Friday, September 28, 2007

Prisoner Abuse in U.S. Prisons

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, staff brutality and degrading treatment of inmates occur across the country with distressing frequency.

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.

Independent expert inspections yielding public findings are rare, and usually occur only after the situation has become so bad that inmates have filed a lawsuit.

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