UC Irvine

In May, the Sacramento Bee published a series of articles about California's use of a new and disturbing form of punitive incarceration: Behavioral Management Units (BMUs). (See the series here: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/09/2737459/the-public-eye-guards-accused.html?mi_rss=Investigations) Over the past five years, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) quietly opened up a series of these units within six different state prisons specifically to house problem prisoners. CDCR officials say they originally intended the units to provide intensive therapy and anger management programs in an effort to keep problem prisoners out of more restrictive, long-term solitary confinement units elsewhere in the state.

Unfortunately, as with many correctional policies, actual practice diverged sharply from the initial intentions. The Sacramento Bee articles describe multiple incidences of extreme abuse in the BMUs: prisoners being locked into their cells for up to five months, with absolutely no access to the outdoors; mass outdoor strip searching of prisoners in the dead of winter; and prisoners sustaining permanent organ damage after correctional officers beat them.