BUNKER HILL, Ind. — Six men incarcerated at Miami Correctional Facility Isolation Unit said complaints of harsh conditions where they sustained multiple injuries - from electrical currents, cuts from broken glass, and exposure to elements during 23-hour periods of isolation - were repeatedly ignored by prison officials.
Now, The ACLU of Indiana said they have filed lawsuits on behalf of those six inmates who were incarcerated at the facility.
The men said the treatment happened while they were assigned to the facility's restrictive housing unit. According to the lawsuits, the men were held in isolation, in pitch-black cells for over 23 hours a day where they endured harsh conditions and injuries.
Injuries sustained during those periods in isolation, the ACLU of Indiana said, included frequent electric shocks from dangling live wire, cuts from broken glass, and exposure to cold due to a broken window.
The ACLU of Indiana also said one man was injured when a 100-lb light fixture fell, striking him in the head.
The lawsuits assert prison officials were aware of decaying conditions within the facility, yet failed to repair the hazards or mitigate the harms they caused.
The ACLU of Indiana said the men filed multiple grievances, but those went ignored.
That, the lawsuit says, violated The Eighth Amendment - which requires incarcerated people to receive the minimal civilized measures of life's necessities.
“The horrifying stories emerging from Miami Correctional Facility’s isolation unit shock the conscience and violate the Constitution," Kenneth J. Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said in a statement. "In case after case, prison officials subjected these men to brutal conditions no human being should ever experience – knowing full well the pain and trauma they were inflicting. Imagine being trapped in a small dark room where you were subject to being shocked by live electrical wires every time you attempted to move – we wouldn’t tolerate animals being held in such horrifying conditions, how can we tolerate them for people? ”
Plaintiffs William Anderson, Charles Lyons, Anthony Parish, Jeremy Blanchard, Gerald Reed and Jeffery Wagner allege the Miami Correctional Facility deliberately ignored the horrific conditions they were held in.
The lawsuits assert that prison officials violated the plaintiffs’ Eighth Amendment rights and is liable for compensatory and punitive damages.
