By Dianne Frazee-Walker Before the 1800s, prisons in the U.S. were unheard of, and punishment for crime was in the hands of the community. Public hangings were the common rebuke for heinous crimes. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was the basic theory of justice. When prisons replaced public punishment,
By Dianne Frazee-Walker It’s a typical dreary January winter morning at a Colorado state penitentiary. Sounds of shackled feet are heard shuffling down a long dark hallway that leads to solitary confinement, also known as Ad Seg. The only background noise is the chilling sound of howling disgruntled inmates. His arms handcuffed and his legs
In a surprise move, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to settle in the solitary confinement practices case of Peoples v. Fischer. The December 2012 case, brought by New York state inmate Leroy Peoples and litigated by the New York Civil Liberties Union, asserted that New York state prisons’ solitary confinement practices and policies were
After a major set-back the Colorado prison system is back on track. Image courtesy www.upress.umn.edu
Before the death of Colorado Corrections director, Tom Clements, the Colorado DOC was working on reentry programs for mentally ill inmates released from solitary confinement.
Ironically, in March 2012, Evan Ebel, an inmate released directly from solitary confinement to the streets shot Mr. Clements in cold blood when he answered the door at his Colorado Springs home. Ebel was later tracked down by authorities in Texas and was fatally wounded in a police shoot out.
Sadly, Mr. Ebel targeted the wrong person upon whom to take out his anger against the correctional system because Clements was a strong advocate for changing solitary confinement policies.
Mr. Clements was a compassionate man who recognized the need for addressing the mental health issues of inmates who spent time in solitary confinement prior to release back into society. He was also dissatisfied with the number of inmates that were held in administrative segregation (aka ad seg) in Colorado Correctional facilities.
Just months shy of the one year anniversary of Clements’ death and the interruption of the progress the Colorado Correctional Department was making to solitary confinement policies, Kellie Wasko, the department’s executive director announced that “it was time to pick it back up and move on.”
On February 11, 2014, the Public Safety Committees of the California legislature held their second hearing on the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) solitary confinement policies and practices. This hearing was partly prompted due to the massive and historic work and hunger strikes of over 30,000 California state prisoners late last year. The
Tom Clements, Chief Executive Director of Colorado Corrections was known by his friends, family, and affiliates as a compassionate man, dedicated to changing how Colorado Corrections deals with violent inmates locked away into solitary confinement for of lengthy periods of time. Photo courtesy thedenverchannel.com
Clements had strong aspiration to do what it takes to build safe communities in Colorado. He was a visionary who foresaw how creating programs for inmates who are released from solitary confinement to society is connected to lowering recidivism rates, resulting in crime free neighborhoods.
Clements was a former director of operations for Missouri’s twenty-one adult correctional institutions and overall management of 30,500 incarcerated offenders since 2007. He served in statewide leadership roles within the adult probation and parole system and in Missouri’s adult correctional institutions system until he was hired by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper in 2010 as Chief Executive Director of Colorado Corrections.
When Governor Hickenlooper made the decision to hire Clements he announced, “Tom Clements has built a distinguished career working his up through the ranks in the Missouri corrections system.”
Dianne Frazee-Walker California’s prison system is one of the largest in the country. At the beginning of 2013, the state housed 199,000 inmates. The California prison population is facing a major crisis. The prison population is 50% over what the prison system is safely equipped to hold. Some California prisons are at 180% over capacity.
We have profiled every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
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