Although prisoners lose their right to go and do as they please, prisoners retain a right to safety, and there are state and federal laws that protect those rights. These laws also aim to prevent detention officers and officials from abusing or failing to protect the prisoners under their watch. Failure to protect is one of the ways prison officials can be deliberately indifferent and violate a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment rights.
What does “failure to protect” mean?
It’s common knowledge that jails and prisons are often dangerous places. And just because someone may have committed a crime does not mean they lose their basic rights to safety. Prisoner abuse typically involves a detention officer or staff member directly hurting a prisoner, often by using excessive force. Prisoner abuse can also include failing to take action to address a known risk to inmate health or safety. It can include things like denial of necessary medical care, or depriving them of food or other needs.
Failure to protect is when the detention officers and/or officials simply don’t protect the prisoners from violence or abuse despite being put on notice of a significant risk. When someone is in prison, they are at the mercy of the guards and rely on them for protection from other inmates. They have little control over their environment and are not allowed to protect or defend themselves the way they would outside of prison. Therefore, when put on notice, prison staff have a duty to take action in the face of known risks to inmate health or safety.
Prison officials may be violating the Eighth Amendment if they knew about a risk of assault by other prisoners but failed to respond, or if prison conditions or practices create an unreasonable risk of assault (for example, housing known enemies in the same pod together after one has made a threat against another).
Failure to protect includes failing to protect an inmate from:
- Themselves
- Other prisoners
- Hazardous conditions.
Failure to protect a prisoner from themselves
Prison is a harsh place, and prisoners can harm themselves just like others can harm them. Suicide remains a serious problem in jails and prisons. When an inmate expresses suicidal ideation or is otherwise at risk of harming or killing themselves, prison staff need to take that seriously. Prisoners should be provided with adequate mental health care, and prison staff should keep them on watch to be sure they don’t have access to things they might use to hurt themselves. But with any other Eighth Amendment claim, notice and deliberate indifference are required to prove a claim against specifically named individuals.
Estelle v. Gamble (1976) upholds a prisoner’s right to proper mental health care. The Supreme Court ruled that deliberate indifference to an inmate’s serious medical needs, including mental health treatment, can violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Failure to protect from other prisoners
Violence between prisoners is all too common, and the prison staff is responsible for ensuring the safety of the prisoners from each other. This may include conducting frequent searches to ensure prisoners aren’t hiding weapons in their cells. It also includes segregating prisoners who are of greater risk, such as sex offenders or high-profile inmates, and being aware of gangs and other threats. Unfortunately, many detention officers often ignore some of these risks and permit prisoners to be harmed or killed. If detention officers can be shown to be deliberately indifferent, there may be a claim.
The key case addressing a prison’s obligation to protect inmates from harm by other prisoners is Farmer v. Brennan (1994). The Supreme Court held that prison officials can be held liable if they are deliberately indifferent to known risks of harm posed by other inmates.
Failure to protect from hazardous conditions
In addition to the threat of violence, prisoners often face harm from the prison itself. Environmental conditions like excessive heat and humidity have become a problem for prisons in the southern states, particularly Texas. “With the threat of another hot summer ahead, advocates asked a federal judge to declare 100-degree-plus conditions in uncooled Texas facilities unconstitutional.” (The Texas Tribune, April 22, 2024). However, the conditions must be so poor that they represent a danger to inmates to be actionable.
Many prisons also have problems with hazardous conditions like unhealthy water, air, or living spaces. Examples include toxic coal ash at SCI Fayette, a maximum-security prison in LaBelle, Pennsylvania, or arsenic-laced water at the Wallace Pack Unit in Navasota, Texas (Earth Island Journal, America’s Toxic Prisons). Whether it’s from excessive heat or unsafe water, prison officials have the responsibility under the Constitution to protect the prisoners under their care. Failure to do so may violate the rights of prisoners under the Eighth Amendment.
Putting prison officials on notice
Generally, to pursue a claim for failure to protect, you must identify specific government actors who failed to take action to address a known risk and provide evidence that you suffered harm (including pain or other physical injury) as a result. To do that, you must ensure that correctional staff are put on notice of any pending threats that present a serious risk to your health or safety. Thus, for example, if another inmate has threatened you, you should submit a custody issue form/request through the proper channels and ask that you be housed apart while describing the threats posed. If you are housed with a member of a gang that has had past conflicts with you or any group you might be a member of, you should point out this information and why it could create a risk to you. If any of the requests are denied, you should submit written grievances describing why the decision should be overturned when evaluated by a higher-level official, while emphasizing the risks anticipated by the failure to act (i.e., explaining your fear about another inmate’s ability to find and carry out a threat made you while you share time in common/open areas, etc.).
There are typically three levels of grievance review possible, and you should take advantage of every opportunity to have an official advocate for you, while also creating a paper trail of those who may deny your requests. Each of those who review and respond could be potentially liable if they fail to take reasonable action in the face of known risks. Also, the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) requires prisoners to exhaust their administrative remedies before they can sue, which requires exhausting the grievance process.
How we can help
The Civil Rights Litigation Group is committed to protecting prisoners’ rights. Our firm specializes in civil rights cases. If you or a loved one’s rights were violated while in prison, and they suffered an injury due to correctional staff’s deliberate indifference, call us for a free consultation.
