NEW YORK TIMES
December 21, 2009
Editorial
Combating Prisoner Abuse
When Mississippi inmates sued their prison, charging that they had been sodomized by a staff member, the claim was thrown out. Under a harsh federal law, inmates must show that they suffered a “physical injury” to prevail in a suit challenging cruel prison conditions. A federal district court ruled in 2006 that the alleged sexual assault did not constitute physical injury.
Congress included the physical injury requirement in the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which it passed in 1996 to deter inmates from bringing frivolous lawsuits. What the law has done instead is insulate prisons from a large number of very worthy lawsuits, and allow abusive and cruel mistreatment of inmates to go unpunished.
Legislation introduced by Representative Robert Scott, Democrat of Virginia, would undo the worst parts of that law. Most important, his legislation, the Prison Abuse Remedies Act, would remove the physical injury requirement. Prisons across the country have used this requirement to dismiss suits challenging all kinds of outrageous treatment: strip-searching of female prisoners by male guards; revealing to other inmates that a prisoner was H.I.V.-positive; forcing an inmate to stand naked for 10 hours.
Mr. Scott’s bill would allow prisoners to prevail under the same conditions as plaintiffs in other kinds of civil rights cases. It would also make important changes in the 1996 law’s “exhaustion” requirement, which forces inmates to bring their complaints to the prison’s own grievance system before they can sue. A carefully drawn exhaustion requirement could help resolve problems locally, and avoid unnecessary litigation. But the one in the current law lets prisons put up procedural hurdles that make it difficult or impossible for prisoners to navigate the bureaucracy and get their complaints heard in court.
Juvenile inmates are not a significant source of frivolous lawsuits, but they are at increased risk of abuse in prison, especially sexual abuse. The current House bill would remove all of the 1996 law’s restrictions for suits brought by inmates under the age of 18.
There are many problems with American prisons, including crowding, inadequate medical treatment and little opportunity for rehabilitation. Mr. Scott’s bill addresses one that is less well-known, but no less real. The House should pass it, and the Senate should get to work on its own version.