Vol. 2, No. 11 (November, 1992) pp. 179-180
PRISONS UNDER THE GAVEL: THE FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF GEORGIA PRISONS
by Bradley Stewart Chilton. Columbus: Ohio State University
Press, 1991. 156 pp. Cloth $32.50.
Reviewed by Richard J. Richardson, Department of Political
Science, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
In this study we are reminded that courts in the United States
have increasingly undertaken the reform of public institutions,
including schools, mental facilities, public housing, and
prisons. Although such reforms are triggered by cases of
individual civil rights violations, they often result in major
structural changes in the institutions through remedial decrees
that reallocate budgetary resources.
Prisons have received the special attention of federal judges.
Early lawsuits began in the South and moved from Arkansas,
Mississippi, and Alabama to encompass thirty-eight states. Broad
and sweeping injunctions came from courts ordering changes in
prison sanitation, food, temperature, fire control and
ventilation. They have also changed security, discipline, racial
discrimination, over-crowding, libraries, religious freedom and
segregation.
Unlike most conventional adjudication, reform litigation is far
more complex, protracted and controversial. The present study
illustrates that remedial decrees require extensive negotiation
and active participation by the judge with the assistance of
special masters, monitors and experts. These teams are often
treated as hated federal adversaries by state officials. The
struggle to fix liability, craft remedies and measure compliance
is often done in the white heat of political wars, journalistic
commentary, and political careers laid on the line. The long
battles take on a life of their own, are seemingly interminable
and are full of drama. Draconian measures often follow showdowns
as when Judge Frank Johnson removed control of the Alabama
prisons from the corrections system and placed them under direct
receivership of the Governor.
PRISONS UNDER THE GAVEL: THE FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF GEORGIA PRISONS
by Bradley Stewart Chilton uses a detailed case study to explore
the nature of court-induced prison reform. In 1972, a lawsuit by
seven black inmates protesting living conditions at Georgia State
prison became the basis of Guthrie v. Evans. Over the course of
thirteen years, District Judge Anthony Alaimo ordered extensive
changes in all aspects of the prison's operations. From a simple
forma pauperis petition to a class action that found cruel and
unusual punishment, Guthrie had impact far beyond Georgia borders
in correctional practices and constitutional law.
Professor Chilton seeks to answer four interesting questions in
his study: (1) who were the key decision-makers in the Guthrie
case and how did they perceive the case and underlying issues;
(2) how did the budget for the Georgia State Prison change in the
course of litigation and what were the important factors in that
process; (3) what were the major remedies undertaken and how did
settlement patterns change in the course of litigation; (4)
finally, what rights undergirded the Guthrie litigation and what
does this tell us about institutional reform litigation (p. 9).
Two major sources supply the data for the study -- the extensive
court records, legal communications, monitors' report and other
archival materials supplemented by journalistic accounts from the
period and secondly, focused interviews with a number of the
primary participants in the case.
The book is organized with half (chapters 2-5) of the study a
chronological history of the Guthrie case. The second half
(chapters 6-7) looks to answering the questions noted above by
exploring perspectives of key decision-makers, budget policies,
remedial decrees and the nature of prisoners' constitutional
rights. The study concludes (chapter 8) with a critique of the
institutionalization of prisoner rights and a comparison of the
Guthrie case with other prison reform cases.
Chilton organizes his chronology along the lines of Phillip
Cooper's 1988 "internal dynamic case study" approach
which focuses "on the perspectives (internal) of key
decision-makers as they interact over time (dynamic) in the
formulation and implementation of remedial decrees." Using
Cooper's theoretical decree litigation model, Chilton divides his
chronology into four phases: trigger, liability, remedy and
post-decree. Although Cooper's model is a convenient organizing
scheme for the presentation of the Guthrie history, it does not
provide a strong theoretical basis for the study. Indeed, the
study's greatest weakness is its paucity of theory. The narrative
struggles in the first three chapters to get up to the tree line
and through the complex tangle of legal underbrush. Frankly, the
effort does not succeed. The author is an accomplished legal
observer, knowledgeable of the issues of law, court terminology,
jurisdiction, special monitors and court decrees. One also
assumes he is a sensitive student of court politics, but his
legal skills overcome his political analysis in the first half of
the study. Unless one has a very keen interest in this case, the
reader will find the case detail overwhelming and boring.
In the second half of the study, a more enlightened and
interesting analysis emerges. Thirty-six key decision-makers were
identified in the Guthrie case and Professor Chilton conducted
interviews with thirty-four of them. Although respondents are not
identified, their comments are illuminating, helping us to
understand the political and professional power struggles that
make up Guthrie. The personal and antagonistic comments are
intense and blunt and the case takes on vitality and meaning when
the participants reflect upon the battleground.
The author concludes with a useful analysis of the Guthrie case
in the context of other prison litigation. He observes that this
lawsuit, unlike many others, achieved desired change because the
judge followed a strategy of hard-bargained consent with judicial
pressure, but not judicial fiat.
This work has many of the limitations of single case studies, but
one feels certain that this young scholar has mastered this case
and has presented an objective and comprehensive narrative for
the record. With a growing body of judicial literature on
remedial decrees, we will soon be in a position to develop more
broadly based theory to guide future research.
Copyright 1992