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65 Prison J. i (1985)

handle is hein.journals/prsjrnl65 and id is 1 raw text is: Hands Off, Hands On, Hands Off An Editorial During my 40 years as a practitioner in and observer of the correctional scene, I have been part of the hands-off era- that period when judges felt that it was none of their business what happened to prisoners after sentence. Later, during the era of activist courts, I consulted with correctional officials, plaintiffs, and attorneys, relative to prison practices and conditions which my peripatetic career enabled me to observe in over 500 prisons and jails. More important, I testified in scores of courtrooms as to the destructiveness and needlessness of many of those conditions and practices. And now I sit in retirement witnessing the return to hands off. My memory takes me back in time to the good old days of court inaction. My own institution, Bordentown, in New Jersey, was viewed during the 1950's and 1960's as one of the most progressive and humane in the land. Yet in those hands-off days, we at Bordentown routinely and without any semblance of due process shanghaied (sometimes at midnight) troublesome prisoners off to the state hospital or to the old and brutal maximum security prison at Trenton. We denied newspapers, books, and magazines except those which we, in our wisdom, provided. We denied visiting to all except most immediate members of the family. It was not beyond us to deny visits to wives, parents, or siblings, if our judgment so dictated. We censored all incoming and outgoing mail and withheld mail that we viewed as critical, upsetting, or licentious. We confiscated poetry and other attempts at literary endeavor if such endeavor displeased us. We prohibited the possession or wearing of watches and even wedding bands. Anal searches were routine and frequently accompanied by insulting and degrading comments. Lock-up was available at split second notice and without pretense of due process or limitation as to length of time one could be segregated. Such was the nature of due process when the judi- ciary practiced hands off. I have been describing an excep- tionally good institution staffed by competent, well-educated pro- fessionals. In less progressive places, the conditions were frequently unspeakable. In 1971, for example, I visited a brand new prison in Alabama. In it was a segregation unit euphemistically called the dog house. It was located some distance from the rest of the institution, yet no officer was assigned to it except for periodic and very casual inspections. In the dog house, tiny, airless, lightless, bedless, and smelly cells held three, four, or five naked men for days on end. Many of them had done nothing more heinous than refusing I

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