NCJ Number
86690
Journal
Corrections Magazine Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1983) Pages: 22-28
Date Published
1983
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This description of conditions in Puerto Rican prisons and efforts to deal with them focuses on overcrowding, violence, and the efforts resulting from the class action lawsuit, Feliciano v. Barcelo, which was filed on behalf of the inmates.
Abstract
Puerto Rican prisons, which house 4,500 inmates, are characterized by violence, overcrowding, inadequate medical care and sanitation, and antiquated facilities. Thirty-eight inmate homicides occurred during the first 8 months of 1982, compared with 15 homicides among 29,000 California inmates in 1981. Other indications of the conditions are the open sewer running through one prison kitchen, vermin in inmate lockers and living areas, outdated and unsafe electrical wiring, and a lack of separation of convicted prisoners and pretrial detainees. As a result of the Feliciano case, U.S. District Judge Juan Perez Gimenez in September 1980 issued an order for an end to the 'horrors' being suffered by the inmates of the correctional system. The 55-page opinion described the specific problems in each prison. The judge ordered the immediate closing of the dungeon-like calls called calabazos, which housed mentally disturbed inmates. After the judge issued his order, the corrections administration asked the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) for help in finding ways to come into compliance. NIC sent a five-person team which issued a technical assistance report in January 1981. The report recommended an outside audit to find waste and corruption, a master plan for the next decade, and an increase in the use of alternatives to incarceration. The corrections administration contracted with Frederick Moyer, one of the team members, to develop such a plan. He recommended both new construction of facilities and the increased use of alternatives to incarceration. However, the recession's effects on the Puerto Rican economy and the continued disagreements among the corrections administration and the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Feliciano case are among the factors which have slowed progress toward improving correctional conditions in Puerto Rico.