Prisoner Abuse

There is so Much More to us Than Just Being HIV-Positive

By Dana Harley at 12:54pm

I entered a system that stated in its mission statement that I would be rehabilitated and prepared for society upon my return. That is so far from the truth. I have been subjected to a system that belittled me and literally made fun of me and my illness. There were times when I felt less than human.

I am hopeful that Judge Thompson’s decision will dramatically change the misconceptions about HIV. We are human beings and we deserve to be treated as such. It is true that I am a convicted felon and I have been sentenced to do my time, but being HIV-positive in the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) system has convicted me twice.

Standing Up Against Sexual Assault By the State

By Mie Lewis, Women's Rights Project at 11:05am

After meeting with visitors, prisoners in a Michigan prison are forced to remove all of their clothing and spread open their vaginal lips as a guard peers into their vaginal cavities.

Urgent White House Action Needed to Avert Guantánamo Human Rights Crisis

By Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project & Jamil Dakwar, Director, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:37am

There is a serious human rights crisis brewing at the prison at Guantánamo Bay. A hunger strike that began in early February has spread...

Los Angeles Sheriff Endorses Report Recommending Swift Closure of Infamous Jail

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project at 1:41pm

A new report released today finds L.A. County's Men's Central Jail, the largest and most violence-plagued in the nation, can be shut down by the end of 2013.

ACLU Lens: Abuse in the Los Angeles County Jails

By Will Matthews, ACLU of Northern California at 10:41am

A new report released today by the ACLU reveals shocking details of a climate of violence inside the nation's largest jail system. 

New York Prisons: A Human Rights Crisis in Our Own Backyard

By Elena Landriscina, Legal Fellow, NYCLU at 10:45am

 

New York has allowed a human rights crisis to fester in its prisons. Each day, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision subjects nearly 4,500 prisoners to solitary confinement...

New Support for Ending the Solitary Confinement of Youth

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 10:48pm

Last week the ACLU and Human Rights Watch released a report about the solitary confinement of young people in America’s jails and prisons. Kids in solitary often spend 22 to 24 hours a day alone, sometimes without access to books, let alone other people. The isolation can last for days, weeks, or even months at a time.

Justice Department Takes First Steps to Protect Kids from Rape

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project at 11:41am

In 2003, Congress took an important first step in addressing a national tragedy: epidemic levels of rape and sexual abuse in our nation’s prisons, jails and youth detention centers. The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), passed unanimously in Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush, called for the development of binding national standards for the prevention, detection, response and monitoring of sexual violence behind bars. After nine years, these standards were finally released by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this month. They represent the first national effort to hold correctional facilities accountable for abuse while at the same time instituting policies and procedures that will help prevent abuse in the first place.

It’s Time to Value Public Safety over Revenge

By Mike Tartaglia, Paralegal, National Prison Project & Andrew Waks, National Prison Project at 5:31pm

As America’s prison population has grown to unprecedented levels and imposed record-high costs on taxpayers, it is time to evaluate what we hope to achieve through incarceration: is it revenge, or safety? The two values appear to be in conflict as objectives of our criminal justice system. After decades of tough-on-crime policies, we have experienced little return on our investment— as rates of incarceration have continued to rise, rates of recidivism have increased since the early 1980s, remaining relatively unchanged from the mid-1990s through the present.

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