History of Control Unit Prisons

History of Control Unit Prisons

In 1963 the Federal Bureau of Prisons closed down Alcatraz Prison as its highest security prison. Prisoners from Alcatraz were moved into Marion Prison in Illinois, which was placed in lockdown. Before this, lockdown was used to control and suppress disruptions within a prison by severely restricting prisoners' rights. Marion was the first prison to make lockdown a permanent condition. Marion combined permanent lockdown with sensory deprivation and administrative (rather than disciplinary) classification to create a streamlined machine for repressing those people the Department of Corrections (DOC) finds objectionable, whether for political, economic, racial, or religious reasons.

Management Control Units, or "supermax" prisons, have become the new model for prisons. As of 1993, 25 states have control units, as do the US federal government and Canada. At least 6 states were planning to build "supermax" prisons in 1993. A new control unit has just opened in Florence, Colorado, which is to replace Marion as the highest security federal prison. Prisoners are kept in permanent solitary confinement, and are not even allowed to congregate for religious services. The cells are set up so that prisoners can't see each other, and can go days without seeing guards. The furniture in their cells is not movable, physical contact is prohibited among prisoners and during visits, and telephone calls are limited even more than in regular prisoners. Florence is located in an area whose water, soil, and air is known to be contaminated with dangerous radiation levels from a nearby uranium milling plant. (These are the "official" conditions, according to the DOC. The reality remains to be seen.)

Historically, there have been many reports of human rights violations within control units, ranging from denial of medical care and arbitrary beatings to psychological torture and sensory deprivation. There is no evidence that such abuse decreases violence within the overall prison system.

How We Define "Control Unit"

Control Units go beyond the usual constraints of even maximum security prisons in an attempt to defeat revolutionary attitudes, prisoner organization and militancy, jailhouse legal and administrative challenges, and anything else prison administrators deem objectionable.

While conditions vary from prison to prison, the goal of these units is always to cause spiritual, psychological, and physical breakdown of the prisoners. Included in the oppressive conditions are:

- Years of isolation from both prison and outside communities while being housed in solitary or small group isolation (celled 22.5 hours / day).

- denial of access to educational, religious, or work programs.

- physical torture such as forced cell extractions, four point restraint and hogtying, caging, beating after restraint, back room beatings, and set-up fights.

- mental torture such as sensory deprivation, forced idleness, verbal harassment, mail tampering, disclosing confidential information, confessions forced under torture, and threats against family and visitors.

- denial of access to medical and psychiatric care.

Prisoners are placed in Control Units for administrative and/or disciplinary reasons. The classification hearings, if they occur at all, can only be called a "kangaroo court" at which the prisoner is denied due process.

Various names are assigned to Control Units: Adjustment Center, Security Housing Unit, Maximum Control Complex, Administrative Maximum (Ad-Max), Special Housing Unit, Violence Control Unit, Special Management Unit, Intensive Management Unit, etc. While every prison has Administrative Segregation cells (Ad-Seg) used for holding prisoners in short-term disciplinary or protective custody, Control Units are used for long-term punishment and campaigns against many prisoner groups and activities.