Patchwork Protection: The Politics of Prisoners’ Rights Accountability in the United States

Heather Schoenfeld, Kimberly Rhoten, Michael C. Campbell
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Abstract

In recent years US prisons have failed to meet legally required minimum standards of care and protection of incarcerated people. Explanations for the failure to protect prisoners in the United States focus on the effects of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) and lack of adequate external oversight. However, very little scholarship empirically examines how different systems of accountability for prisoners’ rights work (or do not work) together. In this article, we introduce an accountability framework that helps us examine the prisoners’ rights “accountability environment” in the United States. We then compare two post-PLRA case studies of failure to protect incarcerated women from sexual assault in two different states. We find that the prisoners’ rights accountability environment is a patchwork of legal, bureaucratic, professional, and political systems. The patchwork accountability environment consists of a web of hierarchical and interdependent relationships that constrain or enable accountability. We argue that ultimately the effectiveness of prisoners’ rights accountability environments depends on whether protecting prisoners’ rights aligns with the priorities of dominant political officials. Our argument has implications for efforts to improve prison conditions and incarcerated people’s well-being.

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拼凑保护:美国的囚犯权利问责政治
近年来,美国监狱未能达到法律要求的最低标准,对被监禁者提供照顾和保护。对美国未能保护囚犯的解释主要集中在《监狱诉讼改革法案》(PLRA)的影响以及缺乏足够的外部监督。然而,很少有学者对囚犯权利的不同问责制度如何共同发挥作用(或不发挥作用)进行实证研究。在本文中,我们将介绍一个问责框架,帮助我们研究美国囚犯权利的 "问责环境"。然后,我们比较了两个不同州保护被监禁妇女免受性侵犯的失败案例研究。我们发现,囚犯权利问责环境是一个由法律、官僚、专业和政治系统组成的拼凑体。错综复杂的问责环境由层级关系和相互依存关系组成,这些关系制约或促成了问责。我们认为,囚犯权利问责环境的有效性最终取决于保护囚犯权利是否与占主导地位的政治官员的优先事项相一致。我们的论点对改善监狱条件和被监禁者福祉的努力具有启示意义。
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