The Pros And Cons Of Super-Maximum Security Prisons

Twenty years ago, super-maximum-security prisons were rare in America.

As of 1996, over two-thirds of states had "supermax" facilities that collectively

housed more than 20,000 inmates. Based on the present study, however,

as of 2004, 44 states had supermax prisons. Designed to hold the

most violent and disruptive inmates in single-cell confinement for 23 hours

per day, often for an indefinite period of time, these facilities have been lightning

rods for controversy. Economic considerations are one reason, supermaxes

typically cost two or three times more to build and operate than traditional

maximum security prisons. A perhaps bigger reason lies in the criticism by

some that supermax confinement is unconstitutional and
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other gang members messages were easy to get out on to the street

because Inmates on the SHU are able to break their isolation and scheme with

one another through a myriad of clever methods, including talking through

storm drains and ventilation pipes, as well as through something called "fishing,"

in which inmates fashion a fishing line from the threads of their underwear,

bed sheets and socks and tie tiny notes onto the end. The inmates