29 Years of the Prison Litigation Reform Act
Mr. Rey at his HVAC graduation with his mother, sister, and his late father, ==
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), enacted in 1996, was intended to curb frivolous lawsuits from individuals who are incarcerated. The PLRA blocks claims primarily through three particular provisions—the exhaustion provision, the three strikes provision, and the physical injury provision. But over the past 29 years, the PLRA has served more as a barrier to justice, robbing people in prison of the opportunity to present legitimate grievances in court.
Why the PLRA Matters
“Congress passed the PLRA because the federal courts complained that they were being inundated by civil rights lawsuits brought by incarcerated plaintiffs. From 1980 to 1995, the U.S. prison and jail population more than tripled, while the federal judiciary—the branch entrusted with oversight of our nation’s prisons and jails—grew at a snail’s pace. Even so, the rate of filing stayed relatively consistent. Incarcerated people weren’t becoming more litigious—there were simply more of them.
Judged against the goal of reducing prisoner litigation, the PLRA worked: In the year after the PLRA was enacted, the rate of civil rights lawsuits filed by incarcerated plaintiffs fell by nearly half. But if the goal was to somehow weed out “frivolous” lawsuits in favor of meritorious claims, then, presumably, there would have been at least some increase in the rate of successful civil rights lawsuits by incarcerated plaintiffs. Not so. Instead, the success rate of civil rights lawsuits for incarcerated plaintiffs steadily dropped after the enactment of the PLRA and despite a recent uptick is nearly identical to the success rate pre-PLRA.
Instead of preserving judicial resources, the PLRA has helped to preserve cruel and inhumane conditions inside America’s prisons and jails. With the courthouse doors effectively closed, incarcerated people have few means to challenge or expose the dire conditions in which they are forced to live. Lawsuits offer more than a legal remedy. They also create a public record, providing essential information about an environment that is otherwise literally walled off from public view. Without access to courts, not only are individual harms never redressed, but broader systemic reform remains out of reach. Dangerous living conditions, the psychological horrors of solitary confinement, beatings and rape, disastrous healthcare—all are concealed from view and persist unchecked.”
— Excerpt from “How The Prison Litigation Reform Act Has Failed For 25 Years” in the Appeal authored by Emily Clark , Daniel Greenfield, and Easha Anand
Read the full article here
MJC’s Casework Linked to the PLRA
Williams v. Hall
Mr. Williams reported his rape, and that report should have been confidential. But prison staff told the gang that Mr. Williams had “snitched” on them, and the gang took revenge on Mr. Williams—enabled by prison officials.
Mr. Williams tried to sue to vindicate his constitutional rights. But the district court dismissed his case in part because it found that he had not met the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s requirement that he suffer from a “physical injury” or have been the victim of a “sexual act.”
We’re proud to report that the Sixth Circuit agreed that the district court was wrong to throw out Mr. Williams’s case.
Griffin v. Bryant
Matthew Griffin was seriously injured when North Carolina prison officials denied him accommodations for his diagnosed vision impairment, sedated him against his will, left him alone despite his calls for help and denied him much-needed medical attention when he fell to the ground and dislocated his shoulder.
When Mr. Griffin attempted to use the prison’s grievance system to complain about his involuntary sedation and the injury he suffered as a result, prison officials denied his grievance not because it lacked merit but because the prison kept a grievance Mr. Griffin filed pending, blocking his ability to submit the new grievance until the deadline to do so passed.
Simms v. Edwards
Dejwan Simms suffered a life-threatening medical crisis after two corrections officers ignored his urgent need for care so they could get off work on time. A district court tossed out his pro se Eighth Amendment lawsuit on the ground that he had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies—even though he filed a timely health care grievance with the prison, timely appealed its rejection, and complied with every instruction they gave him thereafter.
The MacArthur Justice Center, along with our partners at Morrison Foerster, is fighting to overturn the district court’s erroneous decision and ensure that Mr. Simms and others like him receive their day in court.