Summary
This Comment has suggested that prison overcrowding has multiple effects on prisoner adjustment. These effects grow from a taxing of both existing facilities and programmatic/procedural capabilities. While most of the cited inadequacies predate and, indeed, may occur in the absence of severe overcrowding, they are now magnified to grotesque proportions. Thus, current widespread prison overcrowding should serve to hasten our reexamination of basic correctional processes.
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Based in part on testimony given by the author at a hearing regarding overerowded conditions at the New Mexico State Penitentiary. Prisoners had filed a class action suit, Duran v. Apodaco, in United States District Court alleging conditions which violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Following the preliminary hearing held in October, 1978, the court declined to grant an injunction to reduce conditions of severe overcrowding. In February, 1980, a riot of unprecedented proportions in modern prison history took place at the New Mexico Penitentiary. This comment was written eight months prior to that event. The author is indebted to Professors Larry Yackle and Ronald Rogers, who commented on earlier versions of this paper.
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Clements, C.B. Crowded prisons. Law Hum Behav 3, 217–225 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01039792
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01039792