ACLU Challenges Overcrowding in Women’s Prison

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-5915 ext. 1002
Maureen Sanders, ACLU-NM Legal Co-Director, 980-8889

Santa Fe—Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico filed legal papers Tuesday asking a state court to force NM Corrections Secretary Joe Williams to relieve overcrowding in the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility in Grants. According to the ACLU, inmates are being housed in public communal areas that are not designed for long-term custody, causing increased tensions and fighting among inmates and the backup of sewage into living areas. NM Representative Mimi Stewart and the New Mexico Women’s Justice Project have joined the ACLU in the lawsuit.

“We gave the Corrections Department every opportunity to fix the situation and it failed to relieve the overcrowding,” said ACLU executive director Peter Simonson. “The current conditions seriously threaten the health and safety of the inmates and of the staff. If it takes a court order to force the DOC to resolve the problem, then so be it.”

Specifically, the ACLU is demanding that the Department of Corrections comply with a state law called the Corrections Population Control Act, passed by the NM legislature in 2002. When the inmate population of a correctional facility “exceeds one hundred percent of rated capacity” for a period of sixty consecutive days, the law requires the Corrections Secretary to notify a special legislatively-created commission and provide it with a list of nonviolent offenders who are within one hundred eighty days of their projected release date. The Commission is required to approve people on this list for emergency release to relieve population pressures within the facility.

ACLU legal co-director Maureen Sanders said, “Our records show that the population at the women’s prison has exceeded the six-hundred-person capacity by sixty inmates for more than sixty days. The Secretary has a legal obligation to convene the commission, or he is short-circuiting the wishes of the legislature. The legislature acted responsibly in addressing the overpopulation problem and the safety problems that result by requiring that nonviolent offenders be released. As a society we have a responsibility to ensure that our inmates are housed in safe facilities.”

The ACLU expects that the court will set a hearing within the next ten days.

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Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: 266-5916