Civilian Detention Camps
(continued)

by Carl Jensen

The government had set up the camps in block formations with each block having 14 barracks. Each barracks measuring 20 feet by 100 feet. Each block had one mess hall, one recreation center, laundry facilities, and separate men and women bathrooms. The camps also had cold warehouses, repair facilities, administration offices, schools, a library, facilities for religious services, medical facilities, and a post office. The detainees were allowed to have gardens and raise livestock.

One of the better known civilian detention camps during World War II, was at Crystal Lake, Texas. News articles and a documentary were made detailing life at Crystal Lake. The Crystal Lake camp has been referred to as a concentration camp, but it was not. The camp was occupied by people of Japanese and German decent, who had immigrated to the United States prior to the beginning of WW II. After World War II, the detainees of these camps filed lawsuits, and brought grievances before Congress because of the violation of their civil rights, which these people had suffered because of these forced evacuations and detainment.

In 1988, President Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The purpose of the law was to acknowledge and apologize for the wrongs done to these people that were forced to live in the detention camps. To date, restitution has been paid to approximately 80,000 Japanese-Americans, yet the federal government still considers the evacuations as "voluntary".

The Detention Act of 1950

In 1950, Congress, concerned about communism, passed the Detention Act of 1950. The Detention Act of 1950 (the "Act") can be found in the series of books called the "Statutes at Large" in any law library. This law gave the government the capability to arrest and detain those people or groups which were deemed to be subversive and a threat to the government of the United States, and hold people in detention camps around the country.

As the concern over the conflict in Korea grew, Congress’s anxiety over the existence of communist groups located in the United States also grew. A survey was ordered to assess available confinement facilities in the United States. The Department of Justice recommended that the camps located at Army and Airforce bases, and former prisoner-of-war camps, be made available to be used as detention camps. It was also determined that it would also be more cost effective to repair existing camps than it would be to build new camps.

In 1952, Congress appropriated $775,000 for the activation and rehabilitation of six camps.These six camps were located at : Florence, Arizona; Wickenberg, Arizona; Avon Park, Florida; Allenwood, Pennsylvania; El Reno, Oklahoma; and Tule Lake, California. After the Korean conflict ended, the need for these camps also ended. In 1959, Tule Lake Camp was turned over to the General Services Administration. Wickenberg Camp was turned over to the city. Avon Park Camp became the Avon Park Correctional Institution. Twenty acres of the Florence Camp became a Federal detention center for people serving short sentences. El Reno remained under the control of the Bureau of Prisons. Allenwood Camp is now used as a regular federal prison camp for minimum security prisoners.

By the end of the 1960’s, sixteen bills had been submitted to repeal the "Act". The public opinion was growing against the "Act" in that the public felt that the government could not be trusted to protect the civil rights of those people arrested under this law. One portion of the Detention Act of 1950 which was the cause of great concern read:
Sec. 103. (a) Whenever there shall be in existence such an emergency, the President, acting through the Attorney General, is hereby authorized to apprehend and by order detain, pursuant to the provisions of this title, each person as to whom there is reasonable ground to believe probably will engage in, or probably will conspire with others to engage in, acts of espionage or of sabotage.
The problem with the above section is that it violates the civil rights of those arrested. It is unacceptable to arrest someone on the suspicion that someday that person may break the law.

There were other short comings to the "Act". They included:the implementation of the law required no further Congressional action, but simply a declaration by the President of a state of emergency;group affiliation could be a basis for detention, without necessarily any evidence as to individual behavior;confrontation of adverse witnesses and full knowledge of charges and evidence were effectively denied in order to protect the government’s sources of information;the only way to prove innocence would be the impossible task of guaranteeing future behavior;bail was not permitted;the law provided no trial by jury but rather a series of administrative appeals after the fact of detention;and, the penalty provided under the law is incarceration of an indefinite duration.Though this law was never actually used, it caused a great deal of concern as when people around the country became aware of its dangers.

In the late 1960’s, minorities and particularly the Japanese community turned to Congress in an attempt to get the law repealed. It wasn’t until 1970 that any real attention was given to repealing the "Act". The fear among many Americans was that this law might become an instrument for apprehending and detaining people that held unpopular beliefs and views. On September 14, 1970, the Internal Security Committee held a hearing on the "Act". At the end of the hearings the committee reported that it had a bill which would not repeal "the Act" but would simply amend it. This bill went nowhere because the 91st Congress adjourned before a ruling was granted. When the 92nd Congress reconvened, over 150 members of Congress supported an effort to have the "Act" repealed.

Since the Vietnam era the federal government has been focusing on ways to control civil unrest. Executive orders, Department of Defense Directives, and laws have been written addressing the issue of the military assisting in controlling civilian disturbances. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been given greater and greater authority and power over these matters to such a degree that even minor civil disturbances today may come under the jurisdiction of FEMA.