Why Must the PLRA be Reformed ? :

• Physical Injury Requirement: Under the PLRA, prisoners can be raped and sexually assaulted
and not have access to the range of remedies available to most civil rights plaintiffs because some courts say they’ve suffered no “physical injury.” Other forms of cruel and unusual punishment, such as grossly unsanitary conditions and cavalier disregard of prisoners’ medical needs, also do not meet the “physical injury” requirement for such claims.

• Physical Injury Requirement: Many constitutional violations do not result in physical injuries. As a result of the PLRA’s “physical injury” requirement, courts, for example, often deny prisoners remedies for violations of their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion.

• Exhaustion Requirement: The PLRA’s exhaustion provisions require prisoners to exhaust their
facilities’ grievance process no matter how legitimate the reasons for failing to follow grievance procedures might be.

• Exhaustion Requirement: Prison and jail grievance systems have created a baffling maze in
which a barely literate, mentally ill, physically incapacitated, or juvenile prisoner’s procedural misstep in a facility’s informal grievance system forever bars even the most meritorious constitutional claims. Moreover, grievance deadlines are often a matter of days, with no exceptions for prisoners who are ill, hospitalized, traumatized or otherwise incapacitated.

• Exhaustion Requirement: Children and youth are even more vulnerable than adult prisoners to sexual abuse and other victimization, and are less likely to be to be aware of exhaustion
requirements and grievance procedures.

• Attorneys Fees Provision: The PLRA’s fee restrictions often make it cost-prohibitive for attorneys to represent prisoners. Ironically, this places greater burdens on courts to process cases in which prisoners, who are not conversant with the law and court rules, must represent
themselves.

• Prospective Relief Provision: Courts must be able to decide on the best remedies for constitutional violations, and their authority to ensure that violations do not happen again should not be curtailed when hearing cases brought by prisoners.

• Filing Fee Provision: The PLRA’s filing-fee provisions deter indigent prisoners whose constitutional rights have been violated from seeking the legal redress to which they are entitled.

• Three Strikes Provision: The PLRA’s “three strikes” provision effectively bars the filing of lawsuits by indigent prisoners who made mistakes in prior cases due to their lack of access to
counsel or legal training.

Congress Must Amend the PLRA as Follows :

1 Repeal the provision that prohibits prisoners from bringing lawsuits for mental or emotional
injury without demonstrating a “physical injury.” (Repeal 42 U.S. C. § 1997e(e).)

2. Amend the requirement for exhaustion of administrative remedies to require prisoners to present their claims to responsible prison officials before filing suit, and, if they fail to do so, require the court to stay the case for up to 90 days and return it to prison officials to provide them the opportunity to resolve the complaint administratively. (Amend 42 U.S. C. § 1997e(a).)

3. Restore judicial discretion to grant the same range of remedies in prisoners’ civil rights actions that they possess in other civil rights cases. (Repeal 18 U.S. C. § 3626.)

4. Allow prisoners who prevail on civil rights claims to recover reasonable attorney’s fees like
others whose civil rights have been violated. (Repeal 42 U.S. C. § 1997e(d).)

5. Allow indigent prisoners whose cases are found to state a valid claim at the preliminary screening stage to pay a partial filing fee rather than the full filing fee, now $350 in district courts and $450 in appellate courts. (Amend 28 U.S. C. § 1915(a), (b).)

6. Amend the “three-strikes provision” (which requires certain indigent prisoners who have previously had three cases dismissed to pay the full filing fee up front) by limiting it to prisoners who have had 3 lawsuits or appeals dismissed as malicious within the past 5 years. (Amend 28 U.S. C. § 1915(g).)

7. Repeal the provisions extending the PLRA to juveniles confined in juvenile facilities. (Amend 18 U.S. C. § 3626(g), 42 U.S. C. § 1997e(h), 28 U.S. C. § 1915(h), 28 U.S. C. § 1915A(c).)

For more details about SAVE’s proposed reforms CLICK HERE

COALITION TO STOP ABUSE AND VIOLENCE EVERYWHERE (S.A.V.E.)
Contact Jody Kent, 202/548-6617, jody@savecoalition.org