Louisiana: Detainee Abuse Requires Federal Probe

[mom cat]

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/10/05/usdom11826.htm

Louisiana: Detainee Abuse Requires Federal Probe
Corinne Carey, researcher, Human Rights Watch

Prisoners Evacuated After Hurricane Describe Beatings by Officers
(Jena, Louisiana, October 5, 2005)—The U.S. Department of Justice should immediately investigate the alleged mistreatment of detainees at Louisiana’s Jena Correctional Facility, Human Rights Watch and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) said today.

Detainees told us they felt they were being treated like animals. They were frightened and some were even crying. One said, ‘I don’t know what they’ll do to me once y’all leave here.’


Interviews conducted on Tuesday by the two organizations revealed widespread claims of abuse against pretrial detainees who had been evacuated to Jena from Jefferson Parish Prison because of Hurricane Katrina. Every detainee but one of the 23 interviewed reported that he had been hit or kicked by the prison staff.

The detainees said that correctional officers at Jena slapped, punched, beat and kicked detainees and sprayed them unnecessarily and repeatedly with pepper spray. The detainees, primarily African-Americans, also described degrading treatment and racist language by the Louisiana state correctional officers, who were primarily white.

Related Material

Louisiana: After Katrina, Inmates Face Prison Abuse
Press Release, October 3, 2005

End Abuses against Inmates Who Were Evacuated after Katrina
Letter, October 3, 2005

New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters
Press Release, September 22, 2005
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11773.htm


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[BayCityProgressive]

1. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I THOUGHT I WAS ABOUT TO READ OSMETHING ON IRAQ!!!!!! THIS IS FUCKING SICK!!

[President Kerry]

2. No more or less sick than what would happen in Iraq. n/t

[mom cat]

4. Exactly. It is all depraved and monsterous..We have to fight that kind of

inhumanity wherever it occurs.

[mom cat]

3. Read the one on the prisoners left in their cells to die... the link is in

the article. then, rate it if you could. More prople need to know about this!