[Pnews] The Bureau of Prisons tightens the rules at its secretive “Communication Management Units.”
Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Thu Jan 29 16:56:43 EST 2015
Another Kind of Isolation
The Bureau of Prisons tightens the rules at its secretive
“Communication Management Units.”
By Christie Thompson
<https://www.themarshallproject.org/staff/christie-thompson>
*https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/01/28/another-kind-of-isolation
1/28/2015
*
In 2006 and 2008, the Bureau of Prisons quietly created new restrictive
units for terrorists or other inmates they feared might coordinate
crimes from behind bars. The Communication Management Units (CMUs) were
designed to more tightly monitor and restrict inmates’ communication
with the outside world. The units, at Terre Haute, Indiana and Marion,
Illinois, operated largely in secret, without any formal policies or
procedures in place — until last week.
On January 22, the Bureau of Prisons finalized rules
<https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/01/22/2015-01024/communications-management-units>
that had been nearly five years in the making regarding who can be sent
to the CMUs and how the facilities should operate. But prisoner
advocates claim the new rules impose even stricter limits on contact
without providing a legitimate way for inmates to appeal being placed
under such restrictions.
“What this rule does is codify the harsh communication restrictions in
place,” said Alexis Agathocleous, senior staff attorney at the Center
for Constitutional Rights and lead counsel in a federal lawsuit
<http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/aref-et-al-v-holder-et-al>
over the units. “What [it] doesn’t do is correct numerous procedural
violations. When you draw your designation criteria so broadly and you
don’t have robust processes for prisoners to protest, you create a
situation that’s ripe for abuse.”
The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment.
Under the new policy, prisoners may be limited to as few as three
15-minute calls a month, down from the current two calls a week. The
Bureau can also cut the time inmates spend with visiting loved ones from
the current eight hours to four hours a month. (All visits are strictly
no-contact.) Prison officials can now limit those calls and visits to
immediate family. And for the first time, the Bureau has given itself
the option of limiting the volume of mail to six, double-sided pages a
week. These limits are less severe than what the Bureau proposed in 2010
<https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2010/04/06/2010-7728/communication-management-units>,
but more limiting than what inmates currently receive
<http://ccrjustice.org/files/138.2%20Statement%20of%20Undisputed%20Facts.pdf>.
“Reducing the volume of communications helps ensure the Bureau’s ability
to provide heightened scrutiny in reviewing communications,” the Bureau
wrote
<https://endrun.herokuapp.com/documents/1509836-2015-01024-cmu-final-rule>
in their release of the new policy.
Inmates and their lawyers have criticized the units — now known to many
as “Little Guantanamo” — for targeting Muslims. Data compiled by the
Center for Constitutional Rights
<http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/previously-secret-prison-docs-show-constitutional-violations-experimental-prison-units>
found that roughly 60 percent of all inmates placed in the CMUs are
Muslim (including many convicted of crimes unrelated to terrorism),
compared to six percent of the overall federal prison population.
When issuing the new rules, prison officials responded to allegations of
profiling. “The Bureau does not use religion or political affiliation as
a criterion for designation to CMUs,” they wrote
<https://endrun.herokuapp.com/documents/1509836-2015-01024-cmu-final-rule>.
“The Bureau, acting on a case-by-case basis, may designate an inmate to
a CMU for heightened monitoring for any of the reasons
articulated...This valid legitimate penological purpose negates a claim
of a Bureau-wide conspiracy to discriminate against Muslims.”
Other inmates claim they were sent there for being too politically
active within prison, or serving as “jailhouse lawyers” by giving other
inmates legal advice. The final criteria for who should be transferred
to these units includes anyone with “substantiated/credible evidence of
a potential threat to the safe, secure, and orderly operation of prison
facilities...as a result of the inmate’s communication with persons in
the community.”
Compared to other high-security federal prisons, inmates being sent to
the CMUs have far fewer opportunities to protest their placement.
Prisoners who are transferred to the federal supermax prison in
Florence, Colo., for example, are given advance notice and a
pre-transfer hearing during which they can present evidence and call
witnesses on their behalf.
Meanwhile, inmates moving to the CMUs are given no advance warning, and
officials don’t have to explain the transfers. Inmates who want to
appeal must do so through the prison’s administrative remedy program,
the standard procedure to file any written complaint.
In the new rules, prison officials reasoned that the units aren’t
restrictive enough to require the same due process, and that the
administrative appeal is an adequate way for prisoners to petition their
placement.
No inmate has ever successfully earned release from the CMU through this
process.
--
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