Human Rights Violations throughout the PA DOC
During the last two years HRC/Fed
Up! has reviewed thousands upon
thousands of pages of prisoner
letters/reports, civil actions,
institutional paperwork, affidavits,
criminal complaints, and additional
documentation detailing patterns of
widespread, systemic, deliberate
human rights violations throughout
the PA DOC. The thrust of this
documentation has been
corroborated via countless hours of
conversation and interviews with
current and former prisoners and
their families conducted by HRC
members, allies, supporters, and
others working directly and
indirectly with HRC, in both their
personal and professional capacity.
In this context, the reports from SCI
Dallas summarized in section II
represent a minor, albeit illustrative,
fraction of the human rights
violations perpetrated by the PA
DOC on a daily basis.
The patterns of violations gravitate
around the solitary confinement
units, which are the core of control
throughout the state just as in SCI
Dallas. According to PA DOC official
statistics for the month of October
2009, there were 2,846 prisoners in
some form of solitary confinement.1
1

These numbers do not identify prisoners in the
Special Management Unit (SMU) or Death Row
prisoners, and appear to be incomplete in
identifying those confined in a series of Secure
Special Needs Units (SSNU) around the state
such as those at SCI Pittsburgh, SCI Retreat, and
others. Whether these prisoners are included in

Unlike many other states, where
high-security prisoners are confined
in one or two supermaximumsecurity prisons, the PA DOC has a
decentralized system of highsecurity solitary confinement/control
units (known as Restricted Housing
Units, or RHUs) in each of the 26
prisons it operates.2 Fifteen of these
control units confine over 100
prisoners, with SCIs Graterford
(250), Greene (241), Camp Hill
(218), Fayette (197), Huntingdon
(141), Forest (134), and Dallas (119)
possessing the largest. The two
women’s prisons, SCIs Cambridge
Springs (13) and Muncy (117)
accounted for 130 of the solitary
confinement population at the end
of October.3
While many of those in the RHU
serve a 30-60 day sentence in
solitary for an alleged disciplinary
infraction, a number of others have
been subjected to long-term
isolation with no means for
improving their confinement status.
Several of these prisoners have been
confined for 5 years and longer,
even more than 25 years in a few
instances. As at SCI Dallas, those
most heavily targeted for indefinite
lockdown are jailhouse lawyers,
the total for RHU classifications or elsewhere, or
not included, is not clear.
2
The PA DOC actually operates 27 facilities
when the Quehanna Boot Camp is included.
The boot camp does not have a RHU.
3
Figures taken from the PA DOC Monthly
Population Report for October 2009,
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/portal/lib/portal/mont
hly_population.pdf.

political activists, the mentally ill,
and blacks and Latinos.
The effect of the regime of solitary
confinement on the rest of the
prisoner population is predictable
and undoubtedly intentional: to
terrorize prisoners into total
submission to the arbitrary power of
prison staff and officials regardless

of whether that power is being
exercised in accordance with policy
and law.
The subsequent capsule
descriptions of major human rights
violations in the PA DOC situates the
conditions at SCI Dallas in a broader
context and hence renders them
more comprehensible.

Summary Report on Human Rights Violations in the PA DOC
Assault/physical abuse
PA DOC policy stipulates that “When
force is used, the least amount of
force, reasonably necessary to
achieve the authorized purpose is to
be used and the use of force will
stop once control is achieved.”
There is also a prohibition on the
use of force “as a means of
punishment or revenge.”4 These
policy mandates are routinely
subordinated when prison personnel
find it in their interest to terrorize
specific individuals and the rest of
the prisoner population by making
an example of someone.
Assaults, physical abuse, and threats
of violence from guards occur with
systematic frequency, establishing a
baseline of terror throughout the
prisoner population. Those who file
grievances or pursue other avenues
for redress such as civil litigation or
reporting to outside authorities are
regularly targeted for verbal and
4

PA DOC Policy DC-ADM 201-1, Use of
Force, section V(B)(D),
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/standards/lib/standard
s/DC-ADM_201_Use_of_Force.pdf.

physical harassment. General
population prisoners who are
subject to provocation and assault
by staff are virtually always issued
fabricated misconduct charges for
assaulting staff and sentenced to a
term in solitary confinement. Once
in solitary these prisoners are often
deprived food, personal property,
writing materials and grievance
forms, access to medical treatment,
and otherwise subjected to
deprivations and punitive measures
designed to reinforce the total
helplessness of prisoners and their
absolute dependency on staff for
their very survival. Prisoners held in
solitary confinement who insist on
exercising their rights to file
grievances and lawsuits, or who
otherwise develop an antagonistic
relationship with staff are even more
vulnerable to physical abuse since
they are not permitted to leave their
cells without being handcuffed and
often shackled. Reports of guards
throwing handcuffed prisoners
against walls, yanking their
handcuffed arms through the tray
slot in the door, and punching and
kicking defenseless victims are not
uncommon. The threat and reality

of arbitrary and excessive bodily
violence is both the psychological
and physical lynchpin of control.
Such acts violate, inter alia5, article
V of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) prohibiting
torture and other ill-treatment, and
the UN Convention against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or
Punishment.6
Mental Health and the
Psychological Impact of Solitary
Confinement
A vastly higher prevalence of
psychological instability and
disorder exists amongst the
prisoner population than within the
population at large.7 The rate of
mental illness becomes higher yet
amongst those confined in control
units. Responses to questionnaires
sent to large numbers of prisoners
led the U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics to claim in a September
2006 report that as many as 56% of
state prisoners likely suffer from a
mental health problem,8 based on
the presence of a recent history or

5

a legal term meaning “amongst other things.”
Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, eds., Basic
Documents on Human Rights, Fifth Edition, p.
25 and 405-416 respectively.
7
Terry Kupers, Prison Madness: The Mental
Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must
Do About It. Dr. Kupers writes that “The
prevalence of mental disorders among prisoners
is quite high, at least five times the prevalence
rates in the general population,” p. 11.
8
“Mental Health Problems of Prison and Jail
Inmates,” Doris J. James and Lauren E. Glaze,
Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report,
September 2006.
6

symptoms of mental health
problems.
The Vienna, Virginia-based
corporation MHM Correctional
Services, Inc. (MHM) signed a new
contract with the PA DOC towards
the end of 2008 for the provision of
mental health care services between
January 1, 2009 and August 31,
2013. The contract is worth
$91,000,000.9
While MHM claims that it is
“successful” in meeting the “unique
challenge” posed by prisoners with
mental illness10, reports of severe
psychological deterioration and
inadequate, often non-existent, and
sometimes abusive treatment are
commonplace. Those held in solitary
confinement are treated to cursory
visits from psych staff and forced to
speak with them at their cell door,
which has an inhibiting effect on
one’s willingness to discuss his
symptoms for fear of being
overheard by guards and other
prisoners. Prisoners prescribed
medication to counter suicidal
depression have had these
prescriptions discontinued with
devastating consequences, none
more so than the case of Matthew
Bullock. In other instances
excessive medication is substituted
for mental health care.
9

Service Purchase Contract between
Pennsylvania, Department of Corrections and
MHM Correctional Services, Inc.,
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/boa/lib/boa/MHM_C
orrectional_Services_Inc._SP_1181000376.pdf.
10
http://www.mhmservices.com/services/correctional-mentalhealth.html

The regime of solitary confinement
both exacerbates and generates
psychological instability,
abnormality, and disorder, therefore
perpetuating an escalating cycle of
mental illness and suffering inside
and outside the prisons. The
scientific consensus deduced from
copious research on the
psychological impact of solitary
confinement is that the experience
generates considerable and
sometimes permanent mental
suffering. One of the foremost
experts on the subject, Dr. Stuart
Grassian, reveals that “even a few
days of solitary confinement will
predictably shift the
electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern
toward an abnormal pattern
characteristic of stupor and
delirium,” and outlines the following
seven symptoms as being
characteristic of an “organic brain
delirium” associated with solitary
confinement:
a) hyperresponsivity to external
stimuli;
b) perceptual distortions, illusions,
hallucinations;
c) panic attacks;
d) difficulties with thinking,
concentration, and memory;
e) intrusive obsessional thoughts:
emergence of primitive aggressive
ruminations;
f) overt paranoia;
g) problems with impulse control.11
Questionnaires submitted by
HRC/Fed Up! to over 75 prisoners in

SCI Dallas and throughout the state
confirm the presence of these same
symptomatic patterns amongst a
disturbingly large number of the
solitary confinement population.
Incidents of self-harm, including
suicide attempts, occur regularly
and are certainly under-reported.
Prisoners have reported setting their
cells on fire, self-mutilation, and
attempts to hang themselves. The
common response from prison staff
in these circumstances is to send
guards in riot gear into the cell to
“extract” the prisoner, often
attacking him with pepper spray
first, and then forcibly transporting
the cuffed and shackled inmate to a
psychiatric observation cell where he
is subjected to even more intensive
isolation. Several prisoners have
reported being kept in such cells
without bedding, a mattress,
running water, or clothes for days at
a time. This brutality exacerbates
and multiplies the incidence of
mental health problems inside
prisons where “a large subgroup
develop[] the disturbances that
make their lives more miserable only
after being incarcerated.”12
Other rights to adequate mental
health care are violated by structural
and procedural deficiencies,
including lack of funding, staffing,
privacy, inpatient treatment
programs, and negligent and
abusive practices.
HRC/Fed Up! finds the predictable
psychological consequences of these
12

11

Stuart Grassian, “Psychiatric Effects of
Solitary Confinement,”

Terry Kupers, Prison Madness: The Mental
Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must
Do About It, p. 38.

conditions is of such an egregious
and apparent nature that it cannot
be credibly understood as anything
other than the deliberate intention
of the PA DOC to inflict severe
mental pain on prisoners targeted
for prolonged solitary confinement.
While the utilization of solitary
confinement as a retaliatory
measure represents an obvious
human rights violation, the
application of these techniques of
control is invalid—and illegal—if
there is no identifiable rehabilitative
or penological consequence as well.
Simply put, there is no legitimate
rehabilitative pretext that can justify
subjecting those found guilty of
violating prison rules and
regulations to conditions of isolation
so extreme as to constitute torture.
The proliferation of solitary
confinement units represents the
ascendance of a purely punitive
approach to incarceration. While the
dominant discourse on questions of
crime and incarceration validate the
debate between a punitive or
rehabilitative approach to
incarceration, black-letter
international law is unambiguous on
this matter. The role of solitary
confinement in perpetuating an
ever-escalating cycle of incarceration
in PA and throughout the U.S.
subverts article 10(3) of the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, which mandates that
“The penitentiary system shall
comprise treatment of prisoners the
essential aim of which shall be their
reformation and social

rehabilitation.”13 “Tough on crime”
punitive approaches that fail to
address root social causes of crime
and neglect to provide adequate
educational, vocational, therapeutic,
and counseling services to people
sentenced to prison are not only
responsible for propagating the
cycle of violence and social
deterioration—and therefore
decidedly not “tough” on crime—but
are also in violation of international
law.
These conditions also violate, inter
alia, article V of the UDHR and the
Convention against Torture14. By
exacerbating and generating a
greater incidence of mental illness
and denying adequate treatment the
PA DOC is also violating the United
Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules
for the Treatment of Prisoners rule
22(1), which states that: “The
medical services should be
organized in close relationship to
the general health administration of
the community or nation. They shall
include a psychiatric service for the
diagnosis and, in proper cases, the
treatment of states of mental
abnormality”.
Malign Neglect: Profit over
Prisoners
In 1988 the United Nations General
Assembly passed Resolution
43/173, the Body of Principles for
the Protection of All Persons Under

13

Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, eds., Basic
Documents on Human Rights, Fifth Edition, p.
362
14
Brownlie, p. 25 and 405-416 respectively.

Any Form of Detention or
Imprisonment. Principle 24 states:

Commission on Correctional
Health Care, found that 20 to 26
percent of the U.S. population
living with HIV/AIDS, 29 to 32
percent of persons with Hepatitis
C, and 38 percent of those with
TB were released from a
correctional facility. Transmitted
through unprotected sex,
tattooing, sharing syringes, and
close living quarters, and
fostered by inadequate prison
health care, these diseases are
ravaging the prison population.
Public health experts are
beginning to ponder the
consequences of this health
crisis, as the large majority of
these prisoners will one day be
released back to society.17
[emphasis in original]

A proper medical examination
shall be offered to a detained or
imprisoned person as promptly
as possible after his admission to
the place of detention or
imprisonment, and thereafter
medical care and treatment shall
be provided whenever necessary.
This care and treatment shall be
provided free of charge.15

This provision affirming a right to
medical care corresponds with the
1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in
Estelle v. Gamble, which found that
deliberate indifferences to serious
medical needs of prisoners
constitutes a violation of 8th
amendment rights to be free from
cruel and unusual punishment.16
Summarizing data on infectious
diseases in prison populations, a
2007 report found that rates of
HIV/AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs),
tuberculosis (TB), and Hepatitis A, B,
and C amongst the incarcerated far
exceed occurrences amongst the
general public. The rate of HIV/AIDS
in prisons has been estimated at five
to seven times greater than in the
general population. The proportion
of prisoners with hepatitis falls
within the approximate range of 15
and 30 percent. TB cases in prisons
are five times the national average.
The report continues:

Another threat to public health is
the rapid spread throughout the
nation’s prisons and jails of the
“superbug”, methicillin resistant
staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
Determined to be the “cockroach of
bacteria” by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, MRSA
(pronounced mer-sa) “has the power
to disable, disfigure and kill the
people who come into contact with
it.” 19,000 out of the estimated
94,000 U.S. Americans with MRSA
died as a result of the “superbug” in
2005 alone. Pennsylvania is
amongst a handful of states with

17

An analysis conducted for the
U.S. Congress, by the National
15
16

Brownlie, p. 93.
Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103 (1976).

Violations of Articles 1, 2 and 5 of the
International Convention on the Elimination of
all forms of Racial Discrimination in U.S.
Prisons: A Response to the Periodic Report of
the United States of America, Prison Working
Group, p. 20, October 2007.

particularly virulent outbreaks of
MRSA in detention facilities.18
Given that prisons are incubators of
disease and that over 90% of
prisoners will be released into our
communities someday, the
imperative for providing adequate
health care to the incarcerated
population is not only a legallymandated but pragmatic and
commonsense public health policy
as well. For this reason it is nothing
short of scandalous that the PA DOC
has privatized the provision of
medical services and contracted this
responsibility to Prison Health
Services, Inc. (PHS), a Tennesseebased for-profit corporation that has
left a trail of corpses and lawsuits in
its wake around the country.
In 2005 Paul von Zielbauer
published an expose of PHS in the
pages of the New York Times based
on extensive investigations of PHS
practices around the U.S.,
documenting widespread instances
of wrongful death, malpractice,
skeletal staffing, denial of
medications, and other neglectful
and abusive practices. Summarizing
his findings Zielbauer wrote, “A
yearlong examination of Prison
Health by The New York Times
reveals repeated instances of
medical care that has been flawed
and sometimes lethal. The
company’s performance around the
nation has provoked criticism from
judges and sheriffs, lawsuits from
inmates’ families and whistle18

“Deadly Staph Infection ‘Superbug’ Has a
Dangerous Foothold in U.S. Jails,” Silja J.A.
Talvi, Prison Legal News, May 2008.

blowers, and condemnation by
federal, state and local authorities.
The company has paid millions of
dollars in fines and settlements.”19
The PA DOC signed a five-year
contract with PHS for the provision
of medical care, excluding mental
health and pharmacy services, to all
facilities under their control that
initially went into effect on
September 1, 2003.20 The contract
was worth $308,254,642. In
February 2007 the contract was
extended from its initial expiration
date of August 31, 2008 to August,
31 2013.21
Incentives for denying care are
embedded in the contract, in
particular the section on the annual
aggregate cap, which reads in part:
PHS has budgeted an annual
aggregate cap of twenty million
five hundred thousand dollars
($20,5000,000) to cover outside
medical services in contract Year
One. Additionally, PHS proposes
a 50/50 sharing between PHS
19

Paul von Zielbauer, “Harsh Medicine: As
Health Care in Jails Goes Private, 10 Days Can
Be a Death Sentence,” New York Times,
February 27, 2005.
20
Medical Services Agreement Between
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of
Corrections and Prison Health Services, Inc.,
signed August 6, 2003,
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/boa/lib/boa/phsSigne
dContract.pdf.
21
Contract Modification Agreement No. 3 to
Medical Services Agreement Between
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of
Corrections and Prison Health Services, Inc.,
signed February 4, 2007,
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/boa/lib/boa/PHSAttac
hment3.pdf.

and the DOC of any costs
incurred between $20,500,000
and $22,500,000. Costs that
exceed $22,500,00 in Year One
shall be the responsibility of the
DOC.22

Outside medical services include
“medical and psychiatric
hospitalization, off-site physicians’
and specialists’ fees, emergency
room fees, ambulance
transportation expenses, off-site and
mobile surgery services, and the
cost of any dialysis treatment
provided off-site as well as on-site
dialysis services at SCI Graterford
and SCI Muncy.”23
By entrusting the health and lives of
PA prisoners to the likes of PHS it is
no surprise that reports of medical
neglect and abuse are rampant.
Examples of poor practices and
inadequate treatment include
withholding of medications; refusal
of outpatient services and necessary
surgeries; denial of prisoner
requests to view their medical
records; failure to follow policy and
document injuries when these might
indicate staff liability for injuries (i.e.
after guards beat or abuse a
prisoner); the absence of any
mechanisms other than civil
litigation for prisoners to seek
remedy, which—in the rare cases
where claims are upheld—provide
redress for wrongs virtually always
after the damage has been done.
22

Medical Services Agreement Between
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of
Corrections and Prison Health Services, Inc.,
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/boa/lib/boa/phsSigne
dContract.pdf.
23
ibid.

Skin conditions, hernias, and
cataracts have been ignored or given
cursory attention. Prisoners
concerned about their exposure to
infectious diseases, especially those
in solitary units who have been
placed in cells with blood and bodily
waste, have been denied diagnostic
tests or had the documented results
withheld.
HRC/Fed Up! has accumulated
ample testimony to conclude that
the business practices detailed in
the 2005 New York Times expose of
PHS have not been amended in any
substantive manner and persist to
this day.
White Supremacist Racism
The U.S. criminal legal system is
saturated with white supremacist
racism at every level, from policing
priorities to arrests, convictions to
sentencing.
In April 2007, a group of human
rights workers concerned with the
U.S. prison system issued a shadow
report to the United States periodic
report to the United Nations
regarding compliance with the
International Convention on the
Elimination of all forms of Racial
Discrimination. The shadow report,
in which the normalized racism of
the prison system is summarized,
states the matter with blunt clarity:
“Conditions in prisons and jails in
the US are horrific. The notion of
rehabilitation in most facilities has
been forgotten and prisons/jails
have become warehouses for many

of the marginalized segments of
American society.”24
In reviewing the U.S. report the UN
Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination (CERD) noted
that the “stark racial disparities in
the administration and functioning
of the criminal justice system,
including the disproportionate
number of persons belonging to
racial, ethnic and national minorities
in the prison population, may be
regarded as factual indicators of
racial discrimination,” and
subsequently recommended that “all
necessary steps to guarantee the
right of everyone to equal treatment
before tribunals and all other organs
of administering justice” be taken
and advocated “the implementation
of national strategies or plans of
action aimed at the elimination of
structural racial discrimination.”25
The concerns articulated by the
CERD acknowledge, however
modestly, that the criminal legal
system operates according to the
logic of white supremacy. While this
structure of domination functions
within a complex variety of social
24

Violations of Articles 1, 2 and 5 of the
International Convention on the Elimination of
all forms of Racial Discrimination in U.S.
Prisons: A Response to the Periodic Report of
the United States of America, Prison Working
Group, October 2007.
25
Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD), “Consideration of
Reports Submitted by State Parties Under
Article 9 of the Convention, Concluding
observations of the Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination, United
States of America,” CERD/C/USA/CO/6, May
8, 2008.

institutions and at varying degrees
of psychological awareness, white
supremacy is and always has been a
reality of life in the United States.
Illustrating some markers of this
reality, the Pew Center on the States
issued a report in 2009 revealing
that “Black adults are four times as
likely as whites and nearly 2.5 times
as likely as Hispanics to be under
correctional control. One in 11 black
adults—9.2 percent—was under
correctional supervision at year end
2007.” 26
Perhaps even more illuminating is
the fact that black males are
incarcerated at a rate of 4,919 per
100,000 in the U.S. today, while
apartheid South Africa, by
comparison, incarcerated black
males at a rate of 851 per 100,000
in 1993.27
These same patterns are apparent in
Pennsylvania as well, where blacks
account for 48.8% of the total state
prison population despite only
representing 10.8% of the state
population. Similarly, while persons
of Hispanic or Latino origin
represent but 4.8% of the state
population they account for 10.8% of
the state prison total.28 That all but
26

“One in 31: The Long Reach of American
Corrections,” The Pew Center on the States,
2006.
27
Figures on incarceration rates taken from
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/articles/not_equal_
opportunity.pdf.
28
State prison population figures taken from the
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
Monthly Institutional Profile, October 31, 2009,
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/portal/lib/portal/mont
hly_profile.pdf. State population percentages

one of Pennsylvania’s state prisons
are situated in locales with a
predominant—often over 90%-white/euro-American population has
helped fuel the racial discrimination
and brutality that are defining
characteristics of the state prison
system. Of the 24 locales in which
the PA DOC’s 27 institutions are
found—including the two women’s
prisons, the boot camp, and a
facility for juvenile offenders—15 of
these possess a white population in
excess of 95%. 17 out of 24 have
an over 90% white population, while
a full 22 of 24 have white
populations above 80%.29
These patterns correspond to
national trends to push prison
expansion on economically
depressed white rural communities
as a means of job creation, which
generates an incentive for working
class whites and political
representatives from those
communities to develop a vested
interest in the warehousing of vast
numbers of poor people from
communities of color.
While such statistical indicators of
racial discrimination can be
multiplied at considerable length30
can be found at the U.S. Census Bureau website,
State and County QuickFacts,
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42000.ht
ml.
29
Figures taken from the U.S. Census Bureau
website,
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html
?_lang=en
30
See Race to Incarcerate, Marc Mauer, for
information and analysis on racial disparities in
policing practices, arrest rates, sentencing
practices, and drug enforcement; for evidence on

numbers can never begin to
adequately depict the human impact
of structural racism. The reports
received by HRC/Fed Up! testify to
the reality of widespread racism on
the part of prison personnel. We
have received a number of reports
about flagrantly racist guards, some
even boasting of their membership
in white nationalist organizations
such as the Ku Klux Klan. The use
of racist slurs to intimidate,
humiliate, and terrorize prisoners
are commonplace in the control
units, which have a higher
proportion of people of color than
the general population. While there
have been reports of guards
threatening to lynch prisoners and
racist pictures and graffiti being left
for intended targets, much of the
racism occurs in the context of daily
operations. For example, the
issuance of fabricated misconducts
and placement in solitary
confinement, or verbal abuse of a
racist type directed at those who file
grievances. Other examples of
racism include reports from several
Latino prisoners that they are being
held in solitary confinement on the
basis of confidential evidence
alleging gang affiliation, and black
Muslims being denied Nation of
Islam and other related literature.
Structural racism and the
manifestations thereof detailed in
this report violate Article 2 of the
racial disparities in life sentences see The
Sentencing Project’s July 2009 report No Exit:
The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in
America; and see Punishment and Prejudice:
Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, Human
Rights Watch, May 2000.

UDHR31 and, articles II and V of the
International Convention on the
Elimination of all forms of Racial
Discrimination. The severe
obstacles for prisoners who seek
protection and remedy in instances
of racial discrimination (see the
section on the Denial of Due
Process) violate Article VI of the
ICERD, which stipulates that “State
Parties shall assure to everyone
within their jurisdiction effective
protection and remedies, through
the competent national tribunals
and other State institutions, against
any acts of racial discrimination . .
.”32
Conditions in PA prisons and SCI
Dallas in particular also fit the
definition of the crime of apartheid
as defined in Article II(a)(ii) of the
International Convention On the
Suppression and Punishment of the
Crime of Apartheid. The relevant
sections stipulate that apartheid is
present when there is a “Denial to a
member or members of a racial
group or groups of the right to life
and liberty of person” via “the
infliction upon the members of a
racial group or groups of serious
bodily or mental harm, by the
infringement of their freedom or
dignity, or by subjecting them to
torture or to cruel, inhuman or

degrading treatment or
punishment.”33
Denial of Due Process: Grievances,
Misconducts, and Access to the
Courts
Any analysis of the factors that
generate, enable, and sustain
human rights violations in U.S.
prisons has to take into account the
role of the courts in monitoring
conditions, adjudicating disputes,
and enforcing rulings in particular
instances. Prisoners’ rights in this
respect are enshrined in articles VI
and VII of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, which respectively
proclaim that “All are equal before
the law and are entitled without any
discrimination to equal protection of
the law”, and that “Everyone has the
right to an effective remedy by the
competent national tribunals for
acts violating the fundamental rights
granted him by the constitution or
by law”.34 Affirming the same
principles of due process and equal
protection, Amendment XIV of the
U.S. Constitution, proclaims that no
state shall “deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws”.
Prison Litigation Reform Act

31

Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, eds., Basic
Documents on Human Rights, Fifth Edition, p.
24. Article II of the UDHR states “Everyone is
entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration without distinction of any kind,
such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social
origin, property, birth or other status.”
32
Ibid. p. 340

The rights of prisoners to access the
courts have been severely restricted
as a consequence of the Prison
Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), passed
into law by the U.S. Congress in
33
34

Ibid. p. 383
Ibid. p. 25

1996. Barriers to the exercise of
this fundamental constitutional and
human right erected by the PLRA
relevant to this report include:
1) the exhaustion of remedies
requirement: Prior to filing a
lawsuit prisoners are required
to exhaust the prison’s
administrative grievance
procedure;
2) the physical injury
requirement: mental or
emotional injury is insufficient
to substantiate a claim that
one’s right were violated
unless it can be demonstrated
that there was a prior physical
injury;
3) restrictions on court oversight
of prison conditions: the
power of federal courts to
enforce orders that provide
correctives to unlawful
conditions has been hindered;
4) limitations on attorney fees:
the amount of money
attorneys are able to collect
from successful cases brought
on behalf of prisoners whose
rights have been violated has
been limited by the PLRA.35
Proponents of the legislation alleged
that prisoners were prone to filing
excessive and frivolous lawsuits, and
that the PLRA would eliminate abuse
of the courts and weed out unworthy
claims. Contrary to these
assertions, prisoner lawsuits were
about as common as lawsuits
brought by non-prisoners, and these

often involved non-frivolous claims
similar to the violations detailed in
this report.36 Furthermore, if the
actual intent of the legislation were
to discourage and hinder the filing
of unworthy lawsuits then it follows
that prisoners should have begun to
win a higher percentage of cases
subsequent to the passage of the
PLRA. But the PLRA has had
precisely the opposite effect as
prisoners have filed less lawsuits
and won an even smaller proportion
of these cases.37
In May 2009, Human Rights Watch
(HRW) released a report on the
effects and constitutionality of the
PLRA, finding that “The effect . . . on
prisoners’ access to the courts was
swift. Between 1995 and 1997,
federal civil rights filings by
prisoners fell by 33 percent, despite
the fact that the number of
incarcerated persons had grown by
10 percent in the same period. By
2001 prisoner filings were down 43
percent from their 1995 level,
despite a 23 percent increase in the
incarcerated population. By 2006
the number of prisoner lawsuits filed
per thousand prisoners had fallen
60 percent since 1995.”38 The report
also found that “the number of
states with less than 10 percent of
their prison populations under court
supervision more than doubled,
from 12 to 28.”39
As a consequence of the PLRA’s
restrictions on prisoners’ rights to
36

35

No Equal Justice: The Prison Litigation
Reform Act in the United States, Human Rights
Watch, May 2009; p. 2

ibid. p. 9
ibid. p. 3
38
ibid. p. 3
39
ibid. p. 35
37

access the courts and its erosion of
judicial power to regulate conditions
by court order HRW concluded that
the PLRA is “fundamentally at odds”
with the requirements of
international law, specifically article
14 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, which
stipulates that “All persons shall be
equal before the courts and
tribunals”.40 The UN Committee
Against Torture also found that the
PLRA violated fundamental human
rights, noting that the physical
injury requirement is a
contravention of article 14 of the
Convention Against Torture, which
requires redress for victims. The
Committee accordingly
recommended that “The State party
should not limit the right of victims
to bring civil actions and amend the
Prison Litigation Reform Act
accordingly”.41
It is in this context of an expanding
prison population that possesses
increasingly diminished access to
the courts that the routine reports of
anti-prisoner bias in the
administration of grievance and
misconduct processes are to be
understood.
Misconducts

40 40

Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, eds., Basic
Documents on Human Rights, Fifth Edition, p.
362
41
Committee Against Torture (CAT),
“Consideration of Reports Submitted by State
Parties under Article 19 of the Convention,
Conclusions and Recommendations of the
Committee against Torture, United States of
America,” CAT/C/USA/CO/2, May 18, 2006.

Prisoners alleged to have violated
prison rules and regulations are to
be issued a misconduct report
stating the “facts upon which the
charges are based” as written by the
staff member making the charges, a
contractor employee with personal
knowledge of the violation, or by
another staff member who has been
instructed to do so at the request of
a person with personal knowledge of
the incident in question.42 Aside
from lesser offenses, which might
be subject to informal resolution, in
which no hearing takes place,
prisoners charged with a misconduct
are granted an appearance before
the institution’s hearing examiner.
While policy stipulates that prisoners
are permitted to call witnesses to
testify to their knowledge of the
events in question, this aspect of
due process is frequently subverted
on the grounds that such witnesses
are not needed to determine guilt or
innocence. Prisoner requests for the
presentation of security camera
footage regarding the incident at
hand are virtually always denied as
well.
Such a rationale does make for a
consistent kind of logic, as the
primary factor in determining guilt
or innocence in misconduct cases is
apparently not evidence, but rather
the fact that one is a prisoner
typically determines that he or she is
guilty as well. Once found guilty a
stint in solitary confinement follows.
These can last from 30 days to
42

PA DOC Policy DC-ADM 801, Inmate
Discipline, Section 1(B),
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/standards/lib/standard
s/801_Inmate_Discipline.pdf.

longer, and can of course be
extended without restraint given the
rubber-stamp quality of misconduct
procedures.
Reports of guards abusing the
misconduct system to “bury”
somebody in solitary are received
from all over the state each week.
Most reports of this kind usually
begin with a description of how a
prisoner felt compelled to file a
grievance against an abusive staff
member and was subsequently
issued a misconduct for an
infraction that they did not commit.
If the prisoner still feels aggrieved
and unwilling to acquiesce silently to
the arbitrary machinations of prison
staff misconducts can be issued
endlessly with little concern that
supervisory staff will disapprove let
alone discipline staff who abuse
their authority in such a manner.
Along with SCI Dallas, the prisons at
Camp Hill, Fayette, Greene, and
other control units have made this a
normalized tactic in silencing
grievances and intimidating those
who file lawsuits.
Grievances
Prisoners in the PA DOC have the
option of filing grievances regarding
staff misconduct and/or inadequate
conditions of confinement. The
initial grievance is handled by an
institutional grievance officer,
appeals go to the Superintendent,
and the third and final level of
appeal is DOC Central Office in
Camp Hill.43 While the formal
43

PA DOC Policy DC-ADM 804, Inmate
Grievance System,

purpose of the grievance system is
to provide an avenue for prisoners
to resolve problems within the
institutional framework of the PA
DOC, the operative reality of the
grievance system is that it functions
to repress claims of abuse and
substandard conditions and obstruct
access to the courts.
Official PA DOC grievance statistics
for the period between January 1,
2008 and April 29, 2009 obtained
through a Right-To-Know request
reveal the systematic anti-prisoner
bias in the system with stark clarity.
During this sixteen-month period
less than 2% of prisoner grievances
were decided in favor of the inmate.
For the years 2008 and the first four
months of 2009 respectively,
approximately 20% and 18% of
grievances were unilaterally resolved
by the prison administration, which
does not mean the inmate is
satisfied. The remainder are denied
or dismissed on their merits or
because of failure on the part of the
prisoner to adhere to procedural
requirements. To put it another
way, over 98% of prisoner grievances
are not resolved in a manner that is
satisfactory to the inmate.44
The systematic refusal to address
prisoner grievances in an honest and
constructive way discourages many
from using the system at all. Those
who do learn quickly not to expect
fairness. Several prisoners have
reported being told explicitly that
http://www.cor.state.pa.us/standards/lib/standard
s/DC-ADM_804_Inmate_Grievances.pdf.
44
PA DOC Inmate Grievance Tracking System
Summary Totals, on file.

the testimony of guards will be
believed no matter the truth of the
matter. Refusal to permit prisoners
to call witnesses or present security
camera footage in support of their
claims is as prevalent in the
grievance system as it is in the
misconduct process. The
frustration, demoralization, and
anger engendered by these practices
is predictable and of no apparent
concern to DOC administrators and
personnel.
As evidenced in the preceding
pages, prisoners who file grievances
almost invariably arouse the ire of
staff and consequently find
themselves targeted by retaliatory
actions. HRC/Fed Up! has received
countless reports from people
subjected to long-term solitary
confinement on the basis of
fraudulent misconducts that were
issued after the inmate attempted to
utilize the grievance system.
Given the conditions of solitary
confinement outlined above and the
brutality, filth, racism, and
psychological disorientation
accompanying such conditions, the
issuance of fabricated misconducts
for retaliatory purposes should be
understood as a violation of the
Convention Against Torture. The UN
Committee Against Torture, in its
consideration of a U.S. report
regarding its compliance with the
convention, noted in regard to
conditions in U.S. prisons that “The
Committee is concerned about the
prolonged isolation periods
detainees are subjected to, the
effect such treatment has on their

mental health and that its purpose
may be retribution, in which case it
would constitute cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment
(art. 16).”45
Prisoners in solitary confinement are
hindered from utilizing the
grievance system in other ways as
well, including the confiscation and
destruction of necessary paperwork
for filing grievances and appeals in a
timely manner, denial of grievance
forms and writing tools, and
administrative refusal to respond to
claims in a timely manner. These
actions not only deter the possibility
of prisoners obtaining a fair and
satisfactory resolution of their
grievances within the prison system,
which is not a serious possibility in
any event, but serve to frustrate
potential legal action as well.
Failure to conform to the procedural
requirements of the grievance
system means that any lawsuit
brought regarding the grievance in
question has a higher probability of
being thrown out on the technical
grounds that the inmate did not
exhaust administrative remedies as
required by the PLRA.
For those who seek justice the PLRA
and its requirement that
administrative remedies be
exhausted prior to bringing a
lawsuit necessitate that prisoners
continue to file grievances. Despite
45

Committee Against Torture (CAT),
“Consideration of Reports Submitted by State
Parties under Article 19 of the Convention,
Conclusions and Recommendations of the
Committee against Torture, United States of
America,” CAT/C/USA/CO/2, May 18, 2006.

the all but total improbability of a
grievance being resolved and the
threat and reality of being subjected
to control unit torture, perhaps
indefinitely, countless members of
PA’s incarcerated population
continue to file grievances so that
their claims will not be dismissed on
technical/procedural grounds.
Survivors of torture and others
struggling against the dehumanizing
violations of their rights inside the
PA DOC need dedicated and
organized support from those of us
on the outside if their grievances are
to be addressed, their rights and
lives respected, and those guilty of
perpetrating criminal acts against
them held accountable. The
concluding section of this report
summarizes a series of
recommendations to be pursued by
a broad coalition of current and
former prisoners, their families and
support people, human rights
defenders, and civil society
organizations.

Recommendations—Human Rights and
Accountability: Organizing to Enforce the Law
The contents of this report describe
an unsustainable and appalling
culture of criminal conduct within
the PA DOC. To date, no effective
action has been taken by those in
positions of power to address the
human rights crisis inside the prison
system. The inaction and
indifference from DOC and state
officials when presented with
substantial documentation of crimes
of the state can only be understood
as tacit approval at worst or a
decision of political expedience at
best.
Rather than address our concluding
remarks to agents and institutions
of a criminal state we offer the
following recommendations to our
allies in civil society as a framework
for sustained, principled, committed
political struggle. These
recommendations are in no way
comprehensive and demand further
elaboration and integration into a
broader movement for the
enforcement of human rights law
and a corresponding restructuring of
the political, economic, and social
relationships and institutions that
govern our communities and shape
our collective future.
Legislators, law enforcement
personnel, state employees, and
other government officials and
employees are encouraged to review
and adopt this framework as well.
HRC/Fed Up! believes that it is
correct to give those in positions of

power the opportunity to do the
right thing, but imperative to
prepare for the possibility that they
will not. For this task we need a
mass movement.
As an organization comprised of
prisoners, their families and support
people, and human rights
defenders, we expect these
constituents to be most receptive to
the following recommendations.
From this basis of understanding it
is necessary to build a movement
throughout communities targeted by
twin policies of mass
impoverishment and mass
incarceration, reaching out to build
principled alliances with other
sectors of society concerned with
the rule of law, human rights, and
social justice.

Recommendations

1. Investigate and prosecute crimes of torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
On the basis of the elements and guidelines of international law
discussed below, prisoners, support people, and individual and
organizational human rights defenders must make the investigation and
prosecution of the crime of torture a non-negotiable demand.
The filing of criminal complaints at every jurisdictional level, especially
with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, will assist
in compiling and preserving evidence, exposing torture and related
human rights violations, and building public and institutional momentum
for accountability. State or federal investigative commissions created by
legislative acts expressly for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting
torture and human rights violations in PA prisons are other potential
avenues.
Even if the political realities that dictate how the law is or is not enforced
are not significantly altered soon and our efforts to seek justice and
accountability are denied for the time being, the preservation of evidence
and exposure of conditions inside PA prisons will assist in creating
awareness of human rights law, crimes of the state, and the question of
power, thus helping generate the necessary preconditions for widespread
social transformation.
The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment (CAT) defines the crime of torture as follows:
For the purposes of this Convention, the term ‘torture’ means any act by
which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is
intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from
him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an
act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having
committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any
reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering
is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence
of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does
not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental
to lawful sanctions.46

State officials and employees who organize, sanction, enable, participate
in, or otherwise fail to act when presented with evidence of control unit
torture and human rights violations not amounting to torture but rather
constituting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment bear primary
46

Ibid. p. 406.

criminal responsibility for the operation of the prison system in the state
of Pennsylvania and demand to be investigated and prosecuted.
Article 12 of the CAT mandates that “Each State Party shall ensure that its
competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation,
wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has
been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.” Article 13
enshrines the right of those allegedly subjected to torture to a prompt
and impartial examination of their claims and protection against
retaliation.47
The UN Principles on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment provides further instruction for individuals and organizations
advocating for investigations and prosecutions of torture and other illtreatment. Principle 1 articulates the objective of the resolution:
1. The purposes of effective investigation and documentation of torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment . . . include the
following:
(a) Clarification of the facts and establishment and acknowledgement of
individual and State responsibility for victims and their families;
(b) Identification of measures needed to prevent recurrence;
(c) Facilitation of prosecution and/or, as appropriate, disciplinary
sanctions for those indicated by the investigation as being responsible
and demonstration of the need for full reparation and redress from the
State, including fair and adequate financial compensation and
provision of the means for medical care and rehabilitation.48

Aspects of legitimate investigations identified in the document include
impartiality, promptness, competence, authority to compel witness
testimony and obtain all available evidence, necessary budgetary and
technical resources, physical and psychological medical examinations of
alleged victims of torture and other ill-treatment, and the production of a
public, written report.49
Investigations conducted in accordance with internationally accepted
standards serve to further the principles articulated in the UN Basic
Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for
Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and
47

Ibid. 409.
UN Resolution 55/89, see Annex: Principles on the Effective Investigation and Documentation
of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. http://daccess-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N00/564/73/PDF/N0056473.pdf?OpenElement
49
ibid.
48

Serious Violations of International Law.50 These guidelines specify three
core components of accountability constituting the victims’ right to
remedies:
(1) Justice: Equal and effective access to justice;
(2) Reparations: Adequate, effective and prompt reparation for
harm suffered; and
(3) Truth: Access to relevant information concerning violations and
reparation mechanisms.51
The guidelines provide further insight into appropriate mechanisms for
actualizing the above three components. From this framework human
rights defenders can create and implement strategies to hold the PA DOC
accountable to the rule of law and seek justice for victims of severe
human rights violations.
2. Restructure the criminal legal system according to international
law.
In order to effectively prevent torture and other human rights violations
inside PA prisons it is necessary to restructure the entire criminal legal
system so as to ensure that it conforms to international law. While it is
beyond the scope of this report to engage in an extended analysis of the
issues involved, it is sufficient to note that race and class based policies
and practices of policing, prosecution, and sentencing need to be
abolished. Toward that end community oriented strategies involving the
expansion and proliferation of educational and vocational programs,
along with access to comprehensive and effective substance abuse
treatment, counseling, and mental health services need to be at the
forefront in the struggle to ensure safe communities and public welfare
(see recommendation 6).
Further advocacy efforts relating to conditions of confinement can be
found in the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners
(discussed below). Practical measures that can be integrated into the
demands and development of a mass movement for implementing
human rights standards throughout the criminal legal and broader social,
political, and economic systems include the following:
•

50
51

removal of arbitrary visitation restrictions, especially the limits in
number of visits and the policy of non-contact visitation for those
in solitary confinement and on Death Row;

Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, 275-282.
Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, 279.

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

all visits should permit contact and prisoners should never be
handcuffed or shackled during a visit; in exceptional circumstances
appropriate alternative practices can be adopted to ensure the
health and security of prisoners, visitors, and prison personnel
while simultaneously permitting contact and prohibiting the use of
handcuffs and shackles;
permission for visitors to be on more than one prisoners list per
institutions so as to remove undue obstruction to prisoners’ rights
to maintain contact with family and support people and services;
expansion of the PA official visitor status program, currently
mediated through the PA Prison Society, so as to permit all citizens,
especially human rights defenders, the opportunity to visit any
prisoner willing to receive them with full and un-mediated legal
authorization and recognition of such status as a basic human
right;
geographic re-organization of the prisoner population so as to
enable more frequent visitation and continuing interaction with a
prisoner’s family and community;
immediate moratorium on prison construction and diversion of
funds to vocational, educational, counseling, substance abuse
treatment, and mental health services and programs;
creation of associations of human rights defenders inside (see
recommendation 4) and outside the prison to monitor, document,
and publish reports of alleged human rights violations and
procedures being advocated or enacted by prisoners, PA DOC and
state officials, and citizens, acting on their own or in coordination,
to remedy grievances and ensure the realization of human rights
law in the operation of the prison system;
establishment of an independent monitoring agency whose
personnel, methods of operation, tactics and strategies for
implementing human rights standards, and spokespeople shall be
accountable to prisoners, their families, and the populations most
impacted by mass incarceration; such an agency must have access
to constitutional and human rights lawyers and be granted legal
authority to subpoena witnesses and evidence and file criminal
complaints requiring a mandatory investigation and prosecution
when dictated by available evidence.

Taken individually each of these proposals serves to strengthen the
others. Taken collectively these suggestions provide the basis for a
restructuring of the prison system along rehabilitative lines and human
rights principles.
As noted in section 3 of this report, article 10(3) of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) mandates that “[t]he

penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential
aim of which shall be their reformation.”52 The UN Standard Minimum
Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (SMRTP) provides the supporting
framework for realization of article 10(3) of the ICCPR.
Articles 58 and 59 of the SMRTP articulate the common sense underlying
article 10(3) of the ICCPR:
58. The purpose and justification of a sentence of imprisonment or
a similar measure deprivative of liberty is ultimately to protect
society against crime. This end can only be achieved if the
period of imprisonment is used to ensure, so far as possible,
that upon his return to society the offender is not only willing
but able to lead a law-abiding and self-supporting life.
59. To this end, the institution should utilize all the remedial,
educational, moral, spiritual and other forces and forms of
assistance which are appropriate and available, and should seek
to apply them according to the individual treatment needs of
the prisoners.
Some of the minimal standards enumerated in the SMRTP include those
relating to:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

•

52
53

clean living conditions;
adequate access to natural light and recreation;
healthy and filling food portions;
medical services “organized in close relationship to the general
health administration of the community”;
impartial and fair disciplinary and grievance procedures;
prohibitions on use of handcuffs, chains, irons or other
instruments of restraint as punishment;
prohibition on excessive force or violence for the sake of
punishment;
access to educational and religious materials;
respect, encouragement, and facilitation of contact with family and
social service agencies;
access to work and vocational training and opportunities that
develop skills and qualities of self-sufficiency vital to social
reintegration;
observation and treatment of prisoners suffering from mental
health needs in “specialized institutions under medical
management.”53

Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, 362.
Ibid. 29-44.

Rule 55 stipulates that [T]here shall be a regular inspection of penal
institutions and services by qualified and experienced inspectors
appointed by a competent authority. Their task shall be in particular to
ensure that these institutions are administered in accordance with
existing laws and regulations and with a view to bringing about the
objectives of penal and correctional services.”
3. Encourage prisoners to form associations for the defense of
human rights.
The PA DOC currently recognizes prisoners associating in any form and
for any reason as a disciplinary infraction of sufficient cause to justify
indefinite/permanent placement in solitary confinement.54 Such a policy
prohibits prisoners from exercising core rights and needs of human
personality, which include the right and need to interact and make
collective decisions in any given social setting. By depriving prisoners of
the ability to adequately associate, rather than say prohibiting
organization for harmful or illegal ends, the PA DOC is sabotaging the
most elemental features of self-supportive, self-empowered, and socially
responsible behavior necessary for social reintegration.
Building on the recommendations above, another element that will
enhance these efforts is the creation of associations for the defense of
human rights inside the prisons. Based on the rights articulated in the
UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (see Recommendation 5),
prisoners in correspondence with human rights organizations and
advocates need to be provided a mechanism whereby they can pledge to
adhere to the principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and other relevant
aspects of human rights principles, practices, and law. Human rights
defenders inside the prison can further state their intention to work for
human rights by exercising their constitutional prerogative to file
grievances and/or lawsuits, document and communicate violations to
outside agencies, or other peaceful means of seeking resolution.
Such a declaration of intentions and principles by prisoners supportive of
and adherent to the protection of human rights and fundamental
freedoms contains many positive attributes. Perhaps foremost among
these is that in working with prisoners to collectively formulate and
develop human rights literature and curricula those incarcerated and nonincarcerated men and women engaged in this process will be encouraged
to nurture recognition of and respect for the human rights of all.
Prisoners who in the past have engaged in acts of violence and deceit
against family and community, prisoners and prison personnel, will have
54

PA DOC Policy DC-ADM 802, Administrative Custody Procedures, section 1(B)(2)(e).

a much greater likelihood of avoiding such personal and socially harmful
behaviors in the future.
The potential impact on recidivism is significant and human rights
oriented educational and vocational programs should become mandatory
aspects of a genuine rehabilitative and preventive approach to crime.
These programs will not be effective, or will be severely diminished in
potential, if prisoners are not given a central role in shaping the curricula
and practices so as to address their own individual and collective needs
and problems.
Prisoners’ rights to exercise all necessary rehabilitative ends needs to
become another non-negotiable demand that we can initiate immediately.
This requires building mass social support for the protection of human
rights defenders inside the prison so as to prohibit retaliation and
intimidation. There is no need to wait for permission from the state to
exercise our basic right to create and implement educational programs
and strategies for the defense of human rights in partnership with
prisoners.
4. Abolish solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement as currently instituted by the PA DOC constitutes
torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and is strictly prohibited
by international law.55 Ongoing investigations and monitoring of
conditions of confinement by HRC/Fed Up! provide an unassailable basis
for the conclusion that the solitary confinement units in the PA DOC are
never operated in accordance with policy and law. Rather, solitary
confinement units by design or default generate severe human rights
violations against prisoners and criminal conduct on the part of PA DOC
personnel. Physical abuse and assault, sexual harassment and violence,
overt and malicious racism, psychological torment, medical deprivation,
starvation, exposure to dangerously un-hygienic conditions, constant
intimidation and retaliation, and the subversion of prisoners’ due process
rights are normative features of the regime of solitary confinement
operated by the PA DOC.
If the PA DOC wants to honestly address institutional security then they
are required not to implement and enable policies and practices of
dehumanization that guarantee future antagonisms and violence between
prisoners and prisoners, prisoners and prison personnel, and former
prisoners and the public once the former are released into the
55

see Rodley and Pollard, The Treatment of Prisoners Under International Law, Third Edition,
(2009) chapter 2, for discussion of the prohibition of torture as constituting a ’peremptory norm’
of international law binding on all states in all circumstances.

community. Prisoners who engage in disruptive and/or violent behavior
can be separated from the general population while still being permitted
ample opportunity everyday to engage in supervised congregate activities
and provided access to educational and creative stimulation. If an
altercation ensues that requires physical intervention on the part of
prison staff and the isolation of an individual, the period of segregation
needs to be as limited as possible and counseling staff and access to
mental stimulation need to be provided to the disturbed person as soon
as possible. Psychotically violent prisoners need greater attention, not
severe isolation, primarily in the form of intensive mental health
treatment conducted in a secure mental-health institution.
There is no legitimate basis for the state of Pennsylvania to be operating
a regime of control unit torture under the color of law. Those in
positions of executive authority in the state of Pennsylvania and its
Department of Corrections are guilty of perpetrating crimes against
humanity.
The abolition of solitary confinement is a necessary prerequisite if the
state of Pennsylvania and the U.S. are to adhere to the Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment or
Punishment.
5. Create a culture of human rights defenders.
Human rights are not and never have been the gift of benevolent
authorities, but have been won through decades and centuries of human
struggle against cruelty, exploitation, and oppression. For this reason
those of us concerned with the rights and lives of prisoners need to
deepen our understanding of and participation in movements for social
justice.
Any human rights movement has to address the fundamental question of
power: who holds it, how it is defined, to what ends it is used, how are
decisions made, who suffers the consequences and who reaps the
benefits. Given the controlling power of concentrated wealth and the
human rights violations that always occur when too few people hold too
much power, we must realize that the protection and expansion of
human rights depends upon the power of the movement to redistribute
and redefine social, economic, and political power.
Providing a basic framework for the protection and expansion of a human
rights culture is the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of
Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect

Universally Recognized Human Rights and Freedoms.56 Also known as
the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, this document outlines the
rights and responsibilities of people in their personal, vocational, and
communal roles toward the observance and realization of human rights.
This document proclaims “[e]veryone has the right, individually and in
association with others to promote and to strive for the protection and
realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national
and international levels.” Also enshrined are the rights to peaceful
assembly, formation and participation in non-governmental organizations
dedicated to the defense of human rights, and the right to obtain and
disseminate information relating to the rights and freedoms of people.57
Outlining responsibilities of States, article 15 declares:
The State has the responsibility to promote and facilitate the teaching of
human rights and fundamental freedoms at all levels of education and to
ensure that all those responsible for training lawyers, law enforcement
officers, the personnel of the armed forces and public officials include
appropriate elements of human rights teaching in their programs.

Complementing these responsibilities are those accorded to non-state
actors in article 16:
Individuals, non-governmental organizations and relevant institutions
have an important role to play in contributing to making the public more
aware of questions relating to all human rights and fundamental
freedoms through activities such as education, training and research in
these areas to strengthen further, inter alia, understanding, tolerance,
peace and friendly relations among nations and among racial and
religious groups, bearing in mind the various backgrounds of the
societies and communities in which they carry out their activities.58

One practical application of this document is for civil society
organizations, including human and civil rights groups, communities of
faith, educational associations, legal service providers, and others, to act
in accord with the role described in article 16 in order to compel the
observance of article 15 by the State at every level of jurisdiction.
Toward this end the formation and strengthening of human rights
alliances, development of curricula and training programs on human
rights, and the articulation and implementation of organizational
methods for enforcing international human rights law must become our
56

Brownlie and Goodwin-Gill, p. 230-236.
Ibid. Articles 1,5, and 6.
58
Ibid. p. 235.
57

highest priority on individual, community, social, national, and
international levels. Our success in this endeavor depends wholly on the
degree to which popular political education and organization strengthens
and expands a culture based on the recognition and defense of universal
human rights for all peoples.
6. Enforce the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Make
Prisons Obsolete
Any set of policies and institutions that generate greater and not less
incarceration are clear failures. Existing economic structures exacerbate
inequality and force ever larger numbers of the population to engage in
occupations—such as prostitution, drug-dealing, burglary—that have
been criminalized for their very survival.
The solution to addressing profound and deliberate inequalities in socioeconomic power relationships is to organize mass political movements to
redistribute and redefine wealth and power.
More extensive discussion and analysis of the necessity of such a
movement is beyond the scope of this document, though it is sufficient
to note that the basis for education, organizing, and action in this respect
can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and
related conventions and documents of international human rights law.59
The basis of human rights conventions, customs, practices, and ideology
are embodied in articles 1-3 of the UDHR:
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards
one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status.
Article 3: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person
before the law.

The remainder of the UDHR and subsequent international treaties and UN
resolutions and declarations articulate a body of principles that constitute
an international order of legally binding rights and responsibilities and
59

Ibid. 23-28. See this source for other resolutions, declarations, conventions, and other
documents that guide and structure basic international human rights law.

guidelines for their realization. Human rights and responsibilities
represent an interdependent cluster of conventions and customs
universal in their application. Amongst these are the following categories
of human rights:
•

•

•

•

•

•

60

Civil Rights – Equality before the law and throughout society is to
be enforced by strict observance of due process rights, equal
access to impartial and transparent court proceedings, and
prohibition on discrimination on any basis, including race, gender,
sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation or opinion, and
class.
Political Rights – These include the right for all social groups to
equal access to and participation in democratic elections, freedom
of speech and assembly, along with the institution of practices and
structures for ensuring substantial and self-determining political
power for all peoples. Self-determination is the core of
international human rights law, as it is a prerequisite for
developing liberated, democratic, and sustainable societies in
which individuals and communities have the power to make
decisions accorded to the degree in which those decisions impact
their lives and communities.
Social and Economic Rights – One’s choice of labor and right to
equitable compensation for their work, the right to form unions,
along with rights to social security, food, housing, health care, and
education constitute fundamental social and economic rights.
Cultural Rights – These guarantee cultural integrity to all peoples in
the exercise of their religious, linguistic, and other customs and
practices integral to their identities and way of life.
Environmental Rights – These include the rights to clean and ample
water, freedom from pollution, clean air, protection against climate
destabilization, protection of forests and marine life, respect for
the ecological balance necessary to sustain human and non-human
life. These rights in combination with rights to equality and life are
violated whenever communities – particularly indigenous
communities and communities of color the world over – are
selected as sites for toxic industrial processes and deposits.
Sexual Rights – Another vital component toward the fulfillment of
the right of self-determination can be found in sexual rights, which
include the right to have or not have children, the right to marry
and when, same-sex rights, trans-gender rights, rights to birth
control and abortion, the right to sexual pleasure, and the right to
define families.60

Special gratitude to our allies at New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive
Justice for clarifying and strengthening our conception and understanding of human rights. Also,

When interdependent communities have won the power to organize their
own economic and political institutions and activities in harmony with the
earth so that basic rights to life, health care, education, food, housing,
sexual orientation and practice, due process and equal access to and
equality before the law, and an ecologically sustainable environment are
universally recognized and realized by and for everybody, prisons will be
unnecessary.
Immediate steps toward this end involve the development and
implementation of de-carceration strategies geared at localizing the
economy along ecological and democratic bases. Alliances with
community organizations, small-scale producers, organic and sustainable
farmers, teachers, health care workers, communities of faith and other
individuals and groups supportive of basic human rights suggest a way to
link diverse movements, social institutions and agencies, and people.
Ultimately, and not too far in the future, the question of power must be
effectively confronted by human rights alliances at every jurisdictional
level, from community to municipal to county to state to national to
international. The human rights movement needs to redefine power and
shape the structures that govern social and economic activity so that the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be fully realized by free
peoples in liberated communities inhabiting a livable planet.

thank you to Sister Song: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice for producing the 8
Categories of Human Rights worksheet that provided some of the basis for the breakdown of
human rights in this section.