Former Pennsylvania Prison Superintendent Describes Toll of Working on Death Row

A for­mer Pennsylvania death-row prison super­in­ten­dent says work­ing on death row makes cor­rec­tions per­son­nel feel ​“less human” and ​“can be pro­found­ly dam­ag­ing” psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. Cynthia Link (pic­tured) served as the Superintendent of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Graterford from 2015 to 2018, dur­ing a peri­od in which the prison housed more than 20 of the Commonwealth’s death row pris­on­ers. In a July 16, 2019 op-ed for Penn Live, Link describes the psy­cho­log­i­cal toll that cor­rec­tions offi­cers face when work­ing on death row. She explains the chal­leng­ing nature of work­ing with con­demned pris­on­ers even in a state such as Pennsylvania, which has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 20 years. 

“Few out­side of my pro­fes­sion real­ize how dif­fi­cult cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is for the staff; even when exe­cu­tions are not being car­ried out, hous­ing death row pris­on­ers can be pro­found­ly dam­ag­ing,” she writes. Enforcing the ​“inhu­mane” con­di­tions on death row caus­es extreme stress and pre­vents cor­rec­tions offi­cers from doing the jobs they were trained to do. ​“Politics, pol­i­cy and post order often kept us from pro­vid­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly pru­dent care,” Link says. 

“Death row was designed to pro­vide tem­po­rary hous­ing pri­or to an exe­cu­tion,” Link says, ​“but today’s death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers live inhu­mane­ly for many years or decades while staff strug­gle to help them sur­vive their ​‘tem­po­rary’ stay.” In an effort to pro­tect cor­rec­tions offi­cers, Pennsylvania lim­its them to two year ​“tours of duty” work­ing on death row and mon­i­tors them for men­tal health prob­lems. Despite those efforts, the stress of the assign­ment has seri­ous effects on offi­cers. Link explains: ​“Some offi­cers indulge in alco­hol, drugs or oth­er dan­ger­ous behav­iors to find relief. Some iso­late and leave their fam­i­lies. Some have even tak­en their own lives when it becomes too over­whelm­ing. The stress on death row staff is sel­dom-dis­cussed but unde­ni­ably real. Each tour of duty on death row makes you feel less human.” 

At its peak, more than 250 pris­on­ers were incar­cer­at­ed in Pennsylvania’s three death-row facil­i­ties. Most even­tu­al­ly had their con­vic­tions or death sen­tences over­turned in the courts after spend­ing years in soli­tary con­fine­ment, where they had no con­tact vis­its with their lawyers and fam­i­ly mem­bers, yet were sub­ject to strip search­es each time they left their cells.

The pris­on­ers were even­tu­al­ly trans­ferred from the old Graterford Prison (pic­tured, below) to a new mod­ern super­max facil­i­ty less than a mile away. Link draws a par­al­lel between the out­dat­ed, crum­bling build­ing in which death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers had been held, and the death penal­ty itself as a pol­i­cy ​“rel­ic.” ​“Prisons even­tu­al­ly out­live their use­ful­ness and turn into relics of an unfa­mil­iar past. Maybe the death penal­ty is a rel­ic that can also be replaced. I know that doing so would remove a huge bur­den from the lives of cor­rec­tions staff.” She urges Pennsylvania’s gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er prison work­ers as they make deci­sions about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“As gov­ern­ment offi­cials in Harrisburg con­tem­plate what to do about the death penal­ty, I urge them to fac­tor in the human toll it takes on Pennsylvania’s cor­rec­tions pro­fes­sion. Death sen­tences pun­ish them, too.”

Numerous cor­rec­tions offi­cers have spo­ken about the dif­fi­cul­ty of work­ing on death row and car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. In 2017, a group of cor­rec­tion­al offi­cials from around the U.S. warned Arkansas about the extreme impact of the state’s pro­pos­al to exe­cute eight peo­ple in 11 days. Former Georgia war­den Allen Ault has been an out­spo­ken crit­ic of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, shar­ing sto­ries of his own expe­ri­ences con­duct­ing exe­cu­tions. Frank Thompson, who held high-rank­ing posi­tions in pris­ons in Oregon and Arkansas, wrote, ​“Many of us who have tak­en part in this process [of exe­cu­tions] live with night­mares, espe­cial­ly those of us who have par­tic­i­pat­ed in exe­cu­tions that did not go smooth­ly. Correctional offi­cers who car­ry out exe­cu­tion can suf­fer from post-trau­mat­ic stress, drug and alco­hol addic­tion, and depres­sion.” Jerry Givens, who car­ried out 62 exe­cu­tions in Virginia, now oppos­es the death penal­ty, and has spo­ken about his con­cerns about exe­cut­ing innocent people.