Word: prison
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...politicians and prison authorities who are putting the squeeze on inmates say they are simply responding to public outrage over soft conditions--things like the prime ribs served at the annual banquet for "lifers'' at one Massachusetts facility or the federal court order that required North Carolina to equip each of 13 prisons with a set of drums, three guitars and five Frisbees. Both of those examples were mentioned in a November 1994 Reader's Digest article that has become, if not a manifesto, then at least a ready inventory of gripes for the no-frills movement...
Numbers like those are enough to elevate the details of prison administration into presidential campaign planks. As part of his standard stump speech, Texas Senator Phil Gramm says he wants to make inmates work 10 hours a day. At every campaign stop he gets cheers with the line "We've got to stop building prisons like Holiday Inns.'' Gramm has talked about putting Maricopa County's Sheriff Arpaio in charge of the federal prison system...
...Congress, where Republicans and Democrats jostle to see who can be toughest on crime, an amendment to deny some amenities to the nation's 95,000 federal prisoners is now part of the House version of the Republican-sponsored anti-crime bill. If it survives into the final version of the bill--an iffy prospect--the amendment would forbid such things as premium cable channels and R- or X-rated movies. Its sponsor, Representative Dick Zimmer of New Jersey, is also pushing for a law that would reach the nation's 959,000 state prisoners by denying federal prison money...
Zimmer admits he does not know how many prisons feature those perks. But he takes the "one prison that has them is one prison too many" point of view. Advocates of prisoners rights, a beleaguered group these days, insist that few lock-up facilities offer much that could be mistaken for the good life. "All prisons are very unpleasant places,'' says Mike Mahoney, executive director of the John Howard Association, a Chicago-based prison watchdog group. They also argue that some of the cost-cutting expectations are based on a misunderstanding about who pays for some inmate comforts. According...
Some of the wariest opponents of the no-frills movement are prison wardens and guards, who must live with convicts at close range and say they like to have a variety of options to keep simmering lockups from exploding. That need is especially strong now that the increasingly popular practice of imposing mandatory sentences, a response to public anger over inadequate prison terms, is making it harder to offer time off as a reward for good behavior. To ban such things as TV and recreation as well, warns warden Thomas McKinney of the Alfred Hughes state prison unit in Gatesville...