It's time to close Arizona's Abu Ghraib-like supermax prison units

[Ptah]

By CAROLINE ISAACS



It's time to close Arizona's Abu Ghraib-like supermax prison units

Prisoners locked in their cells 23 to 24 hours a day, alone, in sensory-deprivation conditions
for years on end. Routine strip searches. Roaches. Substandard medical care. Madness.

One prisoner wrote, "There have been a couple of times I've tried to end my life in here,
but they keep reviving me and bringing me back. When I asked why, I was told,
'You're not going to die on us; we're not through punishing you.'"

This is not a description of the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib.
It's a snapshot of life in the Arizona Department of Corrections' Special Management Unit, or SMU.

As the nation moves from the shock of witnessing photos of torture at Abu Ghraib to
calls for the closure of Gitmo, those of us familiar with prisons in the good ol' U.S.A.
can but shake our heads. The horrors in those facilities half a world away are not new,
and they're not reserved for suspected terrorists. They're just another U.S. export.

<snip>

[DBoon]

1. What the civilized world doesn't understand

is that Abu Ghraib is just business as usual for the American prison system

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. My dear Ptah...

These prisons make me ashamed to be an American...

Whatever happened to rehabilitation?

:cry:

[tkmorris]

4. We don't DO rehabilitation Peggy

We never did. Oh sure it seemed like we talked about it during the 70's, and some states even tried the idea on for size for awhile, but to me it seemed that the Age of American Enlightenment died in it's infancy right about the time Reagan got elected.

Eventually it will be time to try again, time to try to convince our fellow citizens that we still have some growing to do before we can truly call ourselves a civilized society. I despair of seeing it with my own eyes though. Perhaps my children will.

[Ptah]

6. It is horrendous, Peggy.

:cry:

[begin_within]

3. That Sherrif Joe Arpaio is the whole problem. To call him scum is to insult scum.

And yet they keep re-electing him! Sorry, Maricopa county residents, but you're a bunch of idiots.

[Ptah]

5. Sheriff Joe doesn't run the state prison system which is the subject of the article.

As the article says,

"Exported, in the case of Abu Ghraib, directly from the state of Arizona.
In 2003, a former director of the Arizona Department of Corrections,
Terry Stewart, was commissioned by the State Department to oversee
the development of Iraqi prisons. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.,
called on the Department of Justice to investigate the involvement
of Stewart in Abu Ghraib, noting that Stewart had a "shocking record
of tolerating prisoner abuse" as director of Arizona's prisons.

Stewart's tenure at the ADC spanned from 1995 to 2002. One of the major
developments in the system during that period was the creation of Arizona's
"supermax" units. Stewart proudly boasted of his high-tech supermax facilities,
which became the model for the lockdown units in Pelican Bay, Calif.,
and Florence, Colo. (home of Ted Kaczynski and Zacarias Moussaoui).

Conditions in the SMUs during Stewart's era were appalling. In April 1999,
the Tucson Weekly reported on a litany of abuses in the units, including
the use of attack dogs, the indiscriminate use of pepper spray, violent attacks,
suicides and self mutilation, and psychosis
("Supermax: Inside, No One Can Hear You Scream," Tucson Weekly, April 29, 1999). "




I don't know if the link is correct.

[Orsino]

7. Thank You For Visiting Omelas!

http://www.twinoaks.org/members-exmembers/exmembers/center/omelas.html

[cobalt1999]

8. Dissenting opinion.

First off, you don't go to a supermax because you smoked a joint or some other minor offense. Many of these are people that have demonstrated to be dangerous to others while already incarcerated. They typically are setup for the worst of the worst.

I really can't get too worked up about how a murderer and/or rapists live the remainder of their sentence. For some, the death penalty is too harsh. Now, strict imprisonment is too harsh? What next?

[Heidi]

9. Actually, the percentage of violent offenders is higher in state prisons than federal prisons,

if you wanna talk about "dangerous to others." Fifty-seven percent of federal inmates of doing time for drug offenses. I don't believe drug offenders necessasrily are "the worst of the worst."

- In 2000, an estimated 57% of Federal inmates and 21% of State inmates were serving a sentence for a drug offense; about 10% of Federal inmates and 49% of State inmates were in prison for a violent offense.
- Violent offenders accounted for 53% of the growth in State prisons between 1990 to 2000, drug offenders accounted for 59% of the growth in Federal prisons.

Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm

[cobalt1999]

10. I also don't believe drug offenders are the "worst of the worst"

Drug offenders only don't typically end up in a super-max. I'm talking about the super-max population NOT the standard federal or state prison population. In most cases, you have to earn your way to a super-max by being violent in other prisons, or doing things like ordering "hits" from a standard prison, or commit a high profile/heinous crime.

Like I said, I'm not really shedding tears over the super-max guys.

[Ptah]

11. A significant percentage of the super-max population are there because of

their mental health (or lack of).

[Heidi]

13. Wonder what might have happened to them if they'd received adequate mental health care?

I'm guessing that SuperMax would _not_ have been the result.

[Ptah]

15. That's what I'm hoping will be on a few more peoples minds.

Lack of adequate mental health care is the key, Heidi.

:thumbsup:

[Heidi]

16. Totally agree.

I've got a girlfriend who served a 19-month sentence on a drug charge in a federal prison in Texas. I'm convinced that, if she had received adequate, science-based psychiatric care when she was an adolescent, she _never_ would have begun self-medicating with street drugs after having been raped by her father for six years and then shunned by her mother for "telling" when she was 12. My friend's mother, given the choice between keeping her husband and keeping her daughter, chose her husband and my friend went into foster care. By the time she ran away from her last foster care home at 15, she had been in more than 10 foster homes and group homes, and she tells me that not once during that time was she ever offered anything more than "counseling" or support groups for her "issues."

So now, my friend is 31, has relinquished three children for adoption and tried to raise a fourth, only to find herself in federal prison for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute -- and during her 19 months in federal prison, she was seen only once or twice by a real psychiatrist.

Sorry for the long rant, but my friend is a genuinely good person who has never received the adequate mental health care that she, first as human being and also as a rape victim, deserves. :grr:

[Ptah]

17. I hope her eclipse has passed, Heidi.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

18. I still think a blanket pardon should be given to anyone incarcerated

on MJ charges only. That would empty out quite a few cells, and increase the non-violent population of the U.S.

[Ptah]

20. How about burglars that used their ill gotten gain for MJ?

:shrug:

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

21. Then they are in for something other than weed,

And not under said pardon.
Second point, while there are people out there who have done this (and will do this again), the vast majority of pot smokers are relativly good and responsible (that 4th cheeseburger: maybe a bad choice. Listening to Grateful dead: also bad choice ;)).

Due to its lack of physically addicting chemicals, people who only smoke pot are far less likely to steal to buy weed than someone who is going to start shaking and having siezures if they don't get a fix.

Legalize!11!!

(Okay, my semi-rant is over)

[Ptah]

22. fair enough.

[intrepid_wanderer]

12. W/O $$ and political involvement....

Message:
... rehabilitation is just a pipe-dream.

Teach your kids to follow rules & work to change those they disagree with (while still complying with them) & the 'big picture' (aka society) will markedly improve.


here's to reform over side-X vs. side-Y bickering and self-bolstering.

[billyskank]

19. But rehabilitation is ok for rich people though

:thumbsup:

[derby378]

14. I can't help but think...

...we need to keep at least a few of those cells open for Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, etc.

[KayLaw]

23. I so agree with you

It's just another horrifying example of man's inhumanity to man and makes me wonder: Who's the bad guy here?

[liberaltrucker]

24. Once upon a time, in a life way, way back

I would've said "Don't do the crime if ya can't do the time, motherfucker".
I still say that for folks like Manson, etc. However, petty offenders such
as your son and my former stepson should be, at worst, in a halfway house, or
home detention. My take on supermax? Keep it for "people" like Manson.
Prayers and good vibes!

[Ptah]

25. Thank you, liberaltrucker.

:hug: :thumbsup:

shiny side up

[liberaltrucker]

26. Always, bro.

:hug: