Court Opinion

ID: 9477489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:24:59.537972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:54.703581
License: Public Domain

HAROLD H. GREENE, District Judge,
dissenting:
In my view, the district court correctly found that the inmates of the Occoquan correctional facility have been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. I also believe that the court acted within its discretion in imposing the remedy of a population ceiling. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I
The majority has fairly and comprehensively summarized the findings of the district court. However, for a full understanding of the reasons for my belief that the lower court was justified in concluding that the conditions at the Occoquan facility violate the Eighth Amendment, a brief recapitulation of the central findings and the evidence in support thereof is in order.
The Occoquan prison complex is seriously overcrowded; that overcrowding has grown progressively worse; and it is inevitable that Occoquan will continue to show a stifling increase in inmate population. The original capacity of the institution was 1,366, but by March of 1988 the inmate population had already risen by almost 700, to 2,051.
Because of increases in crime, particularly in drug trafficking and in such violent offenses as homicide, and the enactment of several mandatory minimum sentence laws,1 the number of convicted criminals sentenced to imprisonment in the District of Columbia is constantly rising.2 These *845developments are placing substantial pressure on the Department of Corrections to find room for the added convict population. However, the correctional institutions operated by that Department other than Occo-quan that could be used for adult medium security inmates are all under population caps imposed by consent decrees.3 With the decision of this Court to reject the remedy of a population ceiling for Occo-quan, that facility will be the only one where additional medium security inmates could hereafter be confined, and the overcrowding is therefore bound to increase further.
Numbers do not tell the entire story, however. The trial evidence showed that the beds in the dormitories at Occoquan are virtually jammed against each other, allowing not only no privacy but precluding even the opportunity for more than the most minimal movement.4 Several of these dormitories are hastily-converted warehouses; 5 one is a basement converted in a single day to the housing of inmates; and several are located close to a coal pile that gives off acrid fumes. The warden has been quoted as stating that conditions in one of the dormitories were “extremely poor, and [it] should not be used for housing.” A. 58. Various experts who viewed and inspected the institution characterized the overcrowding in terms that could leave no doubt of their dismay at what they found.
One such expert (Dr. Frank Rundle) described one of the housing units as being in “a half ground level location ... dark, very few windows, without good ventilation, and extremely crowded. The bunks were double and spaced very close together. The atmosphere was of intense density of people.” A. 82-83. Another expert (Eugene Miller, former administrator in the District of Columbia Department of Corrections) talked of “oppressive physical conditions [that were] extant at that time. I think, bluntly, I really didn’t see how people could, at that point, justify housing people in those kinds of conditions.” A. 64-65.6
One of the consequences of the overcrowding and the poor hygienic conditions is a serious risk of widespread disease, including tuberculosis.7 Yet by even the most relaxed standard, the level of medical services at the Occoquan institution can only be described as deplorable. Because of the increased population, sick call had to be reduced from five days a week to three; technical assistants perform medical diagnoses; prisoners are not screened at the D.C. Jail for syphilis and tuberculosis even though between ten and twenty percent of these prisoners may be expected to test positive for these diseases; there are significant delays in transferring inmates’ medical records from the D.C. Jail;8 pris*846oners must wait excessive periods of time to arrange for needed visits to surgery, neurology, and orthopedic clinics;9 and there is no medical coverage at all during the midnight shift.
With respect to mental health and psychiatric staffing, Dr. Claybourne, a staff psychologist, stated that they “had a dreadful, dreadful disproportionate number of staff psychologists” and that “[i]n reference to population, we can’t do it — one man can’t do it all.” A. 79-80.10 Indeed, the prison psychiatrist was able to see each patient for only about seven minutes, even for evaluation purposes — a period that the district court, in what may be an understatement, described as “simply impossible.” A. 12.
These conditions have led, quite-naturally, to a pervasive climate of violence. The precise number of serious assaults in the year preceding the trial cannot be ascertained with accuracy since the figures of the Department of Corrections are plainly incorrect;11 however, it is clear that the number is very high.
Many of the assaults may be attributed to the fact that, on account of the overcrowding, the number of correctional officers is insufficient adequately to supervise the inmates' sleeping areas. Moreover, because of the overcrowding at the other Lorton institutions, maximum security inmates are housed at Occoquan in open dormitories with the general population of inmates properly assigned to that facility. Finally, it should be noted in regard to the climate of tension and violence that the instant lawsuit was filed in response to, and shortly after, a riot in the course of which one inmate was killed, eighteen inmates and nine guards were injured, and eight dormitories were damaged by fire.
On this basis,12 even the District of Columbia’s own experts concluded that conditions at Occoquan, particularly the overcrowding, were both deplorable and explosive.13
*847II
It cannot seriously be suggested, and appellants do not contend, that the factual findings that underlie the district court’s conclusions are not supported by the evidence. Appellants do argue, however, that the court below erred by “uniformly ... [judging] the adequacy of the inmate conditions by reference to published standards recommended by various organizations or by the inmates’ experts.” Br. at 12. The majority likewise faults the district court for relying on standards promulgated by various professional organizations and experts, Maj.Op. at 836-37, 839, citing Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981).
It is true, of course, that under Rhodes a deprivation of Eighth Amendment rights in prison cases may not stand or fall upon the opinions of experts. However, Rhodes does not hold that expert or professional opinions are not relevant in such cases. On the contrary; the Court stated that the opinions of experts as to appropriate prison conditions would not “suffice” to establish contemporary standards of decency, 452 U.S. at 348 n. 13, 101 S.Ct. at 2400 n. 13, plainly implying that such opinions may be taken into account, with other evidence, in determining the proper standards and their possible violation.
Indeed, professionally formulated standards are the most objective tools available for this purpose.14 French v. Owens, 777 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir.1985), affirming, 538 F.Supp. 910 (S.D.Ind.1982); Ramos v. Lamm, 639 F.2d 559, 567 n. 10 (10th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1041, 101 S.Ct. 1759, 68 L.Ed.2d 239 (1981); see also Justice Brennan’s concurring opinion in Rhodes, supra, 452 U.S. at 356, 101 S.Ct. at 2404.
The majority holds, quite properly, that the courts are to search for objective factors to guide constitutional analysis, as distinguished from “the peculiar views of individual trial judges.” Maj.Op. at 836.15 Yet if the subjective perceptions of individual judges are ruled out as establishing the proper standards, only the studies, criteria, and standards of professional organizations 16 and other experts remain, as a practical matter, to be used for that purpose. If this tool, too, were to be rejected, an Eighth Amendment analysis of prison conditions could be rendered altogether impossible.17
In any event, the district court did not rely solely, or even primarily, upon the opinions of experts when determining whether proper standards were violated.18 With respect to'every category of life at the Occoquan facility that it found to be below acceptable norms, the court made explicit findings based upon conditions at Occoquan on evidence adduced at the trial.
For example, while the court noted that the American Public Health Association sets out a standard of 95 square feet of *848space per inmate, and that this objective was not met at the Occoquan facility,19 it also found specifically that “beds are but seven to nine inches apart”; that on account of the confinement of excessive numbers of people in limited spaces, the risk of airborne diseases is greatly increased; and it considered trial exhibits that provided graphic evidence of the cramped quarters in which inmates spend the bulk of their hours. See A. 3, and plaintiff’s exhibits at A. 107-117.
Similarly, although there was expert testimony that noise levels in the dormitories often exceeded the American Correctional Association standard, the court found that the noise was excessive on the basis of the more specific testimony that it was “necessary to almost shout to be heard” inside the dormitories, A. 22, and that “it was extremely difficult ... to hold any kind of conversation in what might be termed a normal tone of voice.” A. 53. And general sanitation conditions were found to be lacking, not because they were below acceptable environmental standards, but because window screens were torn, promoting fly infestation; mattresses were torn and soiled, and other specific deprivations existed.
In sum, appellants’ contention that the district court’s findings are subject to reversal because they were improperly based upon expert opinion flies in the face of the record.
Ill
I fully agree with the majority’s conclusion that Rhodes v. Chapman, supra, sets forth the framework for analysis of Eighth Amendment challenges in prison settings. The issue, then, is whether, given the factual record summarized above, appellees demonstrated that the conditions of their confinement violated the requirements of that constitutional provision. Appellants’ argument, which the majority largely endorses, proceeds on several levels.
Appellants argue initially that, although there may have been proof of particular deprivations, each such denial does not, by itself, amount to cruel and unusual punishment, and that it was error for the court to aggregate the various problems to measure them in combination against the Eighth Amendment standard. The majority appears at times to agree with that contention, Maj.Op. at 834, 838, 842-43,20 while at other times it endorses a “totality of the circumstances” approach. Maj.Op. at 839.
It is well established that a court is not reduced to weighing each of the institutional practices and conditions in isolation, but that, in order to determine whether serious deprivations of human needs exist, it may examine the totality of the conditions of confinement. Alberti v. Klevenhagen, 790 F.2d 1220, 1224 (5th Cir.1986); French v. Owens, supra, 111 F.2d at 1252; Ruiz v. Estelle, 679 F.2d 1115, 1139 (5th Cir.1982), modified on other grounds, 688 F.2d 266, cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1042, 103 S.Ct. 1438, 75 L.Ed.2d 795 (1983); Madyun v. Thompson, 657 F.2d 868, 874 (7th Cir.1981); Villanueva v. George, 659 F.2d 851, 854 (8th Cir.1981) (en banc). Indeed, the Court said in Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 347,101 S.Ct. at 2399, that prison conditions “alone or in combination, may deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities” (emphasis added).
More seriously, the majority appears to read Rhodes as concluding that only the most critical denials of essential food, medical care, sanitation, and physical safety constitute the kind of deprivations of essen*849tial human needs that are protected by the Eighth Amendment. Maj.Op. at 836. As indicated above, the record in this case demonstrates at least some such deprivations.21
Moreover, far from establishing a narrow, compartmentalized category of unlawful correctional practices, the Court said in Rhodes that the words “cruel and unusual” should be interpreted “in a flexible and dynamic manner;” that no static test exists to determine whether conditions of confinement are cruel and unusual, citing Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 171, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2924, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976); that “the Amendment's reach [has been extended] beyond the barbarous physical punishments at issue in the Court’s earliest cases;” and that the Eighth Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. 452 U.S. at 345-47, 101 S.Ct. at 2398-2400.22 And the Court concluded that conditions “other than those in Gamble23 [medical care] and Hutto24 [deprivations of basic human needs] ... may deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities.” 452 U.S. at 347, 101 S.Ct. at 2399.25
Beyond that, even though the Supreme Court in Rhodes clearly intended to establish broad guidelines, the statements from the Rhodes opinion relied upon by the majority cannot be entirely divorced from the factual record before the Supreme Court in that case. Rhodes involved directly only a single question — “whether the housing of two inmates in a single cell ... is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.” 452 U.S. at 339, 101 S.Ct. at 2395. Except for the double-celling, the Ohio correctional facility at issue in Rhodes, far from being a substandard, dangerous institution, had gymnasiums, workshops, schoolrooms, day-rooms, two chapels, a hospital ward, commissary, barbershop, recreation field, garden, and a “modern, well-lit” library containing 25,000 volumes, “superior in quality and quantity.” The classrooms were likewise “light, airy, and well equipped.” In an assessment which the parties and the Supreme Court accepted as accurate, the district court in the Rhodes case described the physical plant of the institution as “unquestionably a top-flight, first-class facility.” 452 U.S. at 340-41, 101 S.Ct. at 2396 (emphasis added). No one, not even the appellants, would so characterize the Occo-quan facility.
Not only, then, was the Supreme Court in Rhodes confronted with a factual setting radically different from that before this Court here, but it does not appear that the High Court intended that judicial concerns be limited to the most outlandish or barbaric. As the concurring opinions in Rhodes noted, the holding in that case “should in no way be construed as a retreat from careful judicial scrutiny of prison conditions,” 452 U.S. at 353, 101 S.Ct. at 2402 (Brennan, J., concurring), and that it would be erroneous to regard the opinion as “a signal to prison administrators that the federal courts now are to adopt a policy of general deference to such administrators *850and to state legislators,” 452 U.S. at 369, 101 S.Ct. at 2411, (Blaekmun, J., concurring).
IV
The majority emphasizes, as did the Supreme Court in Rhodes and in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 548, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1879, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), that the operation of correctional facilities is peculiarly the province of the legislative and executive branches, not the judicial. I not only accept the Supreme Court’s admonition — as of course I must — but I also agree with it. The operation of a correctional institution, and particularly its internal security — the aspect of prison life emphasized in Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 349 n. 14, 101 S.Ct. at 2400 n. 14 — is not only complex and requires training and experience, but it is also important from a disciplinary point of view that there be as little outside interference as possible, including interference by the judiciary.
Yet sight must not be lost of the fact the issues before the Court involve a provision of the Bill of Rights. When construing and applying the Eighth Amendment, the courts are not seeking to intrude into subjects that have traditionally been reserved to the political branches; they are performing one of their own core functions.
The legislative and executive branches are under enormous political pressures. On the one hand, they are expected, particularly in urban areas such as the District of Columbia, to wage an effective war on crime, especially violent crime, a war that realistically must involve the imprisonment, following trial and sentence, of substantial numbers of criminals. On the other hand, the public by and large fiercely resists raising the tax monies required for the construction and operation of the institutions necessary to house these convicted criminals.
Thus, left to their own devices, the legislative and executive branches will quite naturally opt for incarcerating increasing numbers of persons in whatever space can be found in existing institutions, even if that should result in conditions which are violative of Eighth Amendment rights.26 If the Bill of Rights prohibition against the imposition of cruel and unusual punishment in the correctional setting is to have meaning, therefore, the enforcement of the constitutional standards — as in other contexts where powerless or unpopular segments of the population require constitutional protection, e.g., as in some First Amendment situations — can be supplied only by the courts.27 It is on this basis that Justice Brennan, concurring in Rhodes, noted that “[ujnder these circumstances, the courts have emerged as a critical force behind efforts to ameliorate inhumane conditions ... [ijnsulated as they are from political pressures_” 452 U.S. at 359, 101 S.Ct. at 2405-06. In my view, we would be less than faithful to the command of the Eighth Amendment if we did not approach our task with these considerations in mind.
For the reasons discussed above, I am of the opinion that the district court’s factual determinations regarding violations of the Eighth Amendment are supported by the evidence, and that its legal determinations with respect thereto are correct. What remains to be discussed is whether the court exceeded its authority in deciding to impose a population ceiling on the Occo-quan facility as a remedy for the violations it had found.
V
The majority holds that the district court’s remedial order is misguided in that, contrary to law, it imposed a population cap to rectify deficiencies in specific areas, such as medical care, sanitation, and inmate security. With respect, I disagree with that conclusion, both on the law and on the facts.
The decisions are legion holding that, once a court has found a constitutional *851violation, “the scope of [its] equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies.” Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). The majority relies to the contrary primarily upon the Milliken cases,28 upon Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978), and upon principles expounded, as the majority sees it, in the school desegregation cases, particularly Swann and Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 299, 75 S.Ct. 753, 755, 99 L.Ed. 1083 (1955).
As I read the Milliken decisions, they support rather than detract from the exercise of equitable power by the district court in this case. These decisions involved school desegregation problems in the Detroit area. The district court ordered the adoption of desegregation plans extending beyond the boundaries, of the city of Detroit, to include also the suburban schools. In Milliken I, the Supreme Court held that it was error to depart from traditional decisions which required the consideration of violations and the adoption of remedies limited to a single school district. It is in that context that the Court made the statement, relied upon by the majority here, that the scope of the remedy is determined by the nature and extent of the constitutional violation. Maj.Op. at 841.
The meaning of that admonition was expanded and clarified in Milliken II. There the Court, speaking as in Milliken I through Chief Justice Burger, upheld compensatory education programs as part of a desegregation plan against the State’s claim, said to be compelled by Milliken I, that, since the constitutional violation was the unlawful segregation of students on the basis of race, the court’s decree had to be limited to remedying unlawful pupil assignments. 433 U.S. at 281, 97 S.Ct. at 2757-58. The Court squarely rejected that contention. After noting that “federal court-decrees exceed appropriate limits if they are aimed at eliminating a condition that ... does not flow from a [constitutional] violation ...” the Court went on to explain that:
... where ... a constitutional violation has been found, the remedy does not ‘exceed’ the violation if the remedy is tailored to cure the condition that offends the Constitution_ [P]upil assignment alone does not automatically remedy the impact of previous, unlawful educational isolation; the consequences linger and can be dealt with only by independent measures.
And the Court concluded by stating that:
The District Court ... was true to the principle laid down in Brown II:
In fashioning and effectuating the decrees, the courts will be guided by equitable principles. Traditionally, equity has been characterized by a practical flexibility in shaping its remedies and by a facility for adjusting and reconciling public and private needs. These cases call for the exercise of these traditional attributes of equity power.
433 U.S. 281-88, 97 S.Ct. at 2757-61.
The Milliken decisions thus not only confirm the breadth of the equitable power possessed by the district courts; they explicitly hold that a decree is within the ambit of that power if it addresses and relates to the violation or eliminates a condition that flows from that violation. That is the remedy fashioned by the decree in this case. See p. 853, infra.
In Hutto v. Finney, supra, the Supreme Court upheld a series of far-reaching orders to remedy prison conditions in the Arkansas penal system. One of the reasons given by the Court for approving the injunctions, among several others, was that the lower court had given the correctional authorities repeated opportunities to remedy the cruel and unusual conditions. See Maj.Op. at 841, 842-43. But there is no basis for concluding, either from Hutto or from equity principles generally, that *852the courts may exercise their power29 to impose equitable remedies only after local authorities have been found wanting at the remedial stage at least once.30
Indeed, in Swann, supra, the Supreme Court said unequivocally that “[o]nce a right and a violation have been shown, the scope of a district court’s equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad ..402 U.S. at 15, 91 S.Ct. at 1276, and there is nothing in the Swann opinion to suggest that equitable remedies are lawful only if the violator has been afforded prior opportunities to rectify the wrong.31
As for the school desegregation cases, they cannot, in my view, be relied upon at all to support a restrictive view of equitable authority. As already noted, the Swann Court was effusive in reaffirming the broad powers of the district courts to fashion equitable remedies, especially where past wrongs need repairing. As for the Brown decision, it has generated so many wide-ranging remedial orders in so many circuits, districts, and states affecting thousands of school districts and millions of children all across the land, that I think it is impossible to regard that decision as setting tight limitations on the remedial authority of the courts.
The experience with remedial orders in prison litigation is similar. Population ceilings have been imposed in a number of cases. Thus, in Ruiz v. Estelle, supra, this Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an exhaustive opinion, held, inter alia, that the district court was justified in concluding that the overcrowding involved in that case exercised a malignant effect on all aspects of inmate life; that overcrowding, combined with the relatively small number of guards, resulted in a constant threat to the inmates’ personal safety; and that a court-imposed population cap was largely valid and justified.32 Broad remedial orders are also reflected in decisions of the Sixth Circuit (French v. Owens, 777 F.2d 1250, 1253 (6th Cir.1985), affirming, 538 F.Supp. 910, 927 (S.D.Ind.1982)); the Seventh Circuit (Wellman v. Faulkner, 715 F.2d 269, 274 (7th Cir.1983)); the Fourth Circuit (Johnson v. Levine, 588 F.2d 1378, 1381 (4th Cir.1978)); the Fifth Circuit (Williams v. Edwards, 547 F.2d 1206, 1214-15 (5th Cir.1977)); the Tenth Circuit (Battle v. Anderson, 564 F.2d 388, 403 (10th Cir.1977));33 and a number of district courts.34 Justice Brennan’s concurrence in Rhodes counted twenty-four State prisons or prison systems that were placed under *853court order because of the conditions of confinement. 452 U.S. at 353 n. 1, 101 S.Ct. at 2402-03 n. 1. The district court’s remedy in the instant case is thus well within the mainstream of the law.
On the facts, too, a population cap is appropriate in the present situation. This is not a case where there is a deficiency in one isolated aspect of prison life, e.g., poor food or inadequate fire protection. Where that is the problem, a court would be abusing its discretion if it attempted to remedy the defect by a population cap. But here we are dealing with a situation that is radically different. The various problems existing at Occoquan, especially the more serious ones of inadequate space, oppressive atmosphere leading to violence, poor hygienic conditions, and poor medical care, are not only all intertwined but they can all be traced to the presence of inmates in numbers far exceeding the facility’s capacity.35 It is presumably on this basis that even David Decatur, administrator of Occo-quan I and II, and Frank Phillips, administrator of Occoquan III, expressed the view that a population cap was necessary.
VI
In support of its conclusion that the appropriate solution to the situation at Occo-quan is to remedy each of the problem areas rather than to impose a population ceiling, the majority relies in substantial part upon the representation of counsel for the District of Columbia at oral argument in this Court that the District “was keenly interested in correcting (and had corrected) conditions found unacceptable by the District Court.” Maj.Op. at 840.36 Acceptance of that statement as a basis for overriding the district court’s exercise of equitable discretion represents a triumph of hope over experience.
It is relevant, I think, to recount here the sad history of promises made by the District of Columbia in regard to conditions in the correctional institutions under its jurisdiction and control. In Campbell v. McGruder, supra, this Court related the long record37 of lack of compliance with court orders and of false assurances made to the courts by the Department of Corrections or the D.C. Corporation Counsel with respect to the D.C. Jail, as follows:
The District Court was assured that defendants would be in compliance with the 48 square foot requirement [at the D.C. Jail] by August 15, and that defendants would provide notice to the court should the space requirement again be *854violated ... On October 14, the court was notified by defendants’ counsel that the Jail was no longer in compliance with the space requirement, and had been out of compliance since September 16....
On January 12, 1986, appellants advised the court that they were presently in compliance with the space requirement. However, on April 7, 1976, the District Court made an unannounced visit to the Jail, and ... found that ‘[d]uring most of the period from mid-January to mid-April, more than 200 persons at a time were held in violation of this Court’s March 1975 order....’ The defendants failed to provide ‘prompt notice’ of this overcrowding to the District Court.
... On November 5 and again on May 24, 1976, the District Court found not only that compliance was feasible, but that [apart from converting a dormitory] the Department and the city have made no substantial efforts to comply with the Order of this Court ... and there is no evidence of any contemplated effort to either reduce the population at the Jail or to provide additional space.
In this case, the district judge offered the following observations after five years of litigation:
... [T]he tedious history of this litigation reflects only occasional and sporadic efforts, usually when a court proceeding has been scheduled, following by almost total inactivity once the matter is no longer before the Court as a crisis situation.
580 F.2d 537-43 (footnotes omitted).38
Morgan v. District of Columbia, supra, handed down last year, suggests that little had changed in the nine years since the Campbell decision. Said the Court in Morgan:
Overcrowding has been a persistent, systemic problem in the District’s prison facilities and has been the subject of continuous litigation for over fifteen years. The District built the Jail at which appel-lee Morgan was housed only after considerable prodding from the federal courts to ease the overcrowding problem in the old detention facility, in which conditions were notoriously appalling ... [I]n compliance with ... constitutional requirements ... the court established certain conditions on the use of double-celling with regard to pretrial detainees.... The District failed to take remedial action, and the inmate population continued to swell.... In September, the district court found that the District had deliberately failed to obey its orders concerning overcrowding at the Jail and held the District in civil contempt. See Campbell v. McGruder, C.A. No. 1462-71 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 1983).
824 F.2d 1052-53.39
The record of promises made to the courts with respect to the Lorton facilities is similar. To date, more than three and one-half years after the consent decree governing the Lorton Central Facility was entered,40 the Department has failed to renovate various cell blocks or to provide satisfactory mental health care, as agreed in *855that decree.41 The population caps imposed by the consent decree at the Central Facility have been violated since June 30, 1987.42 In its report to the district court in this case, the District of Columbia asserts that, as to inadequate dormitory ventilation and general renovation, faulty wiring, and inadequate emergency lighting, bids for a contract to perform the work were opened October 15, 1987, ten months after the relevant order was entered.43 Finally, although the Department stated in a recent report to the court that “efforts to fill [medical staff] positions [at Occoquan are] continuing ... [and that] [authorization for additional positions has been approved,” 44 this claim, too, must be taken with more than a grain of salt. Judge William Bryant, ruling three years ago in Campbell v. McGruder, supra,45 noted:
... five years ago we ordered defendants to hire additional medical staff. Campbell v. McGruder, C.A. No. 1462-71, slip op. (D.D.C. June 9, 1980). Defendants now assert their inability to hire or retain qualified professionals. This is to be expected inasmuch as the conditions of employment that flow from overcrowding already overtaxed facilities are completely unattractive to professional employees (emphasis added).
In the face of this astounding record, there is no reason to believe that promises made and broken (and court orders ignored or violated) during a ten or twelve-year period will suddenly be kept merely because counsel in the course of an oral argument repeated these promises once again.
VII
Occoquan does not represent a static situation. As discussed above, the number of inmates is constantly increasing — from 1,397 in October 1985 to 2,051 in March 1988. These increases are even more alarming when considered in the setting of the problems experienced by the District of Columbia correctional system as a whole. As noted, with the exception of the vastly overcrowded modular facility, all the institutions other than Occoquan available for Occoquan-type inmates are under population ceilings imposed by consent decrees as a consequence of various lawsuits.46
At the same time, as noted above, crime in the District keeps rising, and so does the number of criminal defendants sentenced to imprisonment, with the consequence that the total number of inmates for whom the Department of Corrections must find space rises by 200 every month. It does not take clairvoyance to predict that, with the population ceilings in place with respect to all other suitable District of Columbia penal facilities, and this Court’s rejection of a population ceiling in this case,47 the Occo-*856quan institution will become the District’s correctional institution of both first and last resort, with ever increasing numbers of inmates crammed into the existing space with the existing services.
All this is so although, whatever the problems with a population ceiling, it would still be less intrusive of local correctional administration than injunctions relating to specific conditions, e.g., failure to provide adequate medical care, adequate supervision to prevent or minimize inmate-upon-inmate assaults, repair of screens and mattresses, maintenance of sanitary conditions, and the like. Such detailed injunctions would require constant judicial inspection, interference, and possible contempt citations, to ensure that the sometimes necessarily complex court orders were actually being complied with. A population ceiling, by contrast, can normally be a one-time remedy,48 requiring relatively little, if any, further interference by the courts with the internal operations of the institution.
Finally, on the issue of a population cap as a remedy versus injunctive relief relating to specific problems, it is noteworthy that the district court itself was conscious of the desirability of removing the population ceiling it had ordered when that could safely be done. On that basis, the court ordered the submission of reports regarding substantive conditions at the institution, and it stated that it would entertain motions to modify the square footage formula when progress was being made.
I believe that, for the reasons discussed above, the district court’s order imposing the population ceiling should be sustained. Pursuant to the procedure it has already initiated, the court could then be expected to eliminate or modify the ceiling if and when concrete and genuine improvements are made, particularly in the areas of overcrowding, health, and safety. Not only would this method of proceeding be appropriately mindful of the district court’s equitable discretion, but it would be far more likely to be successful than reliance on promises of improvements on a voluntary basis, without an existing court order.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. See, e.g., D.C.Code § 22-3202(a) (mandatory minimum for crimes of violence while armed); D.C.Code § 33-401 etseq. (mandatory minimum for drug-related crimes).

. The Interim Report of the Special Officer appointed by the district court to monitor compliance submitted on June 19, 1987, attests to the magnitude of the problem. In the five months between January 1, 1987 and June 1, 1987, there was a net population increase in all the District of Columbia institutions of 981 inmates, an average of almost 200 inmates per month. The Special Officer projected an increase of 2,400 inmates in 1987 alone.

. The only exception is the Modular Facility, but it is itself overcrowded by over fifty percent (627 inmates in an institution with a capacity of 400). See note 46, infra.

. According to the testimony, the inmates have virtually no place to put their clothes or other personal property.

. Occoquan must be one of the few correctional institutions in existence where prisoners are warehoused in the literal sense of that term.

. Mr. Miller went on to say that one of the dormitories "was basically a pit, if one wants to get into it. As you know, about the only ventilation coming into this bloody thing is through the door which is left open into this kind of dusty area, with the coal and everything else on the other side.” A. 64-65. Kathryn Monaco, a District of Columbia consultant for correctional affairs, also recalled that "[t]here were noxious fumes in the air [from] the coal pile. It was blowing in_’’ A. 68a.
Ward Duel, an expert on environmental safety and health matters, described the distances between the beds as "very unsatisfactory" and Oc-coquan as "overcrowded” even at its then level of 1,500 inmates — over 130 fewer than when the district court made its decision. A. 101.

. The district court found that the confinement of excessive numbers of people in limited spaces increases the risk of transmission of airborne diseases, and that this health risk is further heightened by the inadequate and sometimes nonoperational ventilation system, the lack of screens on windows, the resulting fly infestation, and the soiled, torn, dirty, and damaged mattresses which harbor disease-carrying insects such as mites, fleas, ticks, and lice. A. 2-3.

. Two inmates had been diagnosed at the D.C. Jail as having AIDS, but the medical records were substantially delayed in being transferred to Occoquan, and the condition of the inmates was therefore unknown when they were assigned dormitory space.

. One inmate was referred to a surgery clinic for consultation in June 1986, and he had not yet been seen there in October of that year. Waiting periods of from three to six months are common for the neurology clinic and one to two months for the orthopedic clinic.

. Dr. Claybourne referred, among other examples, to a group of Vietnam veterans who were seriously mentally ill and had flashbacks that should have been but were not treated; street people whose inattention to bathing, grooming, and the like made them problems within Occo-quan's "tightly packed population”; and a group of prisoners confined for sexual cause who needed treatment if they were to maintain psychological equilibrium. A. 80-81.

. The District of Columbia listed forty such assaults, but the true number is undoubtedly far higher than that, for the District’s compilation simply omits many additional violent incidents. Among assaults not listed by the appellants that appellees just happened to know about were a stabbing on an inmate by other inmates wearing ski masks; an assault on an inmate by several prisoners with a pipe; two other assaults with pipes; repeated sexual assaults on a youthful prisoner; a prisoner who was bludgeoned while he slept; and another inmate who was stabbed in the chest while he was in the bathroom. The district court found that "the level of violence at Occoquan is significantly greater than defendants' statistics reflect.” A. 6.

. As the majority notes, Maj.Op. at 829-34, the district court also made findings regarding serious inadequacies in food services, inmate classification and programs, noise levels, segregation, inmate supervision, and fire safety. Not all of these are of course of equal importance, but all of them contributed to the overall conditions at the institution.

.The District of Columbia’s special consultant for correctional affairs wrote in June 1986:
[I]nmates are crowded into dormitories with little or no chance for privacy, causing a great deal of tension with the result that normal prison management difficulties are compounded. In case of fire or serious emergency, it would be next to impossible to evacuate these dormitories effectively. In dormitories J-l and J-2, which are converted warehouses, the overcrowding is so serious that it is reasonable to expect some major disturbance in the near future. The noise level in these dormitories exceeded any reasonable limits, and it was necessary to almost shout to be heard. Bunks were so closely packed together that there was only a minimal amount of space between them. There was no ventilation. The door to the outside of the dormitory was open for air, but there was no screen and dust from the outside recreation area and fumes from a nearby stack of coal blew into the dormitory. The dayroom space, or area where the inmates could engage in games and other activities, was extremely limited. Therefore, a large number of inmates were left with no means of activity, and no place to congregate except on their bunks. The cumu*847lative impression is of a very hectic environment that is extremely tense and dangerous. A. 21-22.

. While expert formulations obviously do not by themselves supply the appropriate constitutional standard, they do lend assistance to a trial judge who wishes to refrain from relying entirely or at all on his own subjective views regarding the necessarily intangible issue of what are civilized standards in a prison setting.

. However, as the Supreme Court said in Rhodes, supra, "in the end [a court’s] own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability" of a given punishment. 452 U.S. at 346, 101 S.Ct. at 2399.

. Appellants’ disparagement of the organizations cited by the court below neglects to consider the impeccable professional credentials of these organizations. For example, the American Correctional Association is the premier organization of prison administrators and penologists in this country, if not the world, and it is not noted for exalting the rights of inmates over those of correctional authorities and the public.

. Notwithstanding the majority's strong endorsement of legislative and executive decision-making with respect to this subject (Maj.Op. at 835-36), there is no suggestion that, in performing their Eighth Amendment function, the courts should invariably accept as valid the product of that decision-making and decline ever to differ from it.

. Several of the experts on which the district court relied did not simply render academic judgments; they visited the Occoquan facility and familiarized themselves with the conditions there.

. The 95 square feet measurement includes all space; on the basis of sleeping space alone, 60 square feet are available per inmate. Interestingly, these space requirements, which appellants vigorously challenge in this case, are identical to those to which they agreed in the consent decrees applicable to the other District of Columbia correctional facilities.
Various cases cited by appellants in which courts approved less space than that (e.g., Nelson v. Collins, 659 F.2d 420, 428 (4th Cir.1981) (en banc); Campbell v. Cauthron, 623 F.2d 503, 507-08 (8th Cir.1980)), involved short-term prisoner stays — one week to 120 days — not inmates serving lengthy sentences.

. The majority also remands for consideration of each aspect of prison life separately. Maj.Op. at 839.

. The majority finds fault with the district court’s conclusions because that court used the term "deficiencies" in describing various conditions at Occoquan. E.g., Maj.Op. at 835-37. But it is clear from the lower court opinion as a whole, in particular the references to Rhodes; Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978), and other cases, that the court was concerned with violations of "contemporary standards of decency" (see, e.g., A. 14, 15), and that, when it used the word "deficiency” it was as shorthand for constitutional violations or deprivations.

. Indeed, the deliberate indifference to an inmate’s medical needs is "cruel and unusual punishment because an inmate must rely on prison authorities to treat his medical needs; if the authorities fail to do so, those needs will not be met." 452 U.S. at 347, 101 S.Ct. at 2399. This holding presumably applies to other inmate needs which he cannot provide for himself.

. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976).

. Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978).

. Needless to say, convicted criminals are not entitled to country club living; conditions of imprisonment that are restrictive and even harsh are part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society. Rhodes, supra, 452 U.S. at 347, 101 S.Ct. at 2399.

. This is not meant as a criticism of officials from the legislative and executive branches. Most of them are undoubtedly doing the best they can given the strong, conflicting pressures.

. Cf. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555-56, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) (“There is no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country").

. Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 94 S.Ct. 3112, 41 L.Ed.2d 1069 (1974) (Milliken I); Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 53 L.Ed.2d 745 (1977) (Milliken II).

. Only the question of power is at issue; obviously as a matter of discretion a court would be well advised to afford local governmental authorities ample opportunity to rectify violations on their own before judicial coercion comes into play.

. In Eighth Amendment constitutional adjudication there does not seem to be any equivalent to the old common law maxim that a dog is entitled to one free bite. See Chandler v. Vaccaro, 167 Cal.App.2d 786, 334 P.2d 998 (1959); Zarek v. Fredericks, 49 F.Supp. 65 (M.D.Pa.1943), aff’d, 138 F.2d 689 (3d Cir.1943).

. In any event, even if the majority’s view of the law is correct — that is, if the courts may exercise their equitable powers only after the particular defendants had already previously been found wanting in their compliance — that condition is amply funfilled here. Injunctions, decrees, and other orders, even contempt citations, have been issued against the District of Columbia correctional authorities again and again for a number of years, without any appreciable results. See pp. 853-55, infra.

. The Court of Appeals declined to endorse some measures directed at the 33,000-inmate Texas Correctional System, at least for a time, as too costly and irreversible. 679 F.2d at 1148.

. Cody v. Hillard, 830 F.2d 912 (8th Cir.1977), is of course to the contrary. However, even at that, this case and that are not on all fours. The court found in Cody that elimination of the double-celling — the principal basis for complaint — would not have alleviated the problems raised on behalf of the inmates (unsanitary practices, substandard electrical wiring, and other hazards) to any perceptible degree. Id. at 914. Not so here; overcrowding is a substantial source of the problems in this case, and if there were fewer inmates at Occoquan, most of the objectionable conditions would be improved since the facilities and services are sufficient for a smaller prison population.

. See, e.g., McMurry v. Phelps, 533 F.Supp. 742, 775 (W.D.La.1982); Palmigiano v. Garrahy, 443 F.Supp. 956, 987 (R.I.1977); Costello v. Wainright, 397 F.Supp. 20, 34 (M.D.Fla.1975), vacated on other grounds, 539 F.2d 547 (5th Cir.1976), remanded, 430 U.S. 325, 97 S.Ct. 1191, 51 L.Ed. 2d 372 (1977).

.Many of the conditions cited by the district court as problematic were so only because of the large number of inmates who are forced to share a facility constructed with smaller population limits in mind. For example, food service was found to be inadequate because dry and cold food storage areas were filled beyond capacity, risking contamination of meats and produce. Were the population reduced to levels for which the kitchen was designed, this problem would disappear. Similarly, it was the increase in population at Occoquan that led to a reduction of formalized sick call from five days per week per dormitory to three days per week. Again, with fewer inmates to treat, available health personnel could properly attend to the entire population.
Other cited conditions are equally population dependent: for example, the classification system at Occoquan was found to be "dangerously overtaxed by the crush of inmates in need of classification." Clearly, overcrowded housing conditions would cease to be a concern under lower inmate population counts, and noise problems would be severely diminished. The threat of violence among the inmates would also likely diminish, as "[e]xperience around the country demonstrates that overcrowding like that now existing at Occoquan I and II, which so severally [sic] inhibits any quality of life, results in violence.” First Compliance Report for the D.C. Department of Corrections at A. 22.

. Says the majority further, "[a]nd, crucially, the record is already stale. The District has represented to us that it has already addressed and remedied many (if not all) the specific ‘deficiencies' enumerated by the trial court.” Maj.Op. at 840. In a similar vein, the majority indicates that the district court's imposition of a population ceiling was a "last resort remedy [used] as a first step.” Maj.Op. at 843.

. Although the instant lawsuit began only in 1986, the D.C. Department of Corrections had even then been before the court since 1979 in cases challenging the conditions at the Lorton facilities, see John Doe v. District of Columbia, C.A. No. 79-1726 (maximum security facility); Twelve John Does v. District of Columbia, C.A. No. 80-2136 (Lorton central facility), and even longer in cases challenging the conditions at the D.C. Jail. See Campbell v. McGruder, supra.

.The Court went on to say (580 F.2d at 541):
[T]he District Court was fully justified in concluding that this case was not moot. As the Supreme Court has stated:
When defendants are shown to have settled into a continuing practice ... courts will not assume that it has been abandoned without clear proof. Local 167 [of International Brotherhood of Teamsters ] v. United States, 291 U.S. 293, 298, 54 S.Ct. 396, 398, 78 L.Ed. 804. It is the duty of the courts to beware of efforts to defeat injunctive relief by protestations of repentance and reform, especially when abandonment seems timed to anticipate suit, and there is probability of resumption.

. See also Campbell v. McGruder, 416 F.Supp. 100 (D.D.C.1975); Campbell v. McGruder, 416 F.Supp. 106 (D.D.C.1975); Campbell v. McGruder, 416 F.Supp. 111 (D.D.C.1976); Inmates v. Jackson, 416 F.Supp. 119, 123 (D.D.C.1976).

. The final settlement and consent decree in C.A. No. 79-1726 was entered on March 28, 1984. The lawsuits relating to the Maximum Security and the Central Facility are consolidated at the district court level with the instant case, and they are assigned and have been handled for years by the same judge who made the findings and entered the judgment herein, and who may therefore be deemed to be well familiar with the history recited above.

. Report of Special Officer of the Court; Plaintiffs’ Motion for Finding of Contempt and Imposition of Sanctions.

. Affidavit of Hallem H. Williams, Jr., on behalf of D.C. Department of Corrections, July 1987.

. It is anyone's guess how long the award process will take and when the work will actually begin and be completed.

. Defendants’ December 10, 1987 Report to the Court, Attachment 2.

. Slip opinion (D.D.C. July 15, 1985) at 5.

. The District of Columbia Department of Corrections maintains eight adult institutional facilities, seven of them (all but the D.C. Jail) located at Lorton, Virginia. With the exception of the minimum security and the modular facility, all are under court-imposed population ceilings, as follows: D.C. Jail—Campbell v. McGruder, C.A. No. 1462-71 and C.A. No. 75-1668; maximum security—John Doe v. District of Columbia, C.A. No. 79-1726; Lorton central facility—Twelve John Does v. District of Columbia, C.A. No. 80-2136; three Occoquan facilities—Inmates of Occoquan v. Barry, C.A. No. 82-2128 (this appeal). The maximum security and the Lorton central facility are under population caps entered through consent decrees.
Because the minimum security facility is inappropriate for housing most inmates, its lack of a population cap is largely irrelevant for present purposes. The Lorton modular facility is relatively new, but it is already substantially overused, holding 627 inmates in an institution with a capacity of 400.

.The majority’s caveat that it does not “hold today that the use of a population cap as a remedy is per se impermissible” (Maj.Op. at 843 n. 22) provides little comfort in view of the overwhelming thrust of the Opinion which rejects such a remedy for all practical purposes.

. Even where, as here, the correctional authorities are recalcitrant and repeated enforcement proceedings have proved to be necessary, they are still less complex and less intrusive than the enforcement of highly specific orders relating to discrete conditions.