Lucasville

time bombs

Criminals are bred there, judge told

CINCINNATI (/P) Inmatest of the Lucasville prison are "2,300 time bombs walking around with no way to release their energies," a Cleveland lawyer told the U.S. District Court here yesterday.

"Their recreation is to create violence against one another," lawyePher D. Stanley said in his closing argument in the inmates' class action seeking early releases to reduce the prison's population to about 1,600.

They contend overcrowding has brought on sordid conditions that violate their constitutional * rights.

"The facility breeds criminals," Stanley declared. "These people are not angels, but they deserve to be reasonably protected from cruel and unusual punishment.

"In this society, we cannot just lock them up. and throw away the key."

The inmates' lawyer reviewed testimony in the hearings about prisoners being sold by inmates at auction to other prisoners for various purposes, including homosexual activity, and prisoners being forced to submit to the whims of cellmates in order to avoid being-hurt.⠀⠀

US. District Judge Timothy Hogan questioned how far the state's liability went in protecting prisoners.

"Does the state have to lock up each prisoner separately and ensure that no harm is done during prison sentences?" Hogan asked Stanley. "We are not insuring law-abiding citizens against violence.

"Isn't it really a question of degree, of when is too much?"

The judge likewise questioned how much the state could do to prevent idleness, which Stanley contended is a major factor in contributing to violence.

Many prisoners often spend their entire day either in their cell or in crowded dayrooms, Stanley said.

Hogan replied, "Here in a free society, we've spent billions of dollars trying to keep people working and the only thing we've accomplished is that more people are out of work than when we started.

"How are we going to keep people in prison working? Isn't there idleness in prison just as there is idleness in Cincinnati?"

Lawyers for the state argued that Lucasville prison officials could not be held to any hard and fast prison population, and contended that violence had in fact gone down since 1975.