Ruiz Vs Estelle Case Study
Alejandra Flores
Mr. Perez
GOVT 2306
May 6, 2014
Ruiz v. Estelle
Ruiz v. Estelle, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history. It began as a civil action, a handwritten petition filed against the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) in 1972 by inmate David Resendez Ruiz alleging that the conditions of his incarceration, such as overcrowding, lack of access to health care, and abusive security practices, were a violation of his constitutional rights. In 1974, the petition was joined by seven other inmates and became a class action suit known as Ruiz v. Estelle. The trial ended in 1979 with the ruling …show more content…
In response to this, the TDC issued more than 450,000 pages of evidence and accepted 50 additional site visits. In 2001, the court found that the TDC was in compliance on the issue of use of force against inmates and had adequate policies and procedures in place. However, the court continued to have issues with the current and ongoing constitutional violations regarding administrative segregation in the conditions of confinement and the practice of using administrative segregation to house mentally ill inmates that it …show more content…
So, by the end of the 1980s the state embarked on a massive prison construction program. At the time of the Ruiz trial the state operated just eighteen prison facilities for approximately 25,000 inmates. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the state built an additional eighty-nine units of varying sizes and types to accommodate more than 140,000 prisoners. New units have continued to come on line over the past decade to accommodate a state prison population whose numbers have leveled off at approximately
Mr. Perez
GOVT 2306
May 6, 2014
Ruiz v. Estelle
Ruiz v. Estelle, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history. It began as a civil action, a handwritten petition filed against the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) in 1972 by inmate David Resendez Ruiz alleging that the conditions of his incarceration, such as overcrowding, lack of access to health care, and abusive security practices, were a violation of his constitutional rights. In 1974, the petition was joined by seven other inmates and became a class action suit known as Ruiz v. Estelle. The trial ended in 1979 with the ruling …show more content…
In response to this, the TDC issued more than 450,000 pages of evidence and accepted 50 additional site visits. In 2001, the court found that the TDC was in compliance on the issue of use of force against inmates and had adequate policies and procedures in place. However, the court continued to have issues with the current and ongoing constitutional violations regarding administrative segregation in the conditions of confinement and the practice of using administrative segregation to house mentally ill inmates that it …show more content…
So, by the end of the 1980s the state embarked on a massive prison construction program. At the time of the Ruiz trial the state operated just eighteen prison facilities for approximately 25,000 inmates. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the state built an additional eighty-nine units of varying sizes and types to accommodate more than 140,000 prisoners. New units have continued to come on line over the past decade to accommodate a state prison population whose numbers have leveled off at approximately