February 04, 1995|By Kate Shatzkin | Kate Shatzkin,Sun Staff Writer
The state prison built to hold the "worst of the worst" Maryland criminals is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice after complaints of harassment and beatings of inmates and other cruel conditions.
Justice Department spokeswoman Lee P. Douglass confirmed the investigation of the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, known as Supermax. She said lawyers from the department's civil rights division had received "numerous" complaints, but she would not describe them or say who made them.
The federal inquiry will examine whether the state's operation of the prison violates the constitutional rights of inmates.
Members of the Maryland Committee for Responsible Corrections Policy -- a loosely knit group of prison reform advocates around the state -- said they visited the Justice Department last year after receiving complaints from inmates about beatings at the prison, problems getting medical care and long periods of isolation.
The members said the allegations had not been confirmed, and that they merely wanted someone to look into them.
"There's been complaints for a protracted period of time, and you can't substantiate these complaints from the outside," said Nancy Moran, a volunteer with Prisoners Aid Association of Maryland Inc. and a member of the group.
Division of Correction spokeswoman Maxine Eldridge said prison officials "welcome" the investigation, but want to know what the specific complaints are before commenting further. She said she understood that the investigation would not be completed for several months.
Commissioner of Correction Richard A. Lanham Sr. "will not tolerate the mistreatment of staff or inmates," Ms. Eldridge said.
Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Nathan, who represents the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the Justice Department had contacted his office to set up a tour of Supermax. "We were going to hopefully meet with them and have a discussion of what the complaints were," he said. "They assured us there had no been finding of any problem."
The super-maximum security prison opened in 1989 to hold up to of the most intractable inmates in the prison system. Its population includes those who are extremely violent, have escaped from other prisons, assaulted staff or other inmates, or simply caused too much trouble.
Inmates there spend 22 to 23 hours a day alone in their 65-square-foot cells, exercising only in small recreation areas under heavy guard.
A group calling themselves "Friends Against Brutality" protested outside the prison last April, alleging a pattern of harassment by correctional officers against inmates. Included in the group were family members of Bruce J. Wise, a convict who alleges in a federal lawsuit that officers slammed his head into a concrete wall and beat him while his hands and ankles were shackled.
Prison-reform advocates also have questioned just what sends convicts to Supermax, and for how long. They have hinted that some men are sent in retaliation for being irritating "jailhouse lawyers" who routinely sue the prison system.
Investigators will take tours of the facility and interview staff, inmates and experts on prison conditions, Ms. Douglass said. The agency then will send a letter describing what it found to state officials, who will have about a month and a half to respond. Negotiations to fix any problems could follow, and if those don't work, the Justice Department could sue the state, Ms. Douglass said.
The federal investigation comes on the heels of a federal court ruling last month that conditions were brutal and unconstitutional at California's Pelican Bay Prison, which holds about 3,500 of the state's most dangerous inmates, near Crescent City. The judge cited beatings of inmates and reckless use of weapons by
officers.
The ruling was the first major court test of the "super-maximum-security" concept that a number of states -- and the federal government -- are using to deal with their most troublesome inmates.
The San Francisco judge barred prison officials from putting mentally ill prisoners in a special isolation unit at Pelican Bay because it could exacerbate psychosis and personality disorders. But the judge upheld the basic concept of using high-technology isolation units for inmates who were not mentally ill.
A sister of inmate Wise, who asked not to be named, said the regimented, isolated routine at Supermax can make any inmate insane.
"After three to four months, you start to see a real heightening of the paranoia," she said. "It is clear that the severe isolation is an attempt to cripple their minds."
