Sarrett, officers look to see who only watches TV and never reads, marking them out for exploitation: \u201cSome of the corrections officers \u2026 they\u2019ll slide up onto the disability boy and use him, you know, making him feel like \u2018This is my dog. This is my boy right here. Come and do this for me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, needing extra time to process instructions \u2013 particularly in high-stress situations \u2013 can be interpreted as obstinacy by prison officers. In turn this can lead to prisoners with intellectual disabilities being written up for disciplinary issues, which can result in time added to a person\u2019s sentence, removal of certain privileges or solitary confinement. A 2018 study found that over 4,000 people with serious mental health concerns were being held in solitary confinement<\/a> in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more: US prisons hold more than 550,000 people with intellectual disabilities \u2013 they face exploitation, harsh treatment<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guard brutality still an issue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Between 2012 and 2016, 128 state and federal prisoners died as a result of homicide or accident<\/a>, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Those were the most recent figures available to Heather Schoenfeld of Boston University when she wrote an article for The Conversation<\/a> in July 2020 looking at violence by corrections officers. Another problem with the data other than it not being up to date: The agency does not distinguish in the figures between incidents involving prison staff and prisoner-on-prisoner violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the absence of detailed and reliable data, what we do have are accounts of sadistic and retaliatory violence by prison guards against people in prison,\u201d Schoenfeld writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She describes an \u201congoing humanitarian crisis\u201d in U.S. prisons of excessive force by corrections officers that has only been made worse by understaffing and overcrowding. \u201cStudies show that officers who work in chaotic and hostile work environments<\/a> are more likely to adopt an \u2018us vs. them\u2019 mentality and resort to retaliatory violence,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She adds: \u201cSimilar to excessive police force, brutality by prison officers is part of systemic state violence against people of color, and Black people specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more: People are dying in US prisons, and not just from COVID-19<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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COVID-19 and visitation rights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brutality and neglect are not the only things killing America\u2019s incarcerated population. Prisoners have been particularly vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic. Incarcerated men and women living in cramped indoor conditions with only basic sanitation and poor ventilation are at higher risk of infection and death<\/a> from the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have also face being isolated from their families for extended periods as a result of lockdown measures. Alexander Testa<\/a> and Chantal Fahmy<\/a> at The University of Texas at San Antonio looked at the effect this has had<\/a> on the prisoners\u2019 families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two scholars surveyed 500 people with a loved one serving time behind bars in Texas during the summer of 2020. What they found was a high level of concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy son has been locked in a cell with temperatures over 100 degrees for up to 23-plus hours a day for weeks on end now due to COVID,\u201d one 74-year-old woman told Testa and Fahmy. \u201cI fear he will either perish from the conditions or somehow take his own life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concern was not only of the risk of infection but also the sudden removal of visitation rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the pandemic Texas prisons severely limited all types of contact<\/a> with the outside world \u2013 including video and phone calls. Visitation was barred completely on March 13, 2020, and only resumed a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflecting on the this, alongside other grievances including \u201cdeplorable\u201d living conditions \u201cand lack of medical and dental care,\u201d one mother of an incarcerated person commented: \u201cWe don\u2019t incarcerate, we torture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more: No visits and barely any calls \u2013 pandemic makes separation even scarier for people with a family member in prison<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.<\/em> Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Williams<\/a>, Breaking News Editor, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Williams, The Conversation On Sept. 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 incarcerated men at Attica Correctional Facility in New York state took control of the facility, prompting a multiday standoff with authorities that ended in a massacre. The incident resulted in the deaths of 43 people, many of them inmates, and marked an important moment in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":26743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[1701,1098,2813,2482,9905,6731,2546,10466,10467,5047,2480,5065,876],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26742"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26750,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26742\/revisions\/26750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}