The BOP Seeks Retroactive Approval of its Secret, Closed Prison Units

Over the past week, we've written extensively about mission creep in the U.S. criminal justice system: police officers busting out helicopters to break up teen parties, SWAT teams running amok while serving basic search warrants. Now, the director of the ACLU's national prison project, David Fathi, brings us yet another example: hyper-cloistered prison units, also known as "Communications Management Units," or CMU. Originally intended for the imprisonment of convicted or suspected terrorists, they're now being opened for broad federal use.

The world of a CMU is tightly monitored and restricted, one in which prisoners can be denied visits and even phone calls for years at a time. Correspondence is limited to a single letter a week, maximum three pages, from a single source — at the "Warden's discretion" — and is strictly reviewed. Only one 15-minute phone call is permitted per month, with immediate family members only, ditto the regulations that govern the one-hour, noncontact visit allowed per month.

So far, two CMUs have quietly been opened (the first in Indiana in 2006, the second in Illinois in 2008). The original rationale was national security: allowing for close surveillance of people with real or potential ties to terrorist activity. But as of this April, new regulations issued by the federal government to (retroactively) authorize the operation of CMUs allow anyone who might be a potential "threat to the safe, secure, and orderly operation of prison facilities, or protection of the public, as a result of the inmate's communication with persons in the community" to be sent there. It's a murky qualification that could easily be used to apply to any one of the U.S.'s over 200,000 federal prisoners.

Accordingly, it isn't just convicted terrorists who end up there in lock-down. The secret housing units can also be used to hold people pretrial (who are presumed innocent), as well as witnesses who aren't accused of any crime. Between 65 and 72% of CMU prisoners are Muslim men.

For years, the federal government has tried to operate its system of CMUs — which the ACLU calls an assault on prisoners' First Amendment rights — in secret. After legal challenges, though, the Federal Bureau of Prisons finally released a new set of regulations this April, which are up for public comment. Already, CMU prisoners, former corrections officials, psychologists and civil rights groups have spoken out against the system. Today's the final day to add your voice. To join them, click here.

Photo Credit: D'Arcy Norman