I was watching something about Dennis Rader, the “BTK” serial killer. They said he was put in a maximum security prison.
To be sure that guy deserves to be locked up forever and not in a relatively pleasant prison.
But, maximum security?
The guy was 60(ish) when convicted. Depraved though he may be I cannot imagine he is an escape artist or even particularly dangerous to guards and other inmates. He’s a pudgy, past middle-aged man. What threat is he in prison?
Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, is in a SuperMax. Why? Near as I can tell the guy is a nutcase but a SuperMax needs to hold him? Do we need that kind of security on someone like him? Can’t we throw him in a more normal prison and save loads of money on his incarceration?
To be clear, I am not saying people like this should be getting Club Fed treatment, white collar minimum security prisons. But, do we need to spend a fortune locking up guys who have zero chance at escape or attacking other prisoners in the most super-duper security prisons (read expensive)?
I’m not sure if it’s the reason, but it may be for their own safety, as high-profile inmates may be targets for other prisoners looking to make a name for themselves.
Jeffrey Dahmer was imprisoned at a maximum-security facility in Wisconsin; he was in solitary confinement for a time, for his own safety, but was then moved into a less-secure portion of the prison (with his consent), where he interacted with other inmates. He was then attacked twice within a year, and the second attack was fatal.
I thought it was a point system. the higher your escape risk, the more violent your crimes, etc the higher the points. higher points means you get put in a more secure prison.
Also gang leaders or terrorists also seem to get put in supermax so they can’t organize attacks from inside prison.
It would be karmic if Trumpelthinskin’s habit of riling the rubes forced the Feds to put him in a high-security prison (instead of the usual white-collar Club Fed) to discourage Meal Team Six rescue attempts.
I’ve always felt that Kaczynski should be in a mental institution, but then again, he may also be in supermax because of the notoriety of his crimes, and therefore his own safety.
I know this is in Great Debates, but the factual answer to the question about how prisoners are assigned is that (in the federal system) it’s up to the Bureau of Prisons based on a number of factors including security and supervision required of the inmate, any special medical needs, and the resources available at BOP facilities:
It’s pretty much the same in New York. The incoming prisoner is sent to a reception facility, where they will be evaluated and it will be determined what particular prison they are suitable for.
To address another issue the OP raised, keep in mind that security is a two-way process. It’s not just about preventing the prisoner from harming others; it’s also about preventing others from harming the prisoner. High profile prisoners will often be placed in maximum security because that’s where it’s easiest to protect them from other prisoners who might target them due to their notoriety.
As a bureaucrat, I can tell you that we love formulas and weighted matrices and so forth that reduce any decision into just plugging in the appropriate data to reach an objective determination. It’s the ultimate CYA, because if someone gets mad you can say, “It wasn’t me, that’s just what the formula came up with!”
And as a bureaucrat, I can also tell you that those formulas are completely subjective because at some level somebody has to use personal judgement in scoring the metrics, no matter how rigidly you try to define them. And if the higher ups clearly want a certain outcome, then 9 times out of 10 the formula is going to produce the outcome they want.
I remember reading about Alcatraz. Nobody was assigned there right away; instead, prisoners “earned” assignment there by being obstreperous. The government being what it is, it would not surprise me if a similar system is still in operation.
Ultimately it’s an administrative decision though. I have to admit that I’m kind of intrigued about how that works- how much is judgment call, how much is formula-based, and how much is likely political pressure from outside the prison systems.
What bothers me about this issue is that it ignores the court system, and especially the judges.
In court, after the guilty verdict, the judge typically waits for a couple weeks before announcing the actual sentence . There are hearings in which, for example, family members plead for leniency, while the victim’s
family asks for a harsh sentence.
It would be logical for the judge to decide in which type of prison the guilty person will spend his sentence.
There’s a huge difference between living the good life in a minimum security “club fed” , and suffering in a real prison. The judge should have the authority to designate which punishment the guilty person will have to endure.
The sentencing phase is separate from the judgment phase- once the person is convicted, then the lawyers, jury and judge go through a phase where they determine the appropriate sentence. Often there are guidelines that limit or mandate certain punishments- i.e. manslaughter can have no less than X years and no more than Y years of prison time. They don’t just sit on the sentence for a few weeks after a guilty verdict
But the thing is that you’re sentenced to a term of incarceration. What sort of facility you serve that in is dependent on your sentence, your likelihood of violence or escape attempts, your likelihood to be assaulted by other inmates, and so on. I think states would probably prefer everyone be minimum security- it almost certainly costs less overall. But there are people who are identified as being risky for one reason or another, and they end up in higher levels of security. I’m not so sure a judge should get involved there- what if some numbskull judge decided that some violent offender should go to Club Fed, because he was only violent toward the “right” people?
I don’t doubt it. But that’s less theatrically political (is that a term?) and more in the vein of everyday corruption.
I’m just very uncomfortable with judges and legislators grandstanding on both sentences and legislation to mandate certain types of imprisonment, rather than having it be a simple administrative decision that is a LOT less likely to result in someone being somewhere they’re not supposed to be.
Look at it this way- the Club Fed/minimum security prisons are more than likely the cheapest to run- they require fewer guards, less physical security, and so on. Plus the inmates are likely to actually work in the prison’s industries, whatever they may be. And I’m sure the cost goes up as the security level goes up. So I’m pretty sure that the states or the Feds have a vested interest in putting inmates in the lowest level of security that they think is safe and effective. The punishment is the incarceration, not the security level, after all.
I wouldn’t have a problem with states/feds publishing the guidelines and the rationale behind each decision- they probably ought to do that anyway. It’s almost certainly available under the Freedom of Information Act at any rate.
I just imagine that it’s a pretty dispassionate thing- inmate 32353 comes in, they look at his conviction, sentence and the other factors, and make a decision, just like the tens of thousands of other inmates they’ve placed within the system.
Assuming that the judge has the necessary information to make the initial decision , which they may not * , there’s still the matter that the classification isn’t static - just because someone is initially assigned to a minimum security facility doesn’t mean they won’t be reclassified and sent to a maximum facility based on behavior.
* Although I wasn’t involved in inmate classification , I suspect that behavior during prior periods of incarceration is a factor and I’m almost certain that judges don’t have that information unless it resulted in a new conviction)
I agree with doreen. It’s not a static decision. An inmate’s conduct can result in re-classification, either up or down. That’s better suited to more flexible administrative processes than a judicial process.
It’s pretty much what flurb said. There are supposedly objective formulas. But human beings make judgement calls when deciding what values to plug into the formula.
I won’t deny that outside political pressure may have been a factor in some cases. But if it was, it was being applied at levels far above mine and I never saw it at work.