When Good People Do Nothing: The Appalling Story of South Carolina's Prisons

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/when-good-people-do-nothing-the-appalling-story-of-south-carolinas-prisons/282938/



In two months, America will observe the 50th anniversary of one of its most dubious moments. On March 13, 1964, Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was brutally murdered in Queens, New York. What made her case infamous—legendary, even—was that nobody responded to her cries for help. "Please help me, please help me!" she cried, over and over, and at least 38 people in her neighborhood who heard those cries did nothing to help her. They did not call the police. They did not come to comfort her. They did not, they later said, want to get involved. "When good people do nothing" is a timeless moral question, indeed.

One could say the same thing about the citizens of the state of South Carolina, who stand condemned today by one of their own. On Wednesday, in one of the most wrenching opinions you will ever read, a state judge in Columbia ruled that South Carolina prison officials were culpable of pervasive, systemic, unremitting violations of the state's constitution by abusing and neglecting mentally ill inmates. The judge, Michael Baxley, a decorated former legislator, called it the "most troubling" case he ever had seen and I cannot disagree. Read the ruling. It's heartbreaking.

The evidence is now sadly familiar to anyone who follows these cases: South Carolina today mistreats these ill people without any evident traces of remorse. Even though there are few disputed material issues of law or fact in the case, even though the judge implored the state to take responsibility for its conduct, South Carolina declared before the sun had set Wednesday that it would appeal the ruling—and thus likely doom the inmates to years more abuse and neglect. That's not just "deliberate indifference," the applicable legal standard in these prison abuse cases. That is immoral.

But what makes this ruling different from all the rest—and why it deserves to become a topic of national conversation—is the emphasis Judge Baxley placed upon the failure of the good people of South Carolina to remedy what they have known was terribly wrong since at least 2000. Where was the state's medical community while the reports piled up chronicling the mistreatment of these prisoners? Where was the state's legal community as government lawyers walked into court year after year with frivolous defenses for prison policies? Where were the religious leaders, the ones who preach peace and goodwill?

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[marmar]

2. k/r

[jsr]

3. "Mentally ill inmates are routinely caged for days in their own feces and urine"

[sorefeet]

4. Our over paid leaders

do not want to get involved and are the ones responsible for this atrocity. If there really is a hell, that muther fucker is going to be plumb full of bible thumping right wingers and self professed God fearing Christians. Who work for and believe in our prison system. From the judge to the lowly prison guard they are all guilty of crimes against humanity. But they are only doing their job????

[summerschild]

5. K&R

x 1000!!!

[sabrina 1]

6. The US prison system is among the worst in the world.

And if you can judge a country by how it treats its prisoners, the US will be and IS being harshly judged. But for those responsible, they are not capable of caring, about the judgement of good people or the suffering they are responsible for.

One thing is certain, the US has zero moral authority to point fingers elsewhere anymore, and when the State Dept arrogantly tried to do that a few years ago, making its 'list' of countries that violate human rights, they received an immediate response from China with its own list of the US's horrific record of torture and human rights violations.

[xchrom]

7. +1

[SHRED]

8. When good people do nothing then they never were "good"

[mountain grammy]

9. Just another story that makes me ashamed to be an American..

Here's another from my own state
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/half-a-life-in-solitary-how-colorado-made-a-young-man-insane/281306/

How can this happen and happen so frequently?

A reminder; if you don't belong to the ACLU, why not?

[countryjake]

11. +1

[johnnyreb]

10. K&R. Mighty fine reporting from The Atlantic

Comments to the story are heartening.