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information to assist in their appeals, and to procedures for filing grievances about prison
conditions.

However, the Prison Litigation Reform Act, passed in 1996, curtailed the courts’ authority
in responding to prisoners’ complaints amid a perceived excess of cases—in 1993 these
suits made up 23 percent of all civil filings in federal court. The act ordered that prisoners
exhaust all administrative remedies available before filing in federal court, and mandated
that all federal court orders in response to complaints would expire after two years.

Many American prisons are now overcrowded, as more criminals are sentenced to longer
terms and prison construction fails to keep pace with demand. In 2005, state prisons
nationwide housed between 101 and 116 percent of the prisoner capacity for which they
were originally designed. Federal prisons operated at 131 percent of capacity.29
Although prison conditions in the United States are generally superior to conditions in
many other countries, human rights advocates often criticize the system for failing to live
up to standards prescribed by U.S. law. In particular, violence in prisons, which has been
linked in several studies to overcrowding, is commonplace.

More than 20 percent of all prison and jail inmates report having been sexually assaulted
by a fellow inmate or guard.30 In 2004, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported 8,210
allegations of staff or inmate sexual violence. Many advocates for prison reform note that
additional assaults may go unreported because of fear of reprisal, shame, or mistrust of
prison staff. Although America generally treats rape as a serious crime, some experts
assert that the public has become desensitized to prison rape.31 In September 2003,
Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which called for an in-depth survey of
sexual violence in state and federal prisons. Congress in 2005 established the National
Prison Rape Elimination Commission to monitor prison conditions.
Prisoners frequently complain that they receive inadequate nutrition and medical
treatment. The Supreme Court set the standard for prison medical care in Estelle v.
Gamble (1976), finding that “deliberate indifference by prison personnel to a prisoner’s
serious illness or injury constitutes cruel and unusual punishment contravening the Eighth
Amendment.” State courts have held this decision to require diagnosis and treatment of
major medical conditions by qualified medical personnel. Nonetheless, medical care
continues to be a frequent subject of prisoner lawsuits.
Because some of their illnesses cause them to become disruptive or threatening, the
mentally ill are often imprisoned. One in six prisoners in the United States has a diagnosed
mental illness, and there are three times as many mentally-ill people in prisons as in
hospitals. Human Rights Watch reported in 2003 that prisons are ill-equipped to treat
mental illness, and that additional funding is necessary to ensure the proper treatment of
inmates.32
RICO. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), passed in 1970 as
part of a larger crime bill, was designed to prosecute individuals to whom no specific crime
could be attributed, but who headed an organization that engaged in illegal acts. Any
individual found to be operating an organization guilty of a “pattern of racketeering
activity,” such as extortion, bribery, homicide, or drug dealing, could be prosecuted under
the act.33 Throughout the 1970s, RICO was primarily used against the Mafia, its intended
target.

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