Prisons at Center of Damning Report on U.S. Human Rights

[Sapphire Blue]

Prisons at Center of Damning Report on U.S. Human Rights
by Haider Rizvi

(excerpt)

UNITED NATIONS - Rights advocacy groups in the United States are calling for the United Nations to take note of the gross human rights violations being committed in their country.

A coalition of human and civil rights organizations Monday sent a 465-page report to a key United Nations committee, which details ongoing abuses of human rights across the United States.

(snip)

The report documents various forms of human rights abuses in the United States, which include police brutality, abuse of immigrants, racial discrimination, and the use of torture in prisons.

(snip)

In a statement, the coalition accused the U.S. State Department of trying to sidestep the UN process on the question of ongoing human rights abuses in the United States and described its behavior as "a systematic pattern" of ignoring international human rights obligations.

(snip)

The groups likely to testify before the UN Committee include the American Civil Liberties Union, Global Rights, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the International Women's Rights Action Watch, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Center for Reproductive Rights and Justice Now.


Continued @ http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0712-08.htm

[rodeodance]

1. the US will be tarnished for a LONG time!

[izzie]

2. When you have a profit base for prison they will be bad

Putting service org. into the profit market does not make a good fix in what a gov. is or should be doing.

[goclark]

3. It is an accident that is not waiting to happen

it is here and now.


I am working at a Court House on a case right now.

The "justice" by the judge is awful!

The Defends is doomed in all of the cases that I have watched this week.

GWBush has taken over the judges and the courts and it couldn't be worse for JUSTICE for Minorities since the 1940,50's.

And MINORITES are the huge percent of the people that are judged to be criminals by the Courts.

I'm not saying it is 100%, go to jail and throw away the key,but I have watched nine cases this week and all nine were treated the same way by the judge.

Bail -- denied, Problem Solving - Denied,Listen to the Situation - Denied!

Jail has become a profitable business for the RepubliCONS and they are NOT letting them out but working to put more in.

And the scary part is, as bad as Prison is ~ JAIL is better than the streets for most ~ you can have a bed, food, heat, friends and someone to guard you so that you just may not(noticed I said MAY NOT) get killed in there.

Anyone that has the time to observe the system for about 6 hours, just go visit your FRIENDLY COURTS and sit for a while and watch a murder trial or really any trial, involving minorities, that is in session.

You'll be shocked I tell you!

Treatment programs - not discussed

Motions, one so reasonable that the Defends Attorney said, " Your Honor! This is against the Constitutional Rights of My Client!" ~ Denied! Not even a compromise.

JUSTICE is being denied in our country!

[madmusic]

4. It's "Indefensible"

Indefensible : One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice

[goclark]

5. Sounds like a must read

My friend is a Defense Lawyer and he works 24 hours a day to seek justice!

It is such an uphill battle for JUSTICE!

[madmusic]

7. It is...

A fascinating read, more like a compelling novel than non-fiction.

[sweetheart]

6. more embarassing rot from the republican termites

A culture of abuse, punative abuse; achieves nothing except the degeneration of us all.

[Sapphire Blue]

10. Culture of abuse exported to Abu Ghraib (Human Rights Watch)

Prisoner Abuse: How Different are U.S. Prisons?
By Jamie Fellner, Esq.

The sadistic abuse and sexual humiliation by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison has shocked most Americans—but not those of us familiar with U.S. jails and prisons. In American prisons today, wanton staff brutality and degrading treatment of inmates occur across the country with distressing frequency.

We know that two of the soldiers charged with abuse at Abu Ghraib were prison guards in the United States. Lane McCotter, who oversaw the reopening of Abu Ghraib prison last year, has a long—and somewhat troubled—history in corrections. For example, he resigned from his position as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1998 after a schizophrenic inmate died following sixteen hours of being immobilized in a restraining chair. The Pentagon has said it wants to send more people to Iraq who have U.S. prison experience. But before it does, it should look closely at the human rights records of their prisons.

A federal judge in 1999 concluded that Texas prisons were pervaded by a “culture of sadistic and malicious violence.” In 1995, a federal judge found a stunning pattern of staff assaults, abusive use of electronic stun devices guns, beatings, and brutality at Pelican Bay Prison in California, and concluded the violence “appears to be open, acknowledged, tolerated and sometimes expressly approved” by high ranking corrections officials.

In recent years, U.S. prison inmates have been beaten with fists and batons, stomped on, kicked, shot, stunned with electronic devices, doused with chemical sprays, choked, and slammed face first onto concrete floors by the officers whose job it is to guard them. Inmates have ended up with broken jaws, smashed ribs, perforated eardrums, missing teeth, burn scars—not to mention psychological scars and emotional pain. Some have died.

Continued @ http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/14/usdom8583.htm

[madmusic]

8. This is worth repeating

Justice Kennedy Calls Efforts to Increase Sentences "Sick"

Wow. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking in California yesterday:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy yesterday criticized the federal Sentencing Guidelines and the lobbying efforts of correctional officers' unions.

"The only thing worse than sentencing under the guidelines is sentencing without them," he told judges and lawyers from across the Ninth Circuit yesterday. "I think the guidelines are far too severe," he added, explaining that spending money on prisoners while failing to invest in efforts to inform at-risk groups about sentencing undermined the principle of deterrence.

"The fact that the prison guards' association lobbies for higher penalties is sick," he added emphatically.


Best thing I've read all day.


Source: http://www.talkleft.com/

[goclark]

9. Bravo for Kennedy!

[Sapphire Blue]

11. 'Justice' Kennedy is deserving of his title.

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[lala_rawraw]

12. i reported this last week and have another one coming up now

:)

[Sapphire Blue]

13. Thanks so much for all you do!!!

:hi: I missed your report last week, but I'll look forward to your new one!

[lala_rawraw]

14. thanks and here is link to one from last week

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Shadow_human_rights_report_to_accuse_0706.html

[Sapphire Blue]

16. *** KICK *** for Larisa's OUTSTANDING report!

:kick: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Shadow_human_rights_report_to_accuse_0706.html

Thanks for posting the link, Larisa!

[lala_rawraw]

19. :)

[G_j]

15. and sadly

our 'shining example' has lowered human rights standards across the globe.

the damage continues :-(

it really is depressing

[merh]

17. Actually

the atrocities are occurring on our soil, so similar to the brutalities in Iraq, just as horrific, just as gruesome. http://www.michaelwcrosby.com/mwc_(steel_blue)_006.htm

http://www.michaelwcrosby.com

[Sapphire Blue]

18. So very true. As stated by Jamie Fellner, Esq., Human Rights Watch:

Perhaps if photos or videotapes of abuse in U.S. prisons were to circulate publicly, Americans would be galvanized to protest such treatment as they have the treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Absent such graphic and unavoidable evidence, it is all too likely that abuse will continue to be a part of many prison sentences.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/14/usdom8583.htm

Those photos of Jessie Lee Williams speak volumes... and are "graphic and unavoidable evidence."

Thank you for posting the link to Crosby's website. (Edited to add: link needs to be fixed.)

[Sapphire Blue]

20. kick... for Jessie Lee Williams, Jr.

Sunrise
November 30, 1965

Sunset
February 6, 2006

http://www.michaelwcrosby.com/

[Sapphire Blue]

21. !

:kick:

[merh]

22. The media refuses to give this story and the man, the attention

it deserves. Jessie was killed in jail, brutally beaten, a "spit bag" placed over his head and peppered sprayed, tasered while cuffed and restrained.

Has the rest of the nation heard of him?

No, the media doesn't care.

:cry: