Cruel Prison Punishments by Prison Wardens
Prison authorities must clearly define rules of inmate behavior and communicate them to the prisoners. Additionally, each convict must receive a written list of the regulations they must follow upon entering the correctional facility. Disciplinary rules must relate to the requirements of security, good prison order, and housekeeping needs.
Sometimes, a prisoner faces accusations of breaking prison rules. However, such a prisoner gets denied necessary rights while facing disciplinary action. Examples of these unrecognized rights include the right to counsel, and inmates cannot question or cross-examine any witnesses.
It is required that inmates receive notice of the accusations brought against them and the specific regulations they are accused of breaking. The inmates must also be aware of the applicable punishments in the event that they qualify for further sanctions. Typically, the prison Wardens settles minor offense issues informally.
Unfortunately, prison Wardens continue to give cruel punishments even in progressive nations such as the United States. This is despite the existence of this international convention and the passage of local legislation to safeguard prisoners. The following are the most common abusive punishments in prisons:
Juvenile Solitary Confinement
Solitary confinement involves the isolation of an inmate for 22-24 hours a day. The only interactions the prisoner can expect during solitary are between correctional officers and are usually brief. Solitary confinement is not just utilized in adult institutions but also juvenile detention centers all across the United States. It is a popular disciplinary technique among officers and administrators in the juvenile justice system due to the understaffing and overcrowding issues in most of these institutions.
Juveniles may end up in solitary confinement for various reasons, ranging from fighting or being disruptive to suicide prevention efforts. Other reasons may have nothing to do with the juveniles’ conduct. For instance, a minor may end up in solitary confinement upon receiving threats from other juveniles in the detention center.
The cells are usually the size of a standard parking spot with four concrete walls. Some cells have either excessively high windows or have opaque glass, making it impossible to see outside. Additionally, there is a concrete bed without a mattress, as well as a toilet and sink combination.
Juveniles in the system who are subject to this kind of abuse often do not have access to necessities such as beddings, reading and writing materials, eating utensils, baths, medical or mental health care, and any educational opportunity. Moreover, these juveniles cannot communicate with anybody else, thus shutting them off from the outside world.
How Does the Confinement Affect the Juvenile?
A significant problem that juveniles often face is bouts of self-harm and suicidal ideation. These episodes may occur both during and after their stay in solitary confinement. A study by the Department of Justice indicates that about 53 percent of adolescents perform acts of self-harm, including self-cutting and stabbing during their time in solitary. Hence, the report’s findings are somewhat ironic that one of the most common reasons for a juvenile’s placement in isolation is to prevent suicide.
Use of a Hitching Post
A hitching post is a horizontal bar consisting of durable, nonflexible material. The bar is usually between 45 and 57 inches above the ground. The correctional officers shackle inmates to the hitching post in a standing posture where they must stay standing for the duration of their confinement on the bar. The majority of prisoners are chained to a hitching post with their two hands held together and at eye level.
The most often dissatisfaction with the hitching post is the strain it places on prisoners’ muscles. The strain comes from the standing posture with their arms elevated in a fixed position for extended periods. Moreover, the prisoners are subject to significant discomfort when the sun warms their handcuffs, which bind them to the hitching post, or when the sun heats the hitching post itself. These inmates also suffer from sunburn, thirst, and muscular pains.
However, this form of punishment has come under fire where a court in Alabama declared it illegal as it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Most guards failed to follow an Alabama
Department of Corrections regulation which requires guards to keep track of inmates’ requirements for water and toilet breaks during confinement on the hitching post. Additionally, the law compels the guards to release the convict if he/she informs guards that he is ready to comply with regulations.
Use of Inmates to Punish other Prisoners
Rikers Island, New York’s notorious maximum-security jail, has been facing accusations of using other prisoners as “enforcers” to administer harsh punishment. This scheme is called “the world tour.” The plan entails transferring prisoners to various sections of the facility while other inmates working with the Wardens launch an assault on the newcomer as soon as they arrive. The punishments are brutal such that the prison wardens take part in mocking the prisoners experiencing roughing up from fellow inmates.
Essentially, the scheme is a resurrected version of “the program“, which was a similar system that operated in the same area of the prison. However, it was shut down by the Bronx district attorney’s office in 2008. Two correctional officers and seven prisoners who took part in “the program” were convicted in the death of 18-year-old Christopher Robinson, who was beaten to death in October 2008.
Capital Punishment
This punishment involves the death penalty on certain offenders. Correctional officers would traditionally execute offenders for various crimes by such techniques as drowning, stoning, hanging, and beheading. Modern executions are typically by electrocution, the gas chamber, or a fatal injection of a drug. Hanging is still applicable in various jurisdictions such as Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington. Prison Wardens are responsible for authorizing such punishments per a court ruling.
Flogging
It entails thrashing an inmate with a whip or a rod while aiming at the convict’s back. Flogging prisoners to impose discipline is illegal in the United States. However, most Wardens and guards usually partake in this unlawful act. Other countries such as Indonesia and Iran practice the act legally as Sharia Law allows for some of these practices under certain transgressions.
Hard Labor Punishment
Hard labor is a kind of punitive work that prison officials use as an extra form of punishment in addition to incarceration. Productive labor, such as industrial employment, and intrinsically pointless activities for primitive occupational therapy, punishment, and physical torture are the two kinds of punitive labor that exist.
At times, authorities may turn prison labor into industry works such as working on a prison farm or in a prison factory. In such instances, the pursuit of money from their productive labor may even take precedence over the concern for punishment. As such, these inmates are subject to the danger of exploitation as slave-like cheap labor.
Over the years, some inmates in the United States have refused to work, demonstrating their desire for higher compensation, better working conditions, and the abolition of forced labor. However, prison authorities end up putting the strike leaders in solitary imprisonment instead of addressing the issues. The prison labor sector generates approximately $1 billion in revenue each year from the sale of goods that the prisoners make. However, offenders still get very little or no compensation in return. As such, lawmakers are still trying to develop legislation to force the balance of income and the amount that jails earn from sales. Such legislation will play a key role in dealing with forced labor.
Cold Treatment
The application of this kind of torture was mainly in the 20th century. This treatment involves two traditional activities that do not leave scars and markings in the inmate’s body. The first torture involves ice water. The second method involves sleep deprivation, positional and constraint torture, and cold cells.
Ice water cure is a punishment involving inmates on a plastic sheet on the floor where guards pour water on the inmate with buckets. The guards then wrap the inmate with the cold sheet for minutes. Notably, the inmate must be completely naked during this exercise. The Chicago police would regularly freeze prisoners in the cold water to extract information from them.
The cold cells technique involves forcing inmates to strip naked and shackling them to a chair in a cold room for over two weeks. The cells usually have cold air conditioning during this torture.
Waterboarding
It is a cruel technique in which an interrogator restrains a prisoner to a board and puts a wet cloth in his mouth. The interrogator then pours water slowly through the rag to cause a slow drowning. This method is a classic torture tactic which explains its applicability in war crimes. In fact, the United States has punished enemy soldiers and even members of its own military for participating in crimes.
There has been consistent condemnation of this cruel act from the United States and other countries with the dedication to human dignity and the rule of law. However, the CIA still employs this technique against terror suspects in their custody in so-called black site prisons.
Sweatboxes
Sweatboxes are a kind of solitary confinement employable in humid and dry areas as a form of punishment for criminals. Placing an inmate in those boxes may result in death due to extreme heat, dehydration, and heat exhaustion. However, the degree of dehydration is dependent on when and how long the inmate stays in the box. Wardens also use a hot chamber to punish or force a victim into complying and giving the necessary information during torture.
High Cuffing
Detainees frequently report having their wrists shackled high over their heads with their legs on the ground. This punishment is less harmful than complete suspension as it can cause irreversible nerve damage in as less as 16 minutes to a normal-size person. High-cuffing extends the period inmates can stay in a suspended position while elongating the agony and delaying irreversible damage. It involves restraining the inmate, which is different from positional torture, which forces captives to adopt a natural human posture (standing or sitting), but for a lengthy period of time.
Standing Cells
This punishment involves keeping inmates in small cells in a standing position with feet flat on the floor. The inmates’ arms have to be above the head, with handcuffs and a chained rod crossing across the cell. It was formerly customary for inmates at the women’s jail in Gainesville, Texas, to stand in a cell near the dining room so that they could smell the meal. Punishments in these cells can last for up to two weeks.
Wailing
Walling is an interrogation method where a guard compels a prisoner to stand with his heels against a false wall. The guard then smashes the prisoner against the wall, causing it to deflect under the strain, making a loud bang. The prisoner may have concerns about crashing through the wall, which causes confusion and anxiety. Moreover, the inmate is likely to experience a ringing sensation in his ears as a result of the loudness. Many international legal authorities consider this technique to be torture, and it is illegal in certain nations. Others support it, claiming that the prisoner is not in imminent danger.
Just standing with heels against a wall for a long time may be unpleasant. As such interrogators usually employ this posture as a stress position forcing the prisoner to stand still. Combining it with pressing the prisoner against a wall that the prisoner believes to be real causes significant psychological stress. The inmates also experience physical distress.
Some inmates have reported wearing collars or wrapping towels around their necks to support the cervical spine and prevent whiplash. Interrogators claim that looking after the well-being of prisoners throughout walling operations indicates that the technique is not torturous.
Most of the above techniques are illegal. However, most prison wardens do not follow the law and hence apply these methods unconstitutionally. Additionally, inmates who experience excessive torture during their incarceration periods have minimal chances of seeking help. This is because the people in authority who are entrusted to take care of them are the ones torturing them.