Annotated Bibliography: Supermax, Hell Behind Bars

Annotated Bibliography: SUPERMAX, Hell Behind Bars

Daly, William. “Segregation and Solitary: Necessary Evils?” American Jails “A Solitary Scandal.” American Jails. 26 Jun. 2013. Master File Premier. Web. Oct. 2015.

In his article, Daly explains that the main purpose of maximum security facilities is to confine and segregate the most violent and disruptive inmates in order to maintain those facilities safe and secure. Maximum security prisons also have other restrictions that have been a subject of discussion, not only by correctional administrators but also by behavioral health professionals, scholars and researchers. Daly points out that there’s a problem of perception about what really happens in jail, because most of the information

This article also expounds the frameworks that the Supreme Court has used for the past fifteen years to rule in cases where prisoners have challenged the Court. The Supreme Court relies on psychological and neuroscientific evidence to rule in lawsuits that have been filed evoking the violation of the Eight Amendment that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. In order to apply the law, the Court decides whether confinement is cruel and usual. In addition, a prisoner must also prove that correctional officers had subjective awareness of the inmate’s cruel punishment. The Eight Amendment doctrine is constantly developed, as of today, the Court has split it into two branches: The first branch, if the punishment is “grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime. The second branch of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence policies conditions within prisons” (Harvard Law

Tietz points out that the assignment of inmates to supermax prisons are “made extrajudicially, by prison officials, without appeal to any authority beyond the correctional system”. In addition, the author discusses Brian Nelson’s case, in which he was sentenced for sixteen to twenty-six years in prison for taking part in an armed robbery and murder. Nelson was transfer to a supermax prison without clear evidence or reason for his transfer. The reason for Nelson’s transfer to Tamms Correctional Center in Illinois remains unclear because Nelson had no history of any psychiatric problems and he had never posed any threats to himself or other prisoners. After a year at Tamms, Nelson stopped sleeping completely and started to demonstrate serious psychological problems (pacing 18 hours a day). The main point of Tietz is to illustrate the psychological damage of solitary confinement and the unfairness of assigning an inmate to a supermax facility because, as he points out, “judges almost never place a convict in an isolation cell” (Tietz). Some prisoners have been placed in permanent solitary confinement without any uniform