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America's 10 Worst Prisons: Dishonorable Mentions

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:00:06 +0000

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

Last of 11 parts.

Serving time in prison is not supposed to be pleasant. Nor, however, is it supposed to include being raped by fellow prisoners or staff, beaten by guards for the slightest provocation, driven mad by long-term solitary confinement, or killed off by medical neglect. These are the fates of thousands of prisoners every year—men, women, and children housed in lockups that give Gitmo and Abu Ghraib a run for their money.

While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. These dishonorable mentions make up the final installment of our 11-part series, a subjective ranking based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy.

The uprising made headlines in 1971. NYSL archives

Attica Correctional Facility (Attica, New York): More than four decades after its famous uprising, New York's worst state prison still lives up to its brutal history. According to the Correctional Association of New York, which has a legislative mandate to track prison conditions, Attica is plagued by staff-on-prisoner violence, intimidation, and sexual abuse.

Communications Management Units (Marion, Illinois, and Terre Haute, Indiana): These two federal prisons-within-prisons, whose populations are more than two-thirds Muslim, were opened secretly by the Bureau of Prisons during the Bush administration, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is challenging the facilities in a federal lawsuit. "The Bureau claims that CMUs are designed to hold dangerous terrorists and other high-risk inmates, requiring heightened monitoring of their external and internal communications," notes a lawsuit fact sheet. "Many prisoners, however, are sent to these isolation units for their constitutionally protected religious beliefs, unpopular political views, or in retaliation for challenging poor treatment or other rights violations in the federal prison system." (Also see: Pelican Bay.)

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: Rikers Island

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:00:15 +0000

One lawsuit cites a "deeply entrenched" pattern of violence by guards. USGS/Wikipedia Commons

Part 10 of an 11-part series.

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. Our subjective ranking was based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy. Last, but certainly not least, on our list of bad actors is a dismal facility where the guards allegedly run amok. Our series wraps up tomorrow with a handful of dishonorable mentions.

Rikers Island (New York City)

Number of inmates: ~10,000 (capacity ~15,000)

Who's in charge: Evelyn A. Mirabal, chief; Dora Schriro, commissioner, of the New York City Department of Corrections

The basics: When it comes to ignominies, New York City's island jail complex has it all: inmate violence, staff brutality, rape, abuse of adolescents and the mentally ill, and one of the nation's highest rates of solitary confinement. Rikers, which hosts 10 separate jails, has been the target of dozens of lawsuits and numerous exposés. Yet the East River island remains a dismal and dangerous place for the 12,000 or more men, women, and children held there on any given day—mostly pretrial defendants who can't make bail and nonviolent offenders with sentences too short to ship them upstate.

The backlash: In 2008, 18-year-old Christopher Robinson, who had violated his probation for a juvenile robbery offense, was beaten and stomped to death in his cell in Rikers youth unit. An investigation revealed that the killers, two fellow prisoners, were part of what was known as "the program," described by the Bronx DA as a "secret society run by correctional officers at Rikers Island to extort and beat other inmates," supposedly in the name of maintaining order. Two of the facility's guards pleaded guilty to assault and to charges related to running the extortion program—see the TV report below—although the DA presented no evidence connecting them to Robinson's death.

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: Walnut Grove

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:14 +0000

The youth prison's record on rape was the worst "of any facility anywhere in the nation." Richard Ross, Juvenile-in-Justice

Part 9 of an 11-part series.

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

We will roll out the final contenders this week, complete with photos and video. Number 9 is a corporate-run facility where children allegedly have been subjected to a heartrending pattern of brutal beatings, rapes, and isolation.

Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Leake County, Mississippi)

Number of prisoners: Capacity 1,450 (actual population in flux)

Who's in charge: (current) Lawrence Mack, warden; (former) George Zoley, CEO, the GEO Group; Christopher B. Epps, commissioner, Mississippi Department of Corrections

The basics: Efforts are underway to clean up and clear out Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, which one federal judge called "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts" visited upon children as young as 13. For years, the kids at Walnut Grove were subjected to a gauntlet of physical and sexual assaults, and psychological abuse including long-term solitary confinement. All of this took place under the management of private prison conglomerate the GEO Group.

The backlash: Evidence gathered for a report by the Justice Department and a lawsuit by the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center "paints a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world," Federal District Judge Carleton Reeves wrote in a 2012 court order. The court found that conditions at Walnut Grove violated the Constitution, not to mention state and federal civil and criminal laws. Guards regularly had sex with their young charges and the facility's pattern of "brutal" rapes among prisoners was the worst of "any facility anywhere in the nation" (court's emphasis). Guards also were deemed excessively violent—beating, kicking, and punching "handcuffed and defenseless" youths and frequently subjecting them to chemical restraints such as pepper spray, even for insignificant infractions.

The guards also sold drugs on site and staged "gladiator-style" fights. "It'd be like setting up a fight deal like you would with two dogs," one former resident told NPR. "They actually bet on it. It was payday for the guards." Said another: "A lot of times, the guards are in the same gang. If the inmates wanted something done, they got it. If they wanted a cell popped open to handle some business about fighting or something like that, it just pretty much happened.” Kids who complained or tried to report these incidents faced harsh retribution, including long stints in solitary.

Judge Reeves wrote that the state had turned a blind eye to the prison company’s abuses: Walnut Grove's charges, "some of whom are mere children, are at risk every minute, every hour, every day." In accord with a court decree, the facility's youngest residents have been moved to a state-run juvenile facility, and Mississippi canceled its contract with GEO—which still runs some 65 prisons nationwide. The contract was handed over to another private prison company, Management and Training Corporation, which also has been a target of criticism for advocates of criminal justice reform.

Also read: "The Lost Boys," about what happens when you put kids in an adult isolation facility.

Watch: Local news report on a protest by Walnut Grove parents.

Next prison: An island prison where guards allegedly "use unlawful, excessive force with impunity."

Read more: America's 10 Worst Prisons index page.

Research for this project was supported by a grant from the Investigative Fund and The Nation Institute, as well as a Soros Justice Media Fellowship from the Open Society Foundations. Additional reporting by Beth Broyles, Valeria Monfrini, Katie Rose Quandt, and Sal Rodriguez.

America's 10 Worst Prisons: Reeves County

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:00:11 +0000

Burning down the Big House: Abysmal health care sparked riots at Reeves.
AP Photo/Pecos Enterprise, Smokey Briggs

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

Part 8 of 11 parts.

While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. We've compiled this subjective list of America's 10 worst lockups (plus a handful of dishonorable mentions) based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with criminal-justice reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy. We will roll out the remaining contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Number 8 on our list is a corporate-managed Texas facility where Tylenol apparently passes for significant medical treatment.

Reeves County Detention Complex (Pecos, Texas)

Number of prisoners: ~3,750

Who's in charge: Dwight Sims, (former) warden; George Zoley, CEO, the GEO Group; Matthew Nace, Chief, BOP Acquisitions Branch

The basics: Reeves houses so-called criminal aliens, held for various types of nonviolent violations—some three-quarters of them are held there merely for entering the country without permission. Like thousands of other migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they have been placed in the hands of a private prison company under contract with the Bureau of Prisons. The GEO Group, which operates Reeves, proudly declares itself "the largest detention/correctional facility under private management in the world."

Border Patrol agents stood watch during the riots. Dept. of Homeland Security

Overcrowded and understaffed, Reeves has a reputation for horrifically inadequate medical care. In 2008, an epileptic 32-year-old detainee named Jesus Manuel Galindo died of a seizure in his solitary confinement cell. His death, on the heels of at least four others at Reeves over the previous two years, followed repeated pleas from Galindo, his family, and fellow inmates to provide him with effective medication—the prison medical staff only offered him Tylenol—and to move him out of isolation so he could get help quickly when he had seizures.

The sight of Galindo's body being carried out of the prison in what appeared to be a plastic garbage bag sparked the first of several riots in which detainees took hostages and set fire to parts of the mammoth detention complex.

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: Julia Tutwiler

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Thu, 09 May 2013 10:00:10 +0000

Killing time in a Tutwiler prison dormitory. Robin Nelson/ZumaPress.com

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

Part 7 in an 11-part series.

While there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not all of the facilities described in this series have all of the problems we explore, some stand out as particularly bad actors. We've compiled this subjective list of America's 10 worst lockups (plus a handful of dishonorable mentions) based on three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with criminal-justice reform advocates concerning the penal facilities with the grimmest claims to infamy. We will be rolling the remaining contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Our seventh contender is an Alabama women's facility where guards impregnate inmates and federal consultants report an environment that's "repressive and intimidating."

Julia Tutwiler Prison (Wetumpka, Alabama)

Number of inmates: 400

Who's in charge: Bobby Barrett, warden (recently replaced longtime warden Frank Albright); Kim Thomas, commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections

The basics: This maximum-security lockup near Montgomery includes women's death row. For decades, it also included a special segregation unit for the quarantine of female prisoners with HIV. Under a policy that echoed both the pre-civil-rights-era South and the AIDS panic of the 1980s, women prisoners who tested positive in Alabama were quarantined from the general prison population and barred from most work, education, rehab, and mental health treatment programs. In a letter to the warden, one woman wrote that prisoners were treated "like we are contagious animals…It's like punishment 3 times over. Prison, the virus, then the denial of an education, or trade. We are secluded from everyday life."

Tutwiler guards have raped and impregnated prisoners. Rivers Langley/Wikipedia Commons

Women in all sections of Tutwiler face the prospect of sexual abuse, including rape by prison staff, according to a complaint filed with the US Justice Department by the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative (PDF). From 2009 through 2011, six Tutwiler employees were indicted on charges of custodial sexual misconduct or custodial sexual abuse. (All pled guilty, but only two served time.)

Several Tutwiler prisoners have become pregnant after being raped by guards. And women who complained about staff abuse were often placed in solitary. The women of Tutwiler, EJI executive director Bryan Stevenson told Birmingham TV station WBRC, live with "this fear that you're always at risk, that it's not safe to take a shower, that it's not safe to go to sleep when certain officers are in the dorm, that you can be extorted, that you can be manipulated into sexual favors, it's really horrific."

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: Pelican Bay

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Wed, 08 May 2013 10:00:08 +0000

Lush surroundings, which those in solitary may never see California Department of Corrections

Part 6 in an 11-part series.

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

We will be rolling out the remaining profiles in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Our sixth contender is a California fortress of isolation where it's easy to find yourself in the hole, and extremely hard to get out of it.

Pelican Bay State Prison (Crescent City, California)

Number of prisoners: 3,500 (1,500 in solitary)

Who's in charge: Greg Lewis, warden; Jeffrey Beard, secretary, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

The basics: California leads the nation both in its overall prison population and in the number of prisoners in solitary confinement—about 11,000 men and women on any given day. At Pelican Bay, the state's first and most notorious supermax, the 1,500 occupants of the Security Housing Unit (SHU) and Administrative Housing Unit spend 22.5 hours a day alone in windowless cells measuring about 7 x 11 feet. The remaining 90 minutes are spent, also alone, in bare concrete exercise pens. With no phone calls allowed, and only the rare noncontact visit, these prisoners, like those at ADX and Texas' Allan Polunsky Unit, can only access the world outside their cells via their "feeding slots." And their only interactions with fellow prisoners consists of shouting through steel mesh—until the guards order them to shut up.

Desk area of Pelican Bay SHU cell. Todd Ashker

More than 500 Pelican Bay prisoners have lived in the SHU in excess of a decade, nearly 80 have been there for more than two decades, and one prisoner recently marked his 40th year in solitary. Two-thirds of these prisoners are serving indeterminate stints in the hole—not because of any misbehavior, but because corrections staff have labeled them gang members or "associates."

A 2012 Mother Jones investigation by Shane Bauer found that many of the racially charged gang "validations" were based on the prisoners' reading materials (Karl Marx and George Jackson), writings (advocating prisoners' rights or "Afro-centric ideology"), and drawings (such as Aztec symbols). "One inmate's validation includes a Christmas card with stars drawn on it—alleged gang symbols—among Hershey's Kisses and a candy cane," Bauer wrote. Others are validated on the say-so of prisoners who snitch—which until very recently was one of the only ways to get out of the SHU. The other was to die.

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: LA County

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:15:25 +0000

The much-feared Twin Towers Wikipedia Commons

Part 5 in an 11-part series.

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

We will be rolling out the remaining contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Fifth on the list is a notorious Southern California institution whose residents live in fear of attacks by a "savage gang of deputies."

Men's Central Jail and Twin Towers Correctional Facility (Los Angeles)

Number of prisoners: 9,500 combined

Who's in charge: Ralph G. Ornelas and Randal J. Stover, jail captains; Lee Baca, LA County sheriff

The basics: "To be an inmate in the Los Angeles County jails is to fear attacks" by a "savage gang of deputies," explains an extensive 2011 report (PDF) from the American Civil Liberties Union, which processes about 4,500 complaints each year from inmates of the nation's largest jail system. Packed at the best of times, Twin Towers and Men's Central are overflowing with prisoners transferred there from overcrowded California prisons under the state's court-ordered reorganization scheme. Eyewitnesses, including several prison chaplains, have reported that attacks by deputies at the twin facilities are often unprovoked or brought on by the slightest infractions. Additional deputies often pile on, sometimes after being alerted to the action on their walkie-talkies.

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: NOLA

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:00:06 +0000

Video still of an an Orleans Parish prisoner handling a loaded gun NOLA.com

Part 4 of 11 parts.

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

We will be rolling out more prison profiles in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Today let's head over to the Big Easy to visit what the Justice Department has deemed a "violent and dangerous institution."

Orleans Parish Prison (New Orleans)

Number of prisoners: 3,400

Who's in charge: Major Kevin Winfield, warden; Marlin N. Gusman, Orleans Parish sheriff

The OPP yard. Bart Everson/Flickr

The basics: New Orleans' barbaric city jail first hit the national radar after Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of inmates were abandoned for days in flooded cells without food, water, ventilation, or electricity—some of them were "standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests," according to the ACLU. But OPP's problems neither began with Katrina nor ended in the storm's wake, when prisoners were taken back to the surviving buildings.

Almost half of all prisoners at OPP are pretrial, accused but not convicted of crimes. Yet a stint here can be a de facto death sentence. According to investigations by the Justice Department, in the past two years, at least two inmates have managed to kill themselves while on suicide watch—one of them by stuffing toilet paper into his mouth until he suffocated. A third died while being held in five-point restraints. A fourth was found dead after allegedly being beaten and pepper sprayed (PDF). Prisoners also say that the guards supply them with drugs, and will often stand by during a melee and let inmates fight themselves bloody, according to a criminal defense attorney who served time at OPP himself.

In an interview with Mother Jones, Sheriff Gusman and jail doctor Samuel Gore disputed some of these details. In the pepper-spray incident, they contend, the man died three or four days afterward, and not as a result of his altercation: "The autopsy was clear," Gore says. "It was not a violent death. There was just minor bruises and minor abrasions." The restrained woman, the doctor says, was acting beligerent, spitting at deputies and "voicing suicidal ideations." She had slipped her restraints and then, as staffers tried to put her back into them, stopped breathing and went "flaccid." She was resuscitated and taken to the hospital where she died—the cause was not determined. As for guards supplying drugs, Gusman said: "We have a zero-tolerance drug policy here. We looked at our records. Last time we arrested an employee was in 2011. Does it happen? Can it happen? Sure, it can happen. We take it very seriously."

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: Tent City

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:00:13 +0000

Tent City is Joe Arapaio's baby. Jack Kurtz/ZumaPress.com

Part 3 in an 11-part series.

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

We will be rolling out profiles of all of the contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Our third contender you're probably already familiar with, thanks to a proudly defiant boss who takes pride in humiliating his heavily Latino jail population, and pinching pennies at the expense of their humane treatment.

Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

Number of prisoners: ~2,000

Who's in charge: Joe Arpaio, warden and sheriff of Maricopa County

The basics: No jail is more closely associated with its jailer than Tent City, the 20-year-old brainchild of Maricopa County's infamous tough-guy sheriff Joe Arpaio. In 1993, to save the county the cost of building a new jail, Arpaio set up hundreds of Army surplus tents from the Korean War era and used them to house prisoners. Tent City residents now number more than 2,000, most of them awaiting trial. (See this county press release (PDF) for an event celebrating its 20th year.) The tents are unheated in winter and uncooled in summer—temperatures inside them have been clocked as high as 145 degrees. A few permanent buildings suffice for showers and meals, and a guard tower displays a permanent "vacancy" sign, warning passersby to stay in line. Arpaio himself has called the place a "concentration camp," while Tent City's prisoners have gone so far as to cobble together a survival guide.

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America's 10 Worst Prisons: Polunsky

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella — Thu, 02 May 2013 10:00:10 +0000

Last stop for condemned Texans. Minutes Before Six

Part 2 in an 11-part series.

#1: ADX (federal supermax)

#2: Allan B. Polunsky Unit (Texas)

#3: Tent City Jail (Phoenix)

#4: Orleans Parish (Louisiana)

#5: LA County Jail (Los Angeles)

#6: Pelican Bay (California)

#7: Julia Tutwiler (Alabama)

#8: Reeves Country Detention Complex (Texas)

#9: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (Mississippi)

#10: Rikers Island (New York City)

#11: 7 Dishonorable Mentions

Read the complete introduction to our 10 Worst Prisons project.

We will be rolling out profiles of all of the contenders in the coming days, complete with photos and video. Now let's head on down to Texas to visit our second contender, where condemned men (even severely mentally ill ones) spend their final years under what are arguably the nation's harshest death-row conditions.

Allan B. Polunsky Unit, a.k.a. death row (Livingston, Texas)

Number of prisoners: ~300

Who's in charge: Richard Alford, former warden at Polunksy, he now oversees all the region's prisons; Oliver Bell, chairman, Texas Board of Criminal Justice

A typical cell at Polunsky. Minutes Before Six

The basics: "The most lethal [death row] anywhere in the democratic world" is also probably "the hardest place to do time in Texas," writes Robert Perkinson, author of the book TexasTough. Indeed, the all-solitary Allan B. Polunsky Unit houses condemned Texans under some of the nation's harshest death row conditions. The prisoners are housed in single cells on 22-hour-a-day lockdown, and even during their daily "recreation" hour, they are confined in separate cages. With no access to phones, televisions, contact visits, they remain in essentially a concrete tomb (PDF) until execution day—a stretch of at least three years for the mandatory appeals, and far longer if they opt to keep fighting. Some have been known to commit suicide or waive their appeals rather than continue living under such conditions.

The backlash: At Polunsky, the "emotional torture" of awaiting death in total isolation is "driving men out of their minds," former prisoner Anthony Graves told senators last year at the first-ever Judiciary Committee hearing on solitary confinement. "I would watch guys come to prison totally sane and in three years they don't live in the real world anymore," recalled Graves, who was exonerated in 2010, after spending more than 18 years on death row.

Graves detailed for the senators some of the profoundly erratic behavior of his fellow prisoners. "I know a guy who would sit in the middle of the floor, rip his sheet up, wrap it around himself, and light it on fire. Another guy…would take his feces and smear it all over his face as though he was in military combat."

This man, Graves added, was ruled competent for execution. While on the gurney, "he was babbling incoherently to the officers, 'I demand that you release me soldier, this is your captain speaking.' These were the words coming out of a man's mouth, who was driven insane by the prison conditions, as the poison was being pumped into his arms."

Another prisoner, a paranoid schizophrenic named Andre Thomas, scooped out his eye and ate it during his stay at Polunsky. He, too, remains on track for execution. It is perhaps no wonder that Dallas insurance executive Charles Terrell asked to have his name removed from the facility after it became death row.

Watch: Anthony Graves' Senate testimony:

Next prison: A facility with a "pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos."

View the whole series.