Behind the Bars: How Cruel and Unusual Imprisonment Persists in the U.S.

Content Warning: This article contains mentions of sexual abuse.

In 1978, the decision of Rutherford v. Pitchess meant historic strides regarding conditions for inmates residing in California prisons and jails. Focusing on the Los Angeles County jail system, this case examined the conditions and treatment of jailed individuals, finding that many aspects of the inmates’ environment violated constitutionally-given rights and amounted to greater abuses of human dignity and decency. While it has been over forty years since this ruling, various conditions within prisons and jails today display a concerning deviation from the inmates’ rights standards established in Rutherford. With cases of significant overcrowding in Montana state prisons and rampant sexual abuse in California women’s prisons, the very state in which Rutherford was decided, recent events call for a re-evaluation of inmates’ rights and the laws in place, such as the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, that ensure them.

Rutherford v. Pitchess focused on the rights of jailed individuals at the state level; it examined the notorious Los Angeles County Central Jail, known for its reputation of violence and hazardous conditions that persist to this day despite the 1978 ruling. The ACLU of Southern California originally brought this suit to the district court in 1975, referencing these very conditions to challenge the constitutionality of various aspects of the housing and treatment within the jail. The suit targeted the Los Angeles County Sheriff and other officials involved in jail administration, implicating them in allowing and perpetuating the inhumane treatment of inmates in LA county jails. Judge William Gray’s final decision qualifies that the very state of incarceration comes with a deprivation of certain rights as a means of punishment and protecting the safety of jail officers and other inmates. However, this represents an essential question of where to draw the line between a legitimate reduction of rights and a deprivation that is “inconsistent with his status as a prisoner” and the “penological objectives” of the corrections system — a reference to the 1974 Pell v. Procunier case.

Regardless, Judge Gray largely agreed with the plaintiffs’ claims of dehumanizing and unconstitutional treatment, believing that various conditions within the jail, including overcrowding and abuse, surpassed that threshold of warranted reduction of rights. Concerning overcrowding, Gray expressed that the amount of cell space given to inmates proved inadequate. Inmates within a single cell lived with as many as eight men, and up to 54 men could share a fourteen square foot space. Comparing the living conditions of this prison to an “overcrowded pig pen,” Gray mandated that LA County jail take steps to alleviate this overcrowding, expressing that it risked violation of the inmates’ rights against cruel and unusual punishment outlined in the Eighth Amendment.

Although this case established prison overcrowding as an unconstitutional deprivation of rights, state prison systems such as Montana still suffer from significant levels of overcrowding. Despite the state’s recent transfer of 120 inmates to a CoreCivic private prison facility in Arizona, overcrowding remains prevalent. The Montana State Prison is currently almost 40 prisoners over operational capacity with a population of 1,562. Moreover, hundreds of individuals held in county jails await spots in prison or in the state psychiatric hospital, both institutions that are dangerously confined and overcrowded. Considering the Rutherford decision, overcrowding this significant could amount to constitutionally intolerable prison conditions. Although Rutherford occurred at the state level and focused on the LA county penal system, dangerous conditions of overcrowding are evidently a nationwide issue, begging the question of whether the inhumane and unconstitutional effects of overcrowding require address at the federal court level.

Rutherford additionally examined occurrences of brutality, harassment, and abuse within LA county jails and how they posed a further threat of constitutional violations. Gray addressed the plaintiffs’ claims of excessive force, unprovoked assaults, and verbal abuse to carry out orders and incite fear. Inmates stated that deputy sheriffs conducted a “reign of terror” upon those within the jail. Judge Gary did find that the use of force by custodial officers did prove excessive; however, he ruled that due to the extremely difficult job of correctional officers and the threat of harm and vilification by the inmate population, this use of force did not necessarily amount to a “reign of terror.” Gary found from his visits to LA jails and administrator testimonies that correctional officers were largely respectful of their role and the humanity of inmates.

Despite Gary’s decision on the conditions of inmate abuse and harassment, Los Angeles jails still maintain a reputation of extreme violence, especially that perpetrated by facility officers against inmates. Rutherford’s examination of “badge happy” correctional officers who invoke their position of power to brutalize inmates reflects the core issue in more recent cases of widespread sexual abuse among women in California correctional facilities. 130 former inmates of the California women’s prisons in Chino and Chowchilla are suing the state department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, seeking damages for sexual assault, battery, negligence, infliction of emotional distress, and violations of civil liberties. The suit targets over 30 former correction officers for perpetrating the abuse while the women were imprisoned. The women report repeated instances of sexual abuse, emphasizing that the state disregarded their well-being and “left them to suffer at the hands of the worst kind of sexual deviants.”

The widespread and systematic nature of these cases of abuses, coupled with the fact that they went unaddressed by the California Department of Corrections for years despite it being brought to the institution’s awareness, arguably constitute the “reign of terror” that Judge Gary ruled was absent from the Rutherford case. As a result, the inhumane conditions for women in these California prisons represent potential for grave violations of their Eighth Amendment rights. These instances and the overcrowded state of Montana conditions display a deprivation of rights far beyond what Pell v. Procunier defined as “legitimate” in alignment with the penal aspect of incarceration.  This pattern of incarcerated rights violations is moving towards the forefront of legal discussions, and incarcerated individuals must wait to see if and to what capacity new federal law will address these questions of constitutionality.

Sinclair Harris is a first-year at Brown University concentrating in History and International & Public Affairs. She is a staff writer for the BULR blog and can be contacted at sinclair_harris@brown.edu.

Kourtney Beauvais is a sophomore at Brown University, concentrating in Applied Math and International and Public Affairs. She is an editor for the BULR and can be contacted at kourtney_beauvais@brown.edu.