Opinion ID: 199347
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prison Housing Transfer

Text: 49 The alternate basis for the plaintiffs' claim of compulsion is the transfer from South Unit to Hancock Building that often follows a refusal to participate in the SOP. The plaintiffs claim the transfer is a penalty for Fifth Amendment purposes because it significantly affects their living circumstances. This question is not close. 50 Plaintiffs' preference for South housing is understandable. At the preliminary injunction hearing, prison officials testified that Hancock is the prison's low-rent district and compared South to a hotel. The plaintiffs cite several advantages of living in South. They have greater outdoor privileges; they live in two-man rather than eight-man cells; they live on smaller pods, or living groups. As evidence that the move to Hancock is punitive, the plaintiffs argue that such transfers are used to punish inmates who break the rules. Some of the plaintiffs also said that even though both facilities are classified as medium security, they feel safer at South because most of the other inmates are also sex offenders. In Hancock, where they are surrounded by violent and drug offenders, they are targets of harassment and assault. 51 The plaintiffs' claim that the transfer from South to Hancock is a penalty for Fifth Amendment purposes fails under the Turner analysis. First, the state has a valid governmental interest in controlling where prisoners will be housed. Once an offender has been sentenced, New Hampshire gives broad discretion to prison officials over the terms, conditions, and place of incarceration. State v. Peabody, 438 A.2d 305, 308 (N.H. 1981); see also N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 651:25. At the hearing on the plaintiffs' petition for injunctive relief, prison officials testified that they offer housing transfers as an incentive to encourage inmates to act in particular ways. Prisoners may earn a place in South because they have a clean disciplinary record or because they participate in a treatment program like the SOP. In either case, the transfer to South is a benefit conferred on inmates who earn it. This kind of reward system easily meets Turner's legitimate penological interest standard. 52 The second and third Turner factors also weigh against the plaintiffs. The quality-of-life differences between South and Hancock are not severe enough to burden the exercise of the plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Nor is there a reasonable alternative to giving prison officials broad discretion over inmate housing. For the reasons stated, the housing transfers do not rise to the level of a penalty that establishes Fifth Amendment compulsion. 16