Crime and Punishment in America

Let's have a conversation, you and I, over how we want our government, in our name, to treat our prisoners. But, first, read this federal appeals court ruling in a Wisconsin case involving a prisoner and the state's Supermax prison facility. It is only 13 pages long and I suspect that upon reading it you will have one of only two reactions: you will either be repulsed (like me) or you will be satisfied (finally) that our prisons are becoming the rat holes you have wanted them to be in the name of deterrence.

Here is how 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Terence T. Evans began the court's unanimous ruling in favor of a prisoner named Nathan Gillis: "Stripped naked in a small prison cell with nothing except a toilet; forced to sleep on a concrete floor or slab; denied any human contact; fed nothing but 'nutri-loaf'; and given just a modicum of toilet paper-- four squares-- only a few times. Although this might sound like a stay at a Soviet gulag in the 1930s, it is, according to the claims in this case, Wisconsin in 2002. Whether these conditions are, as a matter of law, only 'uncomfortable, but not unconstitutional,' as the State contends, is the issue we consider in this case."

The Court then spent the next four pages laying out the facts of Gillis' case and, truly, Evans' narrative portrays an astonishing picture not just of how prison officials treated Gillis but the rationale they employed in doing so. For a minor infraction, he was, almost literally, driven crazy by a series of inhumane punishments. And then his temporary loss of sanity was used against him. It is no wonder that the Court allowed Gillis to continue to pursue his claims under the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the Eighth Amendment. In fact, what is more surprising than the appeals court ruling was the trial court ruling which preceded it. It is hard to imagine what goes on inside the cold mind of a judge (in this case, U.S. District Judge William C. Griesbach, a 2002 Bush appointee) who upon this set of facts is willing to tell a prisoner that he cannot even bring his claims into court and make his case to a jury.

You know where I stand. I think those prison officials who implemented and countenanced this policy should be fired. And I think that no prisoner in this country, from the lowest drug felon to the most heinous capital murderer, should be treated the way Gillis was. Not because I particularly care about what that treatment says about the man who receives it. But because I care about what that kind of treatment of prisoners says about you, and me, and the State of Wisconsin and this country as a whole. I do not want my government acting nasty and brutish unless it absolutely has to. And there is no way you can convince me-- there was certainly no way Wisconsin convinced those appellate court judges-- that those Supermax officials had to, just had to, treat Nathan Gillis that way. Just wait until the jury hears the facts of this case.

By Andrew Cohen |  November 15, 2006; 8:30 AM ET
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