[Vision2020] America's Abu Ghraibs

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

This is from today's New York Times.  One of my favorite political cartoons 
on this subject is a depiction of a big hand placing prisoners in a box 
labelled "America's prisons."  The box is then simply reiterated a half 
dozen times indicating years gone by, then the last box opens with rats 
coming out.  In the industrialized world we have the highest per capita 
prison population rate and the highest recidivism rate.  Shame, shame on us.

Nick Gier

May 31, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
America's Abu Ghraibs
By BOB HERBERT

         Most Americans were shocked by the sadistic treatment of Iraqi 
detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. But we shouldn't have been. Not only 
are inmates at prisons in the U.S. frequently subjected to similarly 
grotesque treatment, but Congress passed a law in 1996 to ensure that in 
most cases they were barred from receiving any financial compensation for 
the abuse.
         We routinely treat prisoners in the United States like animals. We 
brutalize and degrade them, both men and women. And we have a lousy record 
when it comes to protecting well-behaved, weak and mentally ill prisoners 
from the predators surrounding them.
         Very few Americans have raised their voices in opposition to our 
shameful prison policies. And I'm convinced that's primarily because the 
inmates are viewed as less than human.
         Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, 
represented several prisoners in Georgia who sought compensation in the 
late-1990's for treatment that was remarkably similar to the abuses at Abu 
Ghraib. An undertaker named Wayne Garner was in charge of the prison system 
at the time, having been appointed in 1995 by the governor, Zell Miller, 
who is now a U.S. senator.
         Mr. Garner considered himself a tough guy. In a federal lawsuit 
brought on behalf of the prisoners by the center, he was quoted as saying 
that while there were some inmates who "truly want to do better . . . 
there's another 30 to 35 per cent that ain't fit to kill. And I'm going to 
be there to accommodate them."
         On Oct. 23, 1996, officers from the Tactical Squad of the Georgia 
Department of Corrections raided the inmates' living quarters at Dooly 
State Prison, a medium-security facility in Unadilla, Ga. This was part of 
a series of brutal shakedowns at prisons around the state that were 
designed to show the prisoners that a new and tougher regime was in charge.
         What followed, according to the lawsuit, was simply sick. Officers 
opened cell doors and ordered the inmates, all males, to run outside and 
strip. With female prison staff members looking on, and at times laughing, 
several inmates were subjected to extensive and wholly unnecessary body 
cavity searches. The inmates were ordered to lift their genitals, to squat, 
to bend over and display themselves, etc.
         One inmate who was suspected of being gay was told that if he ever 
said anything about the way he was being treated, he would be locked up and 
beaten until he wouldn't "want to be gay anymore." An officer who was 
staring at another naked inmate said, "I bet you can tap dance." The inmate 
was forced to dance, and then had his body cavities searched.
         An inmate in a dormitory identified as J-2 was slapped in the face 
and ordered to bend over and show himself to his cellmate. The raiding 
party apparently found that to be hilarious.
         According to the lawsuit, Mr. Garner himself, the commissioner of 
the Department of Corrections, was present at the Dooly Prison raid.
None of the prisoners named in the lawsuit were accused of any improper 
behavior during the course of the raid. The suit charged that the inmates' 
constitutional rights had been violated and sought compensation for the 
pain, suffering, humiliation and degradation they had been subjected to.
         Fat chance.The Prison Litigation Reform Act, designed in part to 
limit "frivolous" lawsuits by inmates, was passed by Congress and signed 
into law by Bill Clinton in 1996. It specifically prohibits the awarding of 
financial compensation to prisoners "for mental or emotional injury while 
in custody without a prior showing of physical injury."
         Without any evidence that they had been seriously physically 
harmed, the inmates in the Georgia case were out of luck. The courts ruled 
against them.
This is the policy of the United States of America.
         Said Mr. Bright: "Today we are talking about compensating 
prisoners in Iraq for degrading treatment, as of course we should. But we 
do not allow compensation for prisoners in the United States who suffer the 
same kind of degradation and humiliation."
         The message with regard to the treatment of prisoners in the U.S. 
has been clear for years: Treat them any way you'd like. They're just animals.
         The treatment of the detainees in Iraq was far from an aberration. 
They, too, were treated like animals, which was simply a logical extension 
of the way we treat prisoners here at home.



"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part 
by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the 
interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual 
life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and 
art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." 
--Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://users.moscow.com/ngier/home/index.htm
208-883-3360/882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/ift/index.htm