Blog of Rights
Gabriel
Eber
04/30/2012
Private Prisons

Private Prisons Are the Problem, Not the Solution

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project & Gabriel Eber, ACLU National Prison Project at 4:38pm

For the past two years, the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center have been investigating and exposing a horrifying pattern of abuse against juveniles and the mentally ill in two Mississippi prisons operated by the GEO Group, one of the biggest for-profit prison operators in the world.

Recently, we got some good news and some bad news.

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10/23/2012
Prisoner Abuse

Marty Atencio (1967-2011): Another Victim of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Jails

By Gabriel Eber, ACLU National Prison Project & Eric Balaban, ACLU National Prison Project at 10:38am

Earnest “Marty” Atencio, 44 years old, died on December 20, 2011.  His dead body was covered with bruises, lacerations and puncture marks – wounds that made him look like the victim of a vicious attack by criminals.  But Marty Atencio wasn’t attacked on the street; the attack that cost him his life took place at the Maricopa County Jails (MCJ) in Phoenix, run by the self-styled “toughest sheriff in America,” Joe Arpaio, and the assailants wore badges and uniforms.

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05/05/2010

Remembering Francisco Castañeda

By Gabriel Eber, ACLU National Prison Project at 5:17pm

On Monday, we got a disappointing Supreme Court decision (PDF) that immunizes government doctors from personal liability for providing constitutionally inadequate medical care. But in that bad decision is an important acknowledgment that in Hui v. Castañeda "the Government filed a formal notice admitting liability with respect to...medical negligence." Francisco Castañeda lost his life at age 36 because of that negligence. The ACLU has been involved in the Castañeda case for more than three years. We urge that his memory be honored by Congress enacting reforms to the immigration detention system that caused his premature death.

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02/16/2012

What the U.S. Can Learn from the Honduran Prison Fire

By Gabriel Eber, ACLU National Prison Project at 5:01pm

Wednesday's tragic fire in Honduras' Comayagua Prison, which took at least 382 lives, offers a somber opportunity for reflection on two levels. 

First, as the worst prison fire in recent memory, it reminds us of the porosity of even the thickest of prison walls. The human tragedy of the hundreds of deaths is greater than horrific photos of burnt corpses awaiting burial. There are, of course, the families and loved ones of the deceased prisoners. But every prison is also a workplace, and in coming days we will likely learn of the officers and staff who lost their lives performing the prime job responsibility of any prison employee – to maintain health, safety, and security. Indeed, the Comayagua fire will forever affect the lives of thousands. Most prisons confine a few hundred persons in sterile buildings on a patch of undesirable land, but the events inside those buildings can inflict deep suffering on those living far beyond the bars. No matter how hard we may try, a prison is never truly isolated; not even the sharpest barbed wire can stem the seepage of suffering.

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