Dictionary definition of “diesel therapy”

diesel therapy

n. the continuous or unnecessary transport of a prisoner from place to place, especially as a form of reprimand or punishment, but also as a result of bureaucratic mistakes. Also bus therapy. Subjects: English, Crime & Prisons, Slang

Editorial Note: A similar term, Greyhound therapy, is the practice of resolving problems with transients or homeless people by buying them bus tickets to warm, far places.

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Citations: 1987 David C. Beeder Omaha World-Herald (Neb.) (Apr. 22) “Sileven Says He Fears for Safety If Hansen Is Returned to Prison”: Sileven said “diesel therapy” is used to punish certain prisoners by continously driving them around the country. 1987 Pamela Sebastian Wall Street Journal (Dec. 7) “Perhaps His Next Book Should Be: ‘Wardens I’ve Known and Loved’”: “I’m in for a protracted period of ‘bus therapy,’” Mr. Lehman says. That’s jail talk for a constant shuffling from one location to another. 1988 Bill Gordon San Francisco Chronicle (California) (July 1) “Prison Transfers Author of Critical Articles” p. A1: “I could be put on the ‘Merry-Go-Round,’” he writes. “In federal prisons, when a prisoner is en route, he’s not allowed phone calls or mail privileges. So what is sometimes done is that they put a fellow like me on a bus and drop him off at isolation for a few weeks at every prison they stop at. I’ve seen convicts caught up in that for nearly two years…Old convicts call it ‘bus therapy.’” 1991 Charlotte Grimes @ Washington, D.C. St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Mo.) (July 18) “Reprisal Alleged By Inmate” p. 4C: Rinaldo Reino, a wheelchair-dependent inmate from the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Mo., charged Wednesday that he was threatened with the punishment of a grueling bus trip—what inmates call “diesel therapy”—just days before he was to testify before a House subcommittee on health care at the facility. 1996 Jim Coyne The Repugnant Warehouse (Nov. 1) p. 48: There are men here with five year sentences for inconsequential crimes, men who were detained in county jails for months because of lost or delayed paperwork.…Many of these stories emanate from a common practice called “diesel therapy.”…Many of these men are taken in shackles directly from the courtroom on the day of sentencing. Thereafter, and during the two to seven month period while their paperwork is being processed, and depending on the extent off overcrowding in their ultimately designated facility, they are shuttled in shackles from one facility to another on a bus, and are treated like mass murderers. They have no clothing or possessions and no money and suffer tremendously. 1999 Paul Bedard et al. U.S. News & World Report (Oct. 25) “Why Hubbell hates buses”: Hubbell plans to broaden his criticism and touch on his theory of “diesel therapy.” St. Pierre says Hubbell believes prosecutors pressure convicts to testify against bigger targets by keeping them from their families. How? Since families must apply for visits 30 days in advance, prisoners are moved in diesel buses to a new prison every 29 days or so, meaning they never see their kin. 2000 Joy James States of Confinement (Feb. 12) p. 160 @ (Feb. 8, 2002): Jimmy Magner, a former federal prisoner and founder of the newsletter PWA-RAG (Prisoners with AIDS-Rights Action Group), endured years of diesel therapy, the practice of moving prisoner organizers from one to prison for another, for his activism. 2004 Seth M. Ferranti Vice (Feb.) “Diesel Therapy: Torturing Prisoners Legally Takes The Bus” vol. 11, no. 2,: Transit, better known as “diesel therapy” to the feds, is maybe the worst part of being incarcerated. Imagine being handcuffed with a chain around your waist securing the handcuffs to your stomach area. You can’t move your arms up and down or side to side. Your feet are shackled, limiting you to baby steps. Now get on a bus. 2005 Eric Zorn Chicago Tribune (Oct. 18) “Fawell’s long journey a government gaffe”: With lower profile witnesses in lower profile cases, frankly, I wouldn’t put a little “diesel therapy,” as it’s called, past the prosecutors. But here, the almost comically excessive nature of the journey made is so ham-fisted, so blatant, and so unlikely to work on a proud, savvy short-termer like Fawell, prosecutors would have been idiots to order it up.

Posted 20 Oct 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend