Date: 01-28-2025
PPI report finds "Discipline is inconsistent, random, not transparent, capricious, and heavily driven by the egos of staff. Issues of inmate safety are typically ignored |
From Prison Policy Initiative:
Every prison system has a lengthy disciplinary policy laying out the rules incarcerated people must follow, as well as the procedures and punishments they’ll face if they don’t. If we think of prisons as miniature walled-off cities, then disciplinary systems can be understood as the quasi-legal system within them, governing the daily lives of incarcerated people. These policies are supposed to ensure safety, security, and order by deterring and punishing misconduct. In practice, however, prison discipline is a system of petty tyranny with devastating, long-term consequences. Corrections officers enforce rules arbitrarily, often doling out punishments for mundane behaviors and survival strategies while interrupting access to programming and services that can make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. Harsh sanctions are handed down following unfair and unaccountable proceedings wherein it is nearly impossible to defend oneself from the charges.
In this report, we examine the landscape of disciplinary rules and punishments in all 50 state prison systems to get a “big picture” view of how they are designed and how they function as a central aspect of prison life — one that has been overlooked for too long. Using our collection of state prison disciplinary policies and building off our past work analyzing data on these systems and the impact of punishments like fines and fees, we explore the rules, procedures, and sanctions common to most systems. We also surveyed nearly four dozen incarcerated people to get their firsthand experiences because these systems are so opaque and cannot be well understood by reading policy alone. Throughout this report, we’ve included their insights in blockquotes like this:
Discipline is inconsistent, random, not transparent, capricious, and heavily driven by the egos of staff. Issues of inmate safety are typically ignored.
Read the full report here
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