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Prisoner Rights and Conditions
of Confinement
We work with prisoner rights groups
to ensure the humane treatment of the imprisoned. We address issues
including, but not limited to:
-
prevention of all types of violence—be
it abuse by prisoners or correctional officers—that
result from overcrowding, the unnecessary use of solitary
confinement and other forms of segregation, the lack of productive
activities, etc. -
provision of adequate health care and mental health services;
-
assistance to those
who have been wrongfully
convicted and/or illegally imprisoned;
-
abolishment of the death penalty;
-
restoration of federal parole; -
establishment of an amnesty commission to provide relief to
political prisoners; and
-
thorough independent,
as well as
congressional investigations, of U.S. prison conditions.
Our specific focus is on Indigenous prisoners. Why? The Indigenous
population of the U.S. does not receive equal justice under the
law.
Since the 1980s, Congress has toughened federal penalties by
adding mandatory minimum sentences—which
are often more severe than those handed out by states. Coupled
with that was the abolishment of parole in the federal system. As
a result, American Indians, especially the million or so living on
tribal land, can face harsher punishments than non-Indians for
what are effectively local crimes.
There are 3,470 American Indians serving time in the federal
prison system. That's more, proportionately, than any other racial
group. According to census and Bureau of Prisons data, tribal
members living on reservations are incarcerated at a rate of more
than 249 per 100,000 residents. The next group is
African-Americans, who are imprisoned at a rate of 198 per
100,000.
The rate of incarceration only partially tells the story,
according to a 2003 study commissioned by the U.S. Sentencing
Commission, a federal agency that creates the guidelines federal
judges use in sentencing. It showed that Indian offenses amount to
less than 5 percent of the overall federal caseload, but
constitute a significant portion of the violent crime in federal
court.
As to life inside, our particular concern is the fact that
prisoners' rights to Native spiritual ceremonies are continually
denied. U.S. prison officials have refused to allow Native
ceremonies to be offered as last rites to death row prisoners, for
example. Officials make absurd claims that ceremonies will
be used as a means for escape or that singing and the like is
disruptive to the security of an institution. Tobacco has been
restricted for inmates’ ceremonies with the assertion that prisons
are "smoke free environments".
We work with solidarity groups, our support network, and the
general public to urge Congress to protect this and other fundamental rights
of prisoners. In June 2010, for example, the LPDOC
co-sponsored the Prison People's Movement Assembly (PMA) during the
U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan. Read the PMA's
Resolution
here.
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