The Prison Litigation Explosion and the Long History of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, 1973–96

During the 1960s, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren expanded inmates' access to the federal courts. In response, imprisoned men and women educated themselves on the law and filed thousands of suits contesting prison practices and the conditions of their confinement. This paper examines how state and federal officials reshaped corrections policy in order to stem the tide of this litigation. Beginning in the 1970s, state officials from across the political spectrum worked to direct prisoners' complaints away from the courts by creating new administrative grievance procedures internal to prison systems. Thanks to North Carolina's U.S. Senators, this tactic became embedded in federal law with the passage of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) in 1980.

By examining the history of CRIPA, this paper helps to explain why harsh penal practices have persisted in America despite the promise of the prisoners' rights movement. While scholars have documented corrections officials' often violent responses to inmates' strikes and protests, I examine how prisoners' shifting relationship to the federal courts impacted their movement. CRIPA proved to be a mixed blessing for the nation's inmates. On one hand, the bill allowed the U.S. Department of Justice to file lawsuits against any state institution that violated the constitutional rights of its residents. On the other, the bill limited inmates' access to the courts by forcing them to exhaust state administrative remedies before filing suits. CRIPA supporters sought to remove legal tools from imprisoned activists' hands while allowing federal officials to control the pace of prison litigation. The long history of CRIPA thus demonstrates how Warren Court decisions that opened federal courtrooms to aggrieved inmates were subverted during the 1970s and 1980s, and it illuminates how civil rights are enforced and transformed through complex interactions between activists, lawmakers, administrators, and judges.