ACLU bashes Supermax prison on city's East Side

YOUNGSTOWN — The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has called for an independent investigation of restrictions, including solitary confinement of inmates, at the Ohio State Penitentiary, known as the Supermax, on the city’s East Side.

The ACLU is asking State Sen. Cliff Hite, R-Findlay, chairman of the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, to launch the probe of the prison, which houses 447 inmates, most of them at the maximum-security level.

“As a just society, we have a responsibility to ensure that our prisons treat those incarcerated fairly and humanely,” said Mike Brickner, senior policy director at the ACLU of Ohio.

“There is nothing rehabilitative about solitary confinement,” Brickner said, adding that excessive isolation harms inmates’ mental health and makes them “less stable and more desperate.”

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