50 Years Since Attica, Has Anything Changed?

Exactly 50 years ago, 1,300 men imprisoned in the Attica Correctional Facility came together to demand better conditions in the nation’s most famous prison uprising. Now, as COVID-19 continues to ravage prisons and jails where social distancing is impossible and safety protocols are limited, a spate of recent uprisings seems to demonstrate how little has changed since Attica captivated the nation, Time Magazine reports. Fed on 63 cents a day and allotted one roll of toilet paper a month, the Attica prisoners endured beatings, racial slurs and barbaric medical treatment, compelling them to take 42 staff members hostage in a highly-publicized riot. Attica convinced New York’s Commissioner of Corrections Russell Oswald to agree in negotiations to “provide adequate medical care,” as well as to “access to outside doctors and dentists” to prisoners. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in Estelle v. Gamble that “deliberate indifference by prison personnel to a prisoner’s serious illness or injury constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”

But fifty years later, prisons seem to have deteriorated to Attica-era conditions, writes University of Michigan Professor Heather Ann Thompson for Time.  According to the Marshall Project, the medical officials who correctional systems often hire are reported to lack qualifications. Some even have restricted or suspended medical licenses. Additionally, much of prison healthcare is now privatized, and the profit-driven model is unsuited to a prison population — a development that’s resulted in the denial of lifesaving procedures. In recent months, prison uprisings in California, Missouri and Indiana have drawn attention to the medical neglect, abusive guards and prolonged isolation that pervades prisons.