U.S. Bureau of Prisons Drops Repressive “Behavior Modification” Program
In the face of protests by prison reformers, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons announced on this day that it was cancelling its controversial Behavior Modification program at the federal prison in Springfield, Missouri.
The program involved attempting to change prisoners’ behavior by locking them in cells for extended hours, denying them all privileges, and then restoring privileges gradually if they behaved themselves.
The decision to end the program came just days before a federal judge was expected to rule in a suit challenging the program, which was filed by the National Prison Project of the ACLU.
The history of American prisons is filled with civil liberties issues. See the Native American occupation of the federal prison on Alcatraz Island on September 9, 1969. The prisoner riot at the Attica Penitentiary in New York State on September 9, 1971. And the New York Civil Liberties Union report on the abuse of solitary confinement in NY state prisons on October 2, 2012.
Learn more from the ACLU National Prison Project: https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights
See what the UN says about prison reform and alternatives to imprisonment here.
Read “Alternatives to Incarceration” by Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) here.