PRISONS: Uprising in Attica

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More dispassionate witnesses point out that Attica is neither the best nor the worst of New York State's prisons. In fact, its prisoners have been successful in winning some improvements in their conditions—leading some Attica townspeople to complain that the "permissiveness" of the prison management was to blame for the rebellion. Yet most of the few prisoner gains were made through courts to change the policies of prison officials. In 1966, a federal court ordered officials to formulate rules that would allow Black Muslims to practice their faith. Attica prisoners conducted a non-violent sitdown strike last year, protesting low workshop wages and high prison-commissary prices, that led to a regulation cutting back on commissary profits. Last winter, prisoners won the right to be represented by lawyers at parole hearings, which has resulted in a backlog of hearings that, paradoxically, is a new source of grievance.

The troubles at Attica dramatize again the fact that much of the U.S. prison system (TIME cover, Jan. 18) is still inhumane and brutalizes rather than rehabilitates. The ills are not remedied by riots. The public has every reason to be outraged by the beatings, or as in last month's smaller but more violent uprising at San Quentin, the killing of guards. Yet, given the persistence of dehumanizing conditions in so many prisons, it is perhaps lucky that there have not been more Attica-scale rebellions.