Supermax confinement in practice catches arbitrarily designated prisoners, not only the most dangerous

Evidence

While prison authorities defended the use of supermaximum security facilities by asserting that they held only the most dangerous, disruptive, or escape-prone inmates, few safeguards existed to prevent other prisoners from being arbitrarily or discriminatorily transferred to such facilities. In Australia, the inspector of custodial services found that some prisoners were being held indefinitely in special high security units without knowing why or when their isolation would end. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 270

Categorization

• QUESTION: This undermines the official justification for supermax—worth checking against U.S. domestic evidence.
• XREF: connects to: The U.S. supermax solitary-confinement model is spreading worldwide — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 269; The prison sorts prisoners by hidden dangerousness revealed in conduct — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 202

Related

• The U.S. supermax solitary-confinement model is spreading worldwide (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• The U.S. supermax solitary-confinement model is spreading worldwide #expands (0.60) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 269