USA: ACLU files lawsuit against state over prison conditions

ACLU drew a line in the sand for Nebraska prisons. They’ve crossed it.

Crowded prisons and a shortage of corrections officers and mental health workers have created a humanitarian crisis, ACLU of Nebraska officials say.

They describe prisoners sleeping in hallways, or double-bunked in cells the size of a parking space, deprived of needed health care or of basic accommodations for deafness or blindness or other disabilities.

They report inmates suffering and dying from treatable medical conditions, and injuries and deaths in violence that erupts within the prisons.

The organization, working in conjunction with local and national attorneys, made good Wednesday on a long-term promise to force prison improvements by way of the courts, if it couldn’t get them for their clients in any other way.

“We view it as historic litigation,” said ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad. “We view it … as laying down a marker in Nebraska state history, saying: ‘No more. This is where the trajectory changes and we come together and take a fresh look at policy reform.’”

The ACLU filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of Nebraska inmates early Wednesday in U.S. District Court, saying the prisons have reached a state of chaos that daily endangers the health, safety and lives of prisoners and staff.

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