Why do the cut this prisoner's clothes off?

January 3, 2011 3:51 PM

Why is this prisoner stripped naked during extraction from his cell? (Possible NSFW video inside.)

So I'm reading this article on supermax prisons, and it includes a YouTube video of a (mentally ill?) prisoner being extracted from his cell and put into some kind of restraining chair in a holding room. Between the extraction and the chair, the guards cut his clothes off him, so that he's totally naked by the end.

What is going on here? Is there any possible safety justification for the denuding, or is the point just to put him in a vulnerable state so he'll be easier to control?

posted by thehandsomecamel to Law & Government (11 answers total)

On TV (Lockup Raw), they seem to always indicate that the inmate could harm themselves with a piece of ordinary clothing. I guess to make a noose or something. They also show these smocks that the inmates wear with in psych detention.

Of course, this is all for the cameras, so it could be entirely different.
posted by lampshade at 3:55 PM on January 3, 2011

Response by poster: On TV (Lockup Raw), they seem to always indicate that the inmate could harm themselves with a piece of ordinary clothing. I guess to make a noose or something.

Hmmm. Interesting. But he's completely hand- and foot-cuffed, and then they strap him to a chair. I don't see how he could hang himself.

Also, to me it seems like it's a decision they make on the fly: around the 5:50 mark, he's calling them motherfuckers, and one of the guards says, "Why don't I just go get the scissors ready?" and someone else replies, "Yeah, go get the scissors." (Though I suppose that could be part of procedure, and they just wait until he's on the ground to introduce anything sharp onto the scene....)
posted by thehandsomecamel at 4:04 PM on January 3, 2011

It could be that he might harm himself by banging his head against the wall too, hence the restraint chair. I think the prisoners are always cuffed when put in the chair, but the removal of clothing seems a bit much.

If I ever get a chance to go to jail, I will make a ruckus and report back here.
posted by lampshade at 4:14 PM on January 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Criminals are notoriously crafty about where they hide contraband, including weapons, drugs and even cell phones. I'm assuming the stripdown is to ensure that the prisoner has nothing hidden in his clothes.

Note some prisoners are even adept at hiding contraband when naked.
posted by bitdamaged at 4:18 PM on January 3, 2011

Criminals are notoriously crafty about where they hide contraband, including weapons, drugs and even cell phones.

Especially the ones in Supermax prisons!

It's done to humiliate and "break" the prisoner to emphasize who's in control for both prisoner and guard.
posted by Max Power at 4:26 PM on January 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

At the beginning of the video, the officer says, "He's threatening to hang himself." You can hang yourself very well with ordinary clothing, and very quickly, too.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:10 PM on January 3, 2011

It's done to humiliate and "break" the prisoner to emphasize who's in control for both prisoner and guard.

I forget which study it was, but the conclusion was something along the lines of law enforcement will take every opportunity to assert dominance and do everything they can when they want to. But often times, which it is convenient for them, ignore many of the same rules (e.g., give a person who allegedly committed a crime preferential treatment [e.g., no perp walk, let off with a warning when applicable as opposed to a ticket, given a desk appearance ticket as opposed to an arrest, write up a report of a lesser crime, etc.], allow inmates to break rules, flat out look the other way, etc.)

In this case, the man speaking in the beginning mentions how the inmate was threatening to kill himself (thus the procedural reason for the removal of the clothes and the restraint chair) but that he got into an altercation with a guard, who sustained some sort of injury, (thus the procedural reason for any potential use of force). Of course, no guard there would ever have one of those "us versus them" mentalities and decide that for attacking the guard the prisoner needs to be brought down a notch and remember who is in charge and would use some sort of discretionary procedure to send that message.
posted by Brian Puccio at 5:15 PM on January 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

There are not many legal ways to punish a criminal in a supermax. The prisoners generally have only the bare minimum of legally-required privileges, so there's nothing you can threaten to take away. You can add time to their sentence, but that's not much of a threat to people doing 25+ years. So one of the ways they punish bad behavior is by busting in the cell, macing the prisoner into submission, cutting their clothes off, and restraining them to a chair. They do this in response to suicide threats, but they also do it for far more mundane reasons.

Also note that most forms of physical coercion are legal in a prison if you shout "stop resisting" while doing it.
posted by dephlogisticated at 6:09 PM on January 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: You can hang yourself very well with ordinary clothing, and very quickly, too.

Its super easy when you're cuffed shackled and chained to a chair!

At some point, he won't be. Note that the chair is in its own room. Presumably, you can be placed in this room without being in the chair.

I think maybe Max's point is that it's not clear why they feel he's a suicide risk in this situation. What he might do at another time isn't really relevant.

I think the core of the question is this: whether the guy I quoted above (about getting the scissors) is following a known, specific protocol for putting suicidal people in the chair/room, or whether it's an ad hoc punishment that guards are allowed to use whenever a prisoner is "resisting." It's possible we can't know this, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone with specific knowledge of corrections procedures.
posted by thehandsomecamel at 11:21 PM on January 3, 2011

Best answer: Well, my information only comes from a television show about prisons, so take it with a grain of salt. I think that you can only be kept in a restraining chair for a few hours, so there might be a reason they have to take his clothes off earlier rather than later - maybe there won't be enough team members in a few hours time. I imagine that if you only have to force him to the ground one time to accomplish two things (clothes off and getting in the chair) it's better than risking injury to him and the guards by having to hold him down two separate times.
posted by fermezporte at 4:45 AM on January 4, 2011

Mod note: comments removed - please keepyour sarcasm to yourself, thank you.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:59 AM on January 4, 2011