The Attica prison riot took place in September, 1971 at the Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York and lasted four days. It ended when 1,500 State Police and National Guardsmen stormed the complex, leaving 42 people dead, including 10 hostages ("Attica Prison Riot"). At the end of the riot, there were conflicting calls for tougher prisons on the one hand, and for prison reform to correct the abuses that had contributed to the riot on the other. In the immediate aftermath of the riot, a number of reforms were instituted. However, in the years since, politicians and administrators have responded to calls to be tougher on crime by incarcerating many more people, thus overcrowding many facilities; reducing any service that might be seen as "coddling" prisoners; reducing or eliminating prison education programs; and generally creating a situation that some see as dangerous and short-sighted.
A sociologist who worked with many of the inmates from the Attica riot discussed the question of reform with one and asked what the riot accomplished in the way of positive change. He found that many of the "reforms," both legal and administrative, were short-lived, such as "inmate self-government." Other changes included the lifting of censorship restrictions on prisoner correspondence, conjugal visits, and regular telephone access, and these continue and help ease the "pains of imprisonment." Still other reforms have disappeared only recently under recent political assault, such as New York's Prisoners' Legal Services. The reforms are seen as double-edged, however, softening many young felons, especially drug offenders, while introducing even more sophisticated means of state repression, such as the newer control units and maxi maxi prisons like New York's Southport prison and California's Pelican Bay (Weiss 81-83).
Prison policy is based in part on the prevailing theory of criminality, which for the last two decades has bee...