Journalists Get First Tour of Supermax

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 05:07:47 PM EST
Tags: Supermax (all tags)

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Denver journalist and CBS legal analyst Andrew Cohen was one of a small group of journalists permitted to tour the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado yesterday. It was the first time journalists have been afforded the opportunity.

He didn't get to see the prison's most infamous prisoners like Terry Nichols or Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" but he saw and heard enough to write an interesting article. Some highlights:

We saw cement desks and bed frames and stainless steel toilets and sinks. We saw cages—straight out of the circus—where inmates who are going along with the warden’s “program” are allowed to “recreate” outside for about 10 hours a week. We saw that the windows in the cells are only a few inches wide and all look inward toward the other windows of other cells. No one has a view of the beautiful Rocky Mountains which surround the facility in the southern portion of Colorado.

More...

Warden Riley says he speaks with each of the inmates personally every week.

The high-profile prisoners, he said, are actually among the best behaved in the facility. “It is super quiet” where they are confined, he said, “and they exhibit a lot of discipline and respect for authority.”

The purpose of allowing the journalists to tour the facility was public-relations. The warden wants to boost the image of Supermax and contradict the negative public myths about the place. That's a tall order considering, as Cohen writes:

It may be a high-tech, super-secure prison but it is still a prison, where men will live and die in 68-square-foot cells.

There are more observations and details of Cohen's experience at his Washington Post blog, Bench Conference, including this one:

But my lasting impressions of my morning at Supermax are of the quiet of the place and of the hundreds and hundreds of remote-controlled cameras. The level of control exercised over virtually every single function is remarkable, and for most of the inmates there, this soulless, artificial world is all they will ever again know.

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Journalists Get First Tour of Supermax | 41 comments (41 topical)

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I suspect I am probably the only poster ... (5.00 / 2) (#10)
by Meteor Blades on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 09:36:09 PM EST

...here who has actually been incarcerated in Colorado. That was in the Industrial School for Boys in Golden for 23 months, starting at age 10. My juvenile record is sealed, but there's no harm in anybody knowing half a century later that I was sentenced to an indefinite term for participating in an armed robbery of a gas station. (The six of us had a knife; the gas station owner had a shotgun.)

Our "cottages" were brick barracks, nasty places in nearly every way, except we weren't isolated and we had windows that looked out on the Rockies. (Plus we got to go outside.) It was that connection to nature, minimal though it was, that made my time bearable.

Surely they could have given these supermax prisoners a window out of which to daydream?

Turning the old Chicago (none / 0) (#12)
by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 09:54:12 PM EST

He brings a knife, you bring a gun saying on its head.


Do the dead victims dream? (none / 0) (#13)
by jimakaPPJ on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 09:55:21 PM EST

10 years old. I don't think (none / 0) (#15)
by oculus on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 10:18:11 PM EST

California even puts kids that young into indefinite custody situation. Do you attribute any of your fine ability to think and write to this experience?


At the time I was incarcerated ... (none / 0) (#20)
by Meteor Blades on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 02:24:59 AM EST

...they were even taking 8-year-olds. A Children in Need of Supervision (CHiNS) law was passed in Colorado in 1965 which improved matters considerably.

I certainly learned something in reform school; but I don't think it was how to write. One of the favorite activities forced on us was to dump a big box of assorted screws, nails, washers, springs and the like onto a bench. Our job was to sort them all by type and size.

When you were done, all your work was scooped into the box. And, a couple of days later, you did it again. Preparation for factory work, I suppose, designed when the Industrial School was founded in the 1880s.


Did Dickens visit on one of his lecture tours? (none / 0) (#25)
by oculus on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 12:30:07 PM EST

Meteor wasn't (none / 0) (#35)
by Pancho on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 10:15:28 PM EST

a little orphan; he was an armed robber.


: Little Dorrit, little Dorrit. (none / 0) (#36)
by oculus on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 11:04:43 PM EST

Heh :) (none / 0) (#16)
by chemoelectric on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 10:19:20 PM EST

It's a good thing you all weren't more precocious, because I think it would have looked a lot worse had you brought a bazooka instead of a knife. :)


Why the tour? (5.00 / 1) (#17)
by tnthorpe on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 10:37:24 PM EST

A Denver newspaper reports that

According to documents obtained by Westword, ADX officials have denied every single media request for a face-to-face interview with supermax prisoners from January 2002 through May 2007. It doesn't matter if the request comes from a major news organization or a humble local TV station; it doesn't matter if the prisoner is a high-profile resident or an obscure career criminal. Contrary to bureau policy, prison brass have turned down every journalist, citing boilerplate "security concerns" if no handier excuse is available.

further on in the same article

Journalists who simply wanted a tour of the place, free of any contact with prisoners, fared no better. Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, who's been working on a book about the American prison system for several years, sent a plaintive three-page letter to the warden in 2004, offering to let prison officials review "any physical description of the facility and its staff that I write" before publication. No dice.

"I think ADX Florence may be America's most important prison," Schlosser wrote. "Denying me access to ADX Florence will not prevent me from writing about the facility. It will only make it harder for me to give a fully accurate depiction of the facility's aims and practices."

Schlosser was seeking what all self-respecting journalists want -- the ability to see the situation for themselves.
------
Had the facility been open to reporters as it ought to have been, there would have been no need for tour to dispel "negative public myths." Or did the warden just have CIA black site envy?

Are we?..... (5.00 / 1) (#31)
by kdog on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 06:21:20 PM EST

What's wrong with giving the most heinous criminal a freakin' window?

I get so confused about what the goal is....is it to prevent a murderer from murdering again, or is it to get personal satisfaction out of punishing a murderer aka revenge? As for me, I get no joy out of say a Charles Manson being locked in a cage, but accept that the cage is the only way to keep a Charles Manson from murdering. Seperate a Charles Manson from society, but do so humanely.

In general, I get the vibe that our society is becoming obsessed with punishment.

: Must Be (5.00 / 1) (#32)
by squeaky on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 07:53:28 PM EST

From a collective and personal guilty conscience. Somehow torturing someone is as you say plaiin old revenge.
Craig is a good example of the GOP hypocrisy He punishes gays for who are out of the closet while he himself enjoys gay sex.

: Yup. (none / 0) (#37)
by Al on Fri Sep 14, 2007 at 01:41:43 AM EST

In general, I get the vibe that our society is becoming obsessed with punishment.

Indeed. Repeat after me: "I am a good person. I am a righteous person. My mama loves me."

: Trust me Narius..... (none / 0) (#39)
by kdog on Fri Sep 14, 2007 at 01:32:35 PM EST

I spent one day in a cage...it's unpleasant no matter how big the window is, and whether or not you have access to a TV. You're not free, and that is the unltimate punishment....It's hard to explain, you have to feel the bars shut on you to understand I guess.
Heck...if it keeps the prison safer for the guards and the inmates, give 'em cable TV. Even give 'em filet mignon for dinner...the loss of freedom is still about as unpleasant as it gets.

: Dissociation (none / 0) (#41)
by squeaky on Sat Sep 15, 2007 at 12:56:45 PM EST

In general, I get the vibe that our society is becoming obsessed with punishment.
At least the right wing is.
Digby nails it:

It's become clear in the last few years that right wingers are psychologically unfit to lead the nation. Vast numbers of them are "conservative" not due to philosophy but to cover up for serious personal issues with sexuality, masculinity, oedipal complexes and worse. In fact, it's so pervasive that one must now assume that conservative political leaders are driven by a complicated desire to compensate for psychological problems rather than the usual political mix of ambition, ego and drive to power. There are just too many examples of disturbed, neurotic, secretive GOP hypocrites out there. It's a feature not a bug

Meanwhile (5.00 / 1) (#40)
by jondee on Fri Sep 14, 2007 at 05:28:00 PM EST

you can wind up in federal prison for counterfeiting while some campaign contributing sleazeball makes millions importing counterfeit antiquities and toxic toys from China (God shed his slave labor on thee).

Of course, it's always better to focus on the criminals we're instructed to focus on.

Ask any correctional officer. This ain't (none / 0) (#1)
by oculus on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 05:36:27 PM EST

the Hilton.

The point is not that it shouldn't be (none / 0) (#2)
by scribe on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 05:46:00 PM EST

"The Hilton", but rather that by so degrading these men, we have degraded ourselves.

Think about it - spending every moment of your day and night in the same area about the size of two sheets of plywood.
Never seeing anything green.
Never seeing anything living other than other people who are either inmates like yourself or keeping inmates like yourself locked up.
Never seeing, let alone touching, any furniture (or anything else) made of wood.
Never seeing snow.
Never seeing anything other than prison.
No tactile sensation other than cement, unmoveable steel, and a blanket.

That's torture.

All those politicians and commenters who think this is a great idea, I'd like to send there to live for an indeterminate amount of time - don't tell them how long they'll be there, just that it will be until we decide to let them out.
I'd hazard that, inside of a month, they'd be
both ready to go insane and convinced that their great idea wasn't so great after all.

Question. (none / 0) (#3)
by jimakaPPJ on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 06:06:27 PM EST

What would be your suggestions for a facility to house those who are being held for life without parole??


: Clarifying LWOP imprisonment (none / 0) (#9)
by Peter G on Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 09:01:13 PM EST

Unfortunatley, many federal statutes now make sentences of life without parole (we criminal lawyers say "LWOP") possible. (I, for one, think a sentence of life without hope is cruel (if not unusual) and unnecessary. Many people, including people who once did something very, very bad, change to the point where they are no longer dangerous, or were never dangerous and have been punished