Group says judge should put stop to Alto prison rapes, assaults

[Tab]

ATLANTA - A human rights group has asked a federal judge to take immediate steps to stop rapes and assaults at a northeast Georgia prison that holds young inmates.

The Southern Center for Human Rights is asking a judge to bar Lee Arrendale State Prison in Alto from taking in new inmates and from transferring minors into the prison's adult population when they turn 17.

The Southern Center for Human Rights -- along with lawyers from King Spalding -- filed a motion in September to hold the state Department of Corrections in contempt of a previous court order governing pr
The prison was the subject of a federal class-action lawsuit in 1991 that is still in effect.
ison conditions. Lawyers claim the department is not adequately protecting Arrendale's inmates -- particularly younger inmates -- from repeated rapes and other physical assaults.

According to documents filed Friday in federal court, more assaults and rapes have occurred since then.http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/hall/newfullstory.asp?ID=86372

[Laelth]

1. Lawyers fighting for justice ...

... once again. Good for them! Hope the good guys win.

-Laelth

[LynnTheDem]

2. Rightwingnuts & bush say that's why we had to invade Iraq. Prisoners

were raped under Hussein's government.

Like our prisoners aren't.

Like we don't have the #1 incarceration rate in the entire world.

Not to even bother mentioning Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and several other US gulags.

Gawd but I detest rightwingnuts & bush.

[sandnsea]

3. 17, just makes me sick

I still don't understand why we're sending teen-agers to adult prisons. I just don't get it. 20% of these inmates are under 21. We've already been down this road. The earlier you send someone to state prison, the harder it is for them to succeed when they get out.

I'm beginning to believe that people who support all this hatefulness disguised as moral order just have no faith in people at all. They look in their dark souls and think everybody is as mean-spirited as they are. So of course the only solution would be to destroy others if you believed others would never choose to do anything but destroy you.