House Democrats touring the federal prison holding convicted child trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell compared the facility to a "pristine, park-like community college setting" following a string of whistleblower complaints alleging she receives VIP perks. On Tuesday, June 16, Representatives Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, sent their staff on an investigative tour of the so-called "Club Fed" Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Texas.
I’m all for treating inmates humanely, but the least we could do is be consistent about it, right?
I’m all for making prisons better. I’m really tired of nutpicking the worst criminal you can find and declaring “This person should be getting tetnus every time they use the toilet”.
If there is a disparity of how Maxwell is treated vs how another person might be treated for a similar security level, as what seems to be the case here
Federal prisons are historically better managed and run than state and local prisons because
(a) Feds maintain a significantly smaller inmate population, so there’s a lower instance of overcrowding and fewer facilities to manage. The funding per-capita is higher, which affords individual inmates better living conditions and more amenities.
(b) Federal prisons tend to hold more white-collar criminals who can also afford the kind of legal counsel that both discourages the abuses common to state and local prisons and fast-tracks them for early release on good behavior. The end result is a population that is both treated well and well-behaved, leading to fewer instances of the kind of prison violence we glamorize on TV and in the movies.
This isn’t a situation unique to Ghislaine. It’s more a throw-back to how prisoned used to operate prior to the Reagan Era of mass incarceration and budget cutting. There are definitely more modern prisons that are geared towards immiseration (Guantanamo Bay, Alligator Alcatraz). But they cut across all of the above - cheap, shoddy construction and overcrowded facilities, more poor families and migrants without access to legal counsel, more young people who are considered a higher flight/fight risk.
I’m all for making prisons better. I’m really tired of nutpicking the worst criminal you can find and declaring “This person should be getting tetnus every time they use the toilet”.
Federal prisons are historically better managed and run than state and local prisons because
(a) Feds maintain a significantly smaller inmate population, so there’s a lower instance of overcrowding and fewer facilities to manage. The funding per-capita is higher, which affords individual inmates better living conditions and more amenities.
(b) Federal prisons tend to hold more white-collar criminals who can also afford the kind of legal counsel that both discourages the abuses common to state and local prisons and fast-tracks them for early release on good behavior. The end result is a population that is both treated well and well-behaved, leading to fewer instances of the kind of prison violence we glamorize on TV and in the movies.
© Federal inmates tend to be older, resulting in the needs of the prisons being different - more services for geriatric patients, fewer needs for restraints or restrictions on activity.
This isn’t a situation unique to Ghislaine. It’s more a throw-back to how prisoned used to operate prior to the Reagan Era of mass incarceration and budget cutting. There are definitely more modern prisons that are geared towards immiseration (Guantanamo Bay, Alligator Alcatraz). But they cut across all of the above - cheap, shoddy construction and overcrowded facilities, more poor families and migrants without access to legal counsel, more young people who are considered a higher flight/fight risk.