Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty-(rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
If you were like me, you may never have heard the term “Communications Management Units” before. They are basically a section of a prison where certain prisoners are housed with limited or no access to communications or family visitations. The reason very little was known about the CMU’s is that when they first were initiated at prisons in Indiana and Illinois, their existence was kept from the public.
“The units opened almost in secret in 2006 and 2008. Critics say they flouted federal law by not publishing the proposed rule and opening up a period for public comment.” Readers Supported News If a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights had not been filed in 2010, we may never have known much about these abusive tactics in our domestic prison system. Maybe the harshest aspect of being sent to the CMU was the realization that you may never know why you were sent there or how you could get out of it.
Just what kind of treatment do prisoners in these CMU’s deal with? “Prisoners get two 15-minute phone calls a week. When their family and friends travel for their two 4-hour visits a month, they are not allowed to touch each other. No hugs. No arms around shoulders. Just a phone call on two sides of a thick plastic window. The conversation is monitored by guards, who could stop it at any moment if inmates speak in a language other than English, use hand signals, or break another one of the many visiting rules.
“It is soul-crushing,” said Daniel McGowan, who spent nearly four years in the two CMU units. When McGowan served his time in 2007 for his role in two arsons with the Earth Liberation Front, inmates were only allowed one 15-minute call a week and four hours of visiting a month. “You feel very removed from things, even the society of the prison. Things like playing softball, doing something productive, all of that is impossible in the CMU.”
Documents released by the Center for Constitutional Rights this week shed new light on how inmates who have often broken no rules are arbitrarily transferred to the cells, known as “Communication Management Units”, sometimes for years at a time. Prisoners are given incomplete or inaccurate information as to why they’ve been moved, CCR found, and have almost no way to substantively protest their placement. ” Readers Supported News
At first glance, some may consider that treatment normal for a prisoner at a maximum security prison. However, all prisoners are supposed to have rights to know why they are being taken out of the general population. The residents of these CMU’s were not given accurate reasons why they ended up in a CMU and it seems that the Bureau of Prisons has still not written clear guidelines that can be enforced on a system wide basis.
“But depositions and internal prison memos show that officials used widely differing criteria for who should be sent there. One prison official testified that it was “very vague,” but that she thought “significant leadership abilities, high education and technical background and blatant disregard for government” were all qualities that might warrant limiting an inmate’s communications.
McGowan, who was given a terrorism enhancement, had served roughly 9 months of his sentence at a low-security prison in Minnesota when he was transferred to the CMU in Marion, Illinois.
“You have been identified as a member and a leader in the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, groups considered domestic terrorist organizations,” read the single-page notice he received five days into his time at Marion. “Your contact with persons in the community requires heightened control and review.” Readers Supported News
In the early 1970’s, I had the opportunity to “visit” Marion Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois. At that time it was a maximum security facility that housed many inmates formerly held at Alcatraz. When I was there the inmate population had many restrictions, but if they followed the rules they were allowed to contact the public and have regular visitations. It was a scary place and I can’t imagine how those men would have reacted if the CMU’s were in place then. Since 2010, Marion Federal Prison has been designated as a medium security prison.
As a country that is supposed to be based on the rule of law, shouldn’t everyone be upset when prisoners rights are curtailed and they are not offered any meaningful process to appeal any denigration of those rights? The lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2010 has uncovered some interesting information on the lack of uniformity and lack of legitimate reasons for a prisoner being assigned to a CPU.
“But the documents revealed today show that the BOP did not draft criteria for designating prisoners to the facilities until 2009 and that, even then, different offices within the BOP, each of which plays a role in the designation process, have a different understanding of the criteria. Other documents reveal that the reasons provided to CMU prisoners for their designation were incomplete, inaccurate, and sometimes even false. Discovery in the case also shows that prisoners were told they could earn their way out of the CMU by completing 18 months with clear conduct, but upon meeting that goal, their requests for transfer out of the CMU were repeatedly denied without explanation. Other documents show political speech was used as a factor in CMU designation. The documents made public today also show that 60 percent of CMU prisoners are Muslim, though Muslims comprise only six percent of the federal prisoner population.
‘ “The documents revealed today show that CMU prisoners have been denied due process at every step, from designation to review,” said CCR Senior Staff Attorney Alexis Agathocleous. “The CMUs impose harsh restrictions on prisoners, including a ban on even momentarily hugging their families. Meanwhile, the BOP has denied hundreds of prisoners, who are mostly Muslim, the opportunity to understand or rebut the rationale for their placement, or a meaningful review process to earn their way out, …” ‘ Center for Constitutional Rights
The rule of law and the need for due process seem to have escaped the purview of the Bureau of Prisons. Without the knowledge of why these prisoners were kept in these restrictive units, they had no chance of challenging the designation or “earning” a way back to the general population. Since these CMU’s were created in 2006 and 2008, is their conceptual beginnings based on the Gitmo idea of incarceration?
If the Bureau of Prisons can keep anyone locked away from family and the public without having to go through any due process, any prisoner for good or bad reasons could be shut out from the usual helpful connection to family and friends in the outside world. “Several studies suggest that regular visits from family members significantly decrease the risk of recidivism among inmates. McGowan, who was released to a halfway house in 2012 and now lives with his wife in Brooklyn, said the isolation of the CMUs made the transition home particularly hard. “I had a hard time with my family, getting along with people, and feeling dissociated, feeling like no one understands what I feel right now,” he said.” Readers Supported News
I am glad that the Center for Constitutional Rights filed their lawsuit and that it may just bring some relief and some due process to the prisoners now being held in CMU’s and some solace to those who were unjustly held in a CMU during the time of their incarceration. We are all entitled to due process and without it, a government could incarcerate anyone for just about any reason. What would these prisoners have done without a group of defense attorneys standing up for the prisoners rights? What do you think?
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LC, Good comment. I agree w/ just about everything you’ve said. But, as I’ve said previously, radicals who are willing to die in order to kill are a unique problem w/ not easy or cookie cutter answers.
We must all admit that our justice system is broken, that no two people are the same and codes, rules and regulations are not fair and just across our great nation. We must be aware that public employees, judges and politician’s are only human beings and must be corrected when they make a mistake. It is up to the people to make these corrections. Some of these private owned “transfer Prisons” do not supply the basic needs (not wants) of the inmates. Many inmates have said that the prisons need to be state run. Inmates are in prison over false testimony, that should have been a civil matter if anyone bothered to investigate. There have been a lot of accusers that said they lied and made up the story or was threatened by a prosecutor but the courts still do not investigate or hold accountable anyone responsible and the accused stays in prison. Between the revenue from the BONDS and the PROBATION penalty, the justice system refuses to do right by the people. Interesting reading Karen Hudes formally of the world bank, look it up.
Between the courts, CAPTA, CPS, welfare and other intrusive agencies the family and future families are ruined. Common sense is pushed aside for the revenue.
PS My opinion only !
I had not spoken w/ my friend @ Terre Haute so I gave him a call and asked him to read this thread. He chuckled and said, “Tell them the next biggest demographic in these units are Aryan, Nazi types. There is only one or 2 ELF or ALF, the rest are all right wingers.” So, are you going all to cry when that right wing shitbird who shot up a Jewish Community Center in Kansas going to go and march when his hateful, murderous ass is in this unit. No, I didn’t think so.
Rafflaw: I wonder what they would do to the Church Of the New Song (CONS)at Marion or Menard these days? Heard of that ’70s group?
These were essentially the same conditions that I was forced to visit with my own daughter. The difference was that it was not through a plastic window and we were allowed to sit next to each other.
Other than that, all the other rules were in effect, guards watching and hearing everything we said, with the ability to stop us if they didn’t like it or thought we were communicating in some hidden way.
Note, I have never been found guilty of any maltreatment of my daughter, but this is what they do to you if they just ‘accuse’ you of something.
http://youtu.be/NIsnbUxAPhs
Steven, Great point! I’ve been making that same point on the Bundy thread from yesterday. Come on over but I feel compelled to warn you, there are real nasty folks commenting, so I understand if you abstain.
Rafflaw:
Found myself nodding when I read your column; government abuse is wrong.
Then I read one of your comments about Cliven Bundy:
” The BLM should be enforcing the law and putting scofflaw deadbeats like Cliven Bundy in jail along with any armed militants who get in the way of a legal process.”
You seem to support a militarized police unit employing potentially lethal force over grazing fees; a disproportionate response against a right wing fanatic.
In this column you advocate justice for a left wing eco terrorist;
It seems that your tolerance for government abuses depends on the political views of the victim: leftist – bad government; rightist – good government.
After being an abusive torture loving freak prison guard, one can always work for the propaganda unit of the military NSA and spy on all Americans.
It goes with the territory of nuts.
Nick Spinelli,
…
He says the vast majority are Muslim terrorists who would be @ Gitmo if not there.
…
==============
“With friends like that …”
Or, you just might be put in prison by the president (President Reagan Puts Cheney In Jail).
“What would these prisoners have done without a group of defense attorneys standing up for the prisoners rights? What do you think?” – rafflaw
Suffer the dark machinations of torture lovers who think they have democratic, American, constitutional values –when they decidedly do not.
Some of them should put in for a transfer to a country that matches their ideology.
I suggest somewhere in the gulag.
Perhaps the Saddest thing here is that people don’t see anything wrong with this kind of abusive, unconstitutional treatment of prisoners because they think these are bad guys anyway so who cares. It used to be thought and I believe it is true that you can make your enemy understand that you are not his enemy by treating him like a human being and giving him more rights and care than he ever imagined a monster, like you are supposed to be, would. Unfortunately, rather than do that we seem to have decided that we are going to show those Muslims and others that we are exactly the monsters they were taught we are. What a twisted state of affairs and all done in secret by our own government, not by an occupying force under the cover of 9/11. Our leaders have truly given the terrorists everything they could have hoped for and everything they could NOT have done themselves. Our leaders have twisted our country into the everything we have always been taught we were against secret trials, secret prisons, torture…..
I thought we were better than that and many of our friends in other countries did too. They are confused and disappointed about what has happened to us. They think America is a great country but what is going on there.
Our leaders also seem intent on keeping us in constant fear and in the dark. The penalties for disclosure of the illegal activities of government agencies have become common place and accepted and expanded by even a president who is allegedly a Constitutional law professor. Bankers who crash the economy get a pass, medals and billions of dollars while whistleblowers who disclose to the American people spying beyond our wildest imagination, torture seen only in our worst nightmare are jailed or have to flee the country. Twisted and wounded. We are truly living in the worst of times.
Justice Holmes,
Well stated.
It is almost as if we have lost the War on Terror, our enemy has won. This conceptual war with no clear enemy demarcation has resulted in all the issues you presented so well—issues that I never thought would be attributed to our Nation.
I had hoped that Obama would address some of these unlawful practices by holding those responsible accountable for their actions. I misjudged Obama’s sense of purpose and dedication to the rule of law which is an error of judgment on my part.
Again, good topic.
Samantha, I saw a doc on disciplinary segregation recently. I don’t know if it was Frontline, but it was on state prisons, not Fed. Make no mistake, it is tough in those units. But, you don’t get in there for a minor infraction. That said, some state prisons are horseshit.
What bothers me the most is the apparent disregard for the law with zero consequences to any prison official. This seems to be a recurring theme in our society where the powerful, either through wealth or occupation, do whatever they damn well please without fear of any repercussions.
raff, I was in no way saying, nor was I thinking or feeling, that Muslin inmates should get less rights. I take some offense to that assertion. I was merely giving the demographics. As you know, I worked @ Leavenworth. In many comments here I have passionately advocated for the humane treatment of inmates. I walked that walk, sir. That’s why I take offense to your assumption. The record indicates that. The focus in this piece is on an ELF terrorist. That is an effort to give a warm and fuzzy spin. After all, they just are saving the environment. But, the reality is arson and murder. They are not freedom fighters, they are terrorists. The Federal Bureau of Prisons are the gold standard for the world. Nations like Norway, Sweden, you know the “good” countries, visit and study them to emulate. The BOP recruit educated, fair, people. Terrorism has presented them w/ a VERY difficult problem as it has for our law enforcement, military, State Dept., etc. This guy I know is someone I’ve known for decades. I worked w/ him. He is a VERY good man. He says these are righteous.
A soldier is not compelled to follow an order if it is an illegal order. In the same way, prison employees should not follow orders that deny constitutional rights to prisoners. If judges cannot violate our rights, then prison employees should not be able to, likewise. Probably most prison employees are fully aware that these brutal programs are illegal, but they are afraid to speak out. They all need to be reminded that they are protected by whistleblower laws. All it takes is for one employee to come forth, and these brutal programs will end, together with the prison administration careers, too.
Didn’t Frontline have a documentary on solitary confinement, just recently?
Nick,
As a correction, Marion Federal prison, as noted in the article is not a Supermax. It has been a medium security prison since 2010. And just because it is a Supermax, rights are not left at the door as you enter.
Also, for clarification, their is nothing in the Constitution that suggests that Muslim prisoners get less rights than non-Muslims. Thirdly, one of the issues in the lawsuit is the fact that many of the CMU prisoners were Muslim, but they had not broken any rules and were not given a valid reason for being placed in the CMU.
By the way, your comment was in the spam folder.
Thanks again, Raff.
Help please, my comment on this interesting post was eaten. Integrity check!
I know a guy who works @ Terre Haute and discussed this w/ him several times. There are only CMU units @ Marion and Terre Haute, according to him. These units are for terrorists. He says the vast majority are Muslim terrorists who would be @ Gitmo if not there. Regarding the “victim” portrayed in this piece, one needs to understand ELF. It is classified by the govt. as a left wing terrorist organization. My wife did a presentence on one of these shitbirds. A spoiled rotten rich kid, and he was indeed a hateful terrorist. How do you stay out of these CMU’s, DON’T BE A TERRORIST. There’s no crying in Supermax.