Scenes of Prison
Addendum:
62. The Kick-Out List
W e had sixty-three rooms in our Disciplinary Segregation Unit. Usually, that was enough, but there were times when we filled up completely and had no empty rooms. That became a problem when the need arose to move someone to Segregation, and there were no empty rooms.
We housed inmates in Segregation for a variety of reasons, and each new arrival was assigned to one of three categories that we called a status. One was Immediate Segregation, another was Disciplinary Segregation, and the third was Administrative Confinement.
Inmates who found themselves caught up in an emergency and needed to be immediately removed from the general population were assigned the first segregation status, Immediate Segregation. Fighting inmates, for example, were immediately brought to us and placed in rooms, and they remained on this status until all the necessary reports had been written, an investigation had been conducted, and a decision had been made about lifting the Immediate Segregation status and moving them out. Usually, these inmates remained with us until a Disciplinary Court could convene, hear the charges, decide upon guilt or innocence, and impose sanctions if needed.
A second segregation status we used was Disciplinary Segregation. It was assigned to inmates as punishment. These inmates had gone before our Disciplinary Court and had been sentenced to a period of confinement in our Unit for violating rules in our Inmate Code of Offenses. When inmates on Immediate Segregation status went to court and were found guilty, they were often punished with Disciplinary Segregation time, and they would stay with us until the date arrived for them to be released. Inmates on Disciplinary Segregation status knew exactly when they would be released from Segregation.
Finally, we housed inmates for the safety and security of the institution. We called this status Administrative Confinement because the decision to place inmates in Segregation had been made by the administration. They were convinced that these inmates were too dangerous to be allowed to move about freely in our prison. Gang leaders fell into this category as did predatory inmates and chronically combative inmates who were uncontrollable. The decision to place an inmate on Administrative Confinement was reviewed once every three months. Administrative Confinement inmates didn’t know when they would be released from the Segregation Unit. Maybe never.
So what happened when all sixty-three rooms filled up, and we had no rooms for new arrivals? We had a plan for that. We had a Kick-Out List.
Immediate Segregation inmates and Disciplinary Segregation inmates would eventually get out of Segregation and return to their original living units. For Disciplinary Segregation inmates, they even knew the exact day this would happen. When all of our rooms were occupied, we maintained a Kick-Out List, and inmates closest to their release dates were at the top of the list.
“Are you full?” became a common question.
“Where am I on the Kick-Out List?” was another common question.
During my occasional daydreaming moments, an idea occurred to me. The entire prison system should also have a kick-out list. Inmates who had definite release dates in the near future could head the list. We could establish an absolute number of inmates we could house, and when we were full, and another inmate was sent to us from the courts, we would kick one person out of our prison and send him to one of the community corrections centers. If they were full, then they would release one of their inmates to a supervised release status. The kicking out would continue until all the facilities were at their capacity. We would all stay full, but overcrowding would not occur.
“Where are you on the Kick-Out List?”
The answer to this question could be an inmate's ticket out of prison, and it could be a solution to the problem of prison overcrowding.
Discussion
- The number of beds in a prison system is finite, yet judicial policy assumes it is unlimited. The result is overcrowding. A kick-out list recognizes the reality of a finite number of prison beds.
- Can you think of another setting that uses a kick-out list?
- How do you think a court system would adjust to a prison system that used a kick-out list that limited the number of inmates who could be incarcerated?
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