Political and Legal Opposition
A report by the United Methodist Church concluded that the extreme isolation of the unit was cruel and unusual punishment. A 38 page report by Amnesty International said that the HSU was violating the international standards of treatment of prisoners.
A lawsuit was filed in behalf of prisoners Silvia Baraldini and Susan Rosenberg. It challenged regulations that allowed the isolation of prisoners based on their political beliefs or affiliations. Judge Parker said in his ruling that: '"The treatment of the plaintiffs has skirted elemental standards of human decency. The exaggerated security, small group isolation and staff harassment serve to constantly undermine the inmates' morale." He ordered the Bureau of Prisons to rewrite its regulations and transfer the prisoners into the general prison population .
In response to mounting opposition the Bureau of Prisons closed the facility in 1988.
Read more about this topic: High Security Unit
Famous quotes containing the words political, legal and/or opposition:
“The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and ... powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)