What is the PLRA and Who Does it Really Help?

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) was enacted in 1996 (Welch, 2011.). The purpose of the PLRA is to restrict prisoners’ ability to file cases against those in the system, with the courts. It requires prisoners exhaust the institutions’ (in question) grievance solution policies, paying filing fees (that at a prison salary could take decades to pay/save for), (“No Equal Justice”, 2016), and added a physical injury requirement to mental and physical abuse claims.

The PLRA was created as a solution to the flood of suits being filled by inmates that were seen to be frivolous and clogging up the system (Snyder, Erin. 2016). Shortly after the courts attention was drawn to the squalid and inhumane living conditions in jails and prisons, the courts went about trying to correct the issues (Borchardt, Derek. 2016.) After the courts sweep in the 60s and 70s, prisoners were told clearly, that “the Iron Curtain was lifted” (Borchardt, 2016) and they had a legal right to file suits against those mistreating them or violating their rights in any other way. And file suits they did. Everything from abuse by staff, deplorable living conditions, rape, overcrowding, safety concerns, to bad hair cuts and complaints of melted ice cream (“No Equal Justice”. 2016).

The PLRA applies to cases regarding policy and institution reform, and has a short list of guidelines that can be used to prevent a case from being filed in the first place (get it denied before it takes up much of the courts time and energy). First, a prisoner must exhaust all levels of grievance resolution offered by the institution before filing. A prisoner must file written complaints to officials within the institution they are complaining about. If that fails, they must then appeal to higher officials if applicable, and continue on, until there is no where left to go besides the courts. This alone can take years to complete. Failing to exhaust these routs will result in the case filing being denied before anything in the complaint is addressed. The PLRA allows for judges to dismiss cases early on; the case is considered frivolous, or the filing was not written properly if: the complaint is not clearly stated and outlined, and/or the parties involved are not properly identified and listed. So, if someone in the system, with no legal training, and limited resources, does not write a complaint filing exactly right, they will be denied.

After going through all the prerequisite steps within the institution in question, and wording the complaint to the courts correctly, the prisoner must then contend with the filing fee of about $400 (this fee is charged with each attempt to file). While a prisoner can request the fee waived or to pay it in monthly installments, there are conditions. If the prisoner has had a previous case that was dismissed or deemed frivolous (regardless the time span they encompass) they are each considered a strike. The fee can not be waived if there have been three or more strikes, and the prisoner must pay in full, prior to filing (unless there is imminent risk of harm to the prisoner for the resulting delay).

Prisoners are constitutionally guaranteed access to filing claims in their own defense. However, if one is filing a claim of abuse, ‘physical’ abuse is required across the board. All mental and emotional abuse claims are required to be accompanied by evidence of ‘physical abuse’ in order to even be heard. By definition, emotional and psychological abuse lacks physical evidence.

There are those who see the PLRA as a solution to those that would abuse the ‘right to file suits’. There are those that see the PLRA as a way to, in part, replace the Iron Curtain; allowing the courts to ignore prisoner’s plights and discourage them from speaking up. There are those who see the PLAR as a needed ‘work in progress’. While the courts are overloaded with cases as it is, there is no justification for effectively silencing people from speaking out against injustice, no mater their station in life.

When you make being so much as heard an obstacle course of time, money, patients and procedures, you are inhibiting ones equal justice rights. Yet, the prisoners are expected to be properly heard, in the prison whose policies or staff they are complaining about. Moving on to the next step of filing in court can be stretched out to whatever the institution in question’s individual time/response rules are. Should the institution set its time frame to address an issue at 30 days, and have say three levels (supervising guards, other officials ((non officers, officer’s supervisors)), and warden), and an appeal process, it is feasible that it could take a year or more to exhausts all avenues in a ‘timely manner’.

The one policy in the PLRA I see as flat out wrong, is requiring physical attachment to mental and emotional abuse. This is a glaring loop-hole that allows for abuse, so long as there is no physical record. Mental and emotional abuse can be just as, if not more, damaging than physical abuse. Especially when it is near, if not outright, impossible to ‘ask for help’. Any allegation of abuse should have an open, accessible, and reliable path to be reported/addressed.

Prisoners have every right to access the courts, to file suits on their own behalf. While I believe the PLRA was intended to be a filter for the courts, not a tool to circumvent prisoner rights, I also feel it is easily corrupted and manipulated. I think there should be an ‘outside’ entity that reviews the cases, a third party. An entity that would review each case, and could do so for cases that had not ‘exhausted all avenues’ yet also, that could return filings due to errors (for correction) that would not count as strikes. A neutral entity that could help eliminate bias and ensure justice was better served.

References

A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual. New York: Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 1985. Web.

Borchardt, Derek. THE IRON CURTAIN REDRAWN BETWEEN PRISONERS AND THE CONSTITUTION (n.d.): n. Pag. 2016. Web.

“No Equal Justice.” Human Rights Watch. N.p., 16 June 2009. Web. 08 Feb. 2016.

Snyder, Erin. THE PRISON LITIGATION REFORM ACT (PLRA) (n.d.): n. Pag. 2016. Web.

Welch, Michael. Ironies of Imprisonment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2011. Print.

Jocelyn Johnson