Law Commons^™

Ensuring That Punishment Does, In Fact, Fit The Crime, Meredith D. Mcphail

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The United States imprisons a greater proportion of its own population than any other country in the world. A legal framework provides protections for those individuals who are incarcerated, but that framework is flawed. The jurisprudence distinguishes pretrial detainees (who have not been convicted) from convicted persons (who are serving a sentence). Based on that distinction, different standards apply to conditions of confinement and use of force cases brought by pretrial detainees and those brought by convicted persons. That distinction–and the resulting disparate application of legal standards–does not comport with the reality of incarceration, the concept of punishment, or the …

One Significant Step: How Reforms To Prison Districts Begin To Address Political Inequality, Erika L. Wood

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Skyrocketing rates of incarceration over the last three decades have had profound and lasting effects on the political power and engagement of local communities throughout the United States. Aggressive enforcement practices and mandatory sentencing laws have an impact beyond the individuals who are arrested, convicted, and incarcerated. These policies have wide-ranging and enduring ripple effects throughout the communities that are most heavily impacted by criminal laws, predominantly urban and minority neighborhoods. Criminal justice policies broadly impact everything from voter turnout and engagement, to serving on juries, participating in popular protests, census data, and the way officials draw legislative districts. The …

Rethinking Immigration’S Mandatory Detention Regime: Politics, Profit, And The Meaning Of “Custody”, Philip L. Torrey

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Immigration detention in the United States is a crisis that needs immediate attention. U.S. immigration detention facilities hold a staggering number of persons. Widely believed to have the largest immigration detention population in the world, the United States detained approximately 478,000 foreign nationals in Fiscal Year 2012. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for immigration enforcement, boasts that the figure is “an all-time high.” In some ways, these numbers are unsurprising, considering that the United States incarcerates approximately one in every one hundred adults within its borders—a rate five to ten times higher than any other Westernized …

Solitary Confinement, Public Safety, And Recdivism, Shira E. Gordon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As of 2005, about 80,000 prisoners were housed in solitary confinement in jails and in state and federal prisons in the United States. Prisoners in solitary confinement are generally housed in a cell for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day with little human contact or interaction. The number of prisoners held in solitary confinement increased 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, in comparison to the growth in the total prison population of 28 percent. Concurrently, the duration of time that prisoners spend in solitary confinement also increased: nationally, most prisoners in solitary confinement spend more than five years there. The …

Federal Incarceration By Contract In A Post-Minneci World: Legislation To Equalize The Constitutional Rights Of Prisoners, Allison L. Waks

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the 2012 case Minneci v. Pollard, the United States Supreme Court held that federal prisoners assigned to privately-run prisons may not bring actions for violations of their Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and may instead bring actions sounding only in state tort law. A consequence of this decision is that the arbitrary assignment of some federal prisoners to privately-run prisons deprives them of an equal opportunity to vindicate this federal constitutional right and pursue a federal remedy. Yet all federal prisoners should be entitled to the same protection under the United States Constitution-regardless of the type …

"One Of The Dirty Secrets Of American Corrections": Retaliation, Surplus Power, And Whistleblowing Inmates, James E. Robertson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Retaliation is deeply engrained in the correctional office subculture; it may well be in the normative response when an inmate files a grievance, a statutory precondition for filing a civil rights action. This Article, the first to address comprehensively the sociological and constitutional aspects of retaliation, argues for protecting grievants through safeguards much like those accorded whistleblowers. Part I of the Article provides a socio-legal primer on correctional officer retaliation by addressing the frequency of retaliation, its causes, and its constitutional taxonomy. Part II describes the elements of a prima facie case of unconstitutional retaliation under § 1983. Part III …

Lessons From Hurricane Katrina: Prison Emergency Preparedness As A Constitutional Imperative, Ira P. Robbins

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters ever to strike the United States, in terms of casualties, suffering, and financial cost. Often overlooked among Katrina s victims are the 8,000 inmates who were incarcerated at Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) when Katrina struck. Despite a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, these men and women, some of whom had been held on charges as insignificant as public intoxication, remained in the jail as the hurricane hit, and endured days of rising, toxic waters, a lack of food and drinking water, and a complete breakdown of order within OPP Wien the …

State Sentencing Policy And New Prison Admissions, Ben Trachtenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As the academy's focus has turned to sentencing in the wake of Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker, most commentators have continued their benign neglect of actual sentencing practices as they occur in state courts, not to mention whether and how such policies are effective in achieving the goals of criminal justice.

This Note examines trends in state sentencing policies and prison populations from the perspective of a would-be state reformer hoping to decrease her state's prison budget. Economic pressures, efficiency arguments, and social justice claims have combined to cause some states to desire lower prison populations, …

"Go And Sin No More": The Constitutionality Of Governmentally Funded Faith-Based Prison Units, Lynn S. Branham

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article discusses faith-based prison programs that immerse prisoners living in residential units within a prison in a religious atmosphere. Part One analyzes the constitutionality of these programs under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It notes that state action in the prison context receives more deference from courts than outside the prison context, and that prisoners' constitutional rights are more constricted than free persons" Part I proceeds to analyze the constitutionality of faith immersion programs in prisons, in light of the Supreme Court's precedents dealing with prisoners' rights and the Establishment Clause. States can defend immersion programs on …

Waiving Goodbye: Incarcerating Waived Juveniles In Adult Correctional Facilities Will Not Reduce Crime, Ellie D. Shefi

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Incarcerating waived juveniles in adult correctional facilities does not reduce crime or result in increased public safety; incarcerating juveniles with adults is deleterious to both the individual offender and society. This Note argues for a renewed focus on rehabilitative rather than retributive justice, and in so doing, proposes the implementation of a comprehensive continuum of graduated sanctions that includes networks of small, secure, highly structured maximum-security juvenile facilities, wilderness camps, residential and non-residential community-based programs, restitution, and fines. This Note further advocates for the incorporation of extensive education, vocational training and placement, counseling, treatment, supervision, mentoring, transitional, aftercare, and support …

Furthering The Accountability Principle In Privatized Federal Corrections: The Need For Access To Private Prison Records, Nicole B. Cásarez

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As American prisons face unprecedented overcrowding, both the federal and various state governments have engaged private entrepreneurs to operate correctional facilities on a for-profit basis. In the federal context, one overlooked consequence of prison privatization involves decreased public access to prison records. When a federal agency delegates a public function, like the provision of correctional services, to a private contractor, the agency frustrates the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act. Prison records that otherwise would have been available to the public become insulated from disclosure by virtue of the contractor's nonagency status. To safeguard prisoners' liberty interests and well-being, …

Lawyers At The Prison Gates: Organizational Structure And Corrections Advocacy, Susan P. Sturm

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article attempts to fill the gaps in the discussion of public interest advocacy by exploring the roles of various legal organizations in providing representation to inmates challenging the conditions and practices in prisons, jails, and juvenile justice institutions. It is an outgrowth of a study conducted for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation on the extent and quality of representation in corrections litigation. It puts forward an organizational change model of public interest advocacy as the most promising strategy for legal representation in the corrections area. It then identifies the major organizational providers of representation, assesses where they fall on …

Developing A Victims' Suit For Injuries Caused By A Compulsorily Released Prisoner, Leonard M. Niehoff

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note advocates the development of a tort remedy for victims injured by a compulsorily released prisoner. This remedy would be based on existing tort theory permitting suits against third parties whose negligence causes or facilitates a criminal act. The victim would bring suit against both the state and third parties who aided in the criminal release determination . To support his claim, the victim would allege: (1) that state officials negligently selected the offending inmate for early release; and (2) that the state negligently maintained the unconstitutional prison conditions which precipitated the release.

Part I of this Note discusses …

Relief For Prison Overcrowding: Evaluating Michigan's Accelerated Parole Statute, Frank T. Judge Iii

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note describes and analyzes Michigan's Prison Overcrowding Emergency Powers Act. Part I reviews briefly current efforts to relieve prison overcrowding and concludes that traditional remedies are largely inadequate. Part II examines the early prisoner release statute and its implementation. Finally, Part III evaluates the statute's success in relieving prison overcrowding .

Salvaging Proportionate Prison Sentencing: A Reply To Rummel V. Estelle, Thomas F. Cavalier

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note provides a capsule of the Court's holding in Rummel. Part II argues, contrary to Rummel, that precedential support can be mustered to support eighth amendment review of sentence length. Finally, part 11,1 discusses the continued viability of the proportionality test as a vehicle for assessing challenges to the length of imprisonment, and discounts the concerns voiced in Rummel regarding the difficulty of judicial review of legislative sentencing decisions.

Legal Rights In A Juvenile Correctional Institution, Matthew L. Myers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article focuses on the effect on juvenile correctional institutions of the erosion of the "hands-off" doctrine and the introduction of procedural safeguards in the juvenile justice system. In so doing, the article examines the difficulties inherent in any attempt to reform institutional practices and procedures to accommodate the goals of the juvenile correctional model. In the juvenile context, the extent to which fundamental rights need or may be abrogated to allow the institution freedom to rehabilitate and treat its inmates is crucial. Therefore, this article examines three areas involving fundamental constitutional rights: imposition of punitive segregation, freedom of communication, …

Unconstitutional Uncertainty: A Study Of The Use Of Detainers, Donald E. Shelton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The question is why a prosecutor would go through the motions of asking a warden to notify him of the availability of a prisoner that he never intends to take into custody. The first answer is that it is common practice for many prosecutors to automatically file a detainer upon learning that an accused is imprisoned elsewhere. This decision is made without any regard to their eventual decision to prosecute. But the more basic answer, and the reason why this practice of automatic filing of detainers has developed, lies in the effects a detainer has upon the prisoner.