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Surprised? The few who even think about this may be, but even many of them shamefully believe all those locked up deserve the harsh treatment they get. Aren't they sent there to be punished for committing crimes? Did they expect a "country club?" Punishment is what they get big time because prisons everywhere are brutal places, and those sent to them have no rights and it shows in how they're treated - routinely. And let's be perfectly clear about the way it is at all US domestic and foreign based prisons (and most all other countries' as well): No, it doesn't just happen at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram near Kandahar, Afghanistan; and no, it's not just by a few "rogue elements" or "bad apples." What goes on is policy, and it comes right from the top sanctioned and approved. And let's be very clear about one other thing. The real criminals sit in corporate suites and boardrooms or in capitol hill offices while their victims are locked in cages and subjected to unspeakable abuse and brutal torture with no chance to stop it or receive redress.Prisons, with few exceptions, are not intended for rehabilitation. They are institutions societies use for vengeance and punishment. There are the most gruesome hellholes around the world the US takes full advantage of just in the prisoners it "renditions" for attempted information extraction by some of the worst physical and psychological tortures the human mind can conceive. But this essay is about what goes on in US prisons within our borders, and what you'll read below will sound like reports about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Get ready to feel your skin crawl.
Everything we saw on TV months ago about prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib (and heard goes on at Guantanamo) happens in our state and federal prison system right here at home and lots more we didn't see or hear about. These are the lessons and techniques first devised and used in US based torture-prisons and then exported for use in our comparable torture-prisons around the world. That's the way things are in all our prisons, and in the language of author Gertrude Stein when she referred to roses: a prison is a prison is a prison. The main difference between San Quentin and Abu Ghraib is their location. What goes on at both and all others includes savage beatings by prison guards; attacks by fierce dogs that inflict real bites; severe shocking with cattle prods and 50,000 volt emitting Taser electro-shock guns often used multiple times that make the victim shake for hours after being struck and can also kill and often do; assaults by toxic chemicals like pepper spray strong enough to inflict severe pain, second degree burns, temporary blindness, and even death in a vulnerable victim; and all this happening at times with prisoners stripped naked including brutal rapes by guards, other prisoners and much more.
HOW INTERNATIONAL LAW TREATS TORTURE
International law is explicit and long-standing forbidding the use of any form of torture and inhumane or degrading treatment under any circumstances. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlawed it in 1948. The Fourth Geneva Convention then did it in 1949 banning any form of "physical or mental coercion" and affirming detainees must at all time be treated humanely. The European Convention followed in 1950. Then in 1984 the UN Convention Against Torture became the first binding international instrument dealing exclusively with the issue of banning torture in any form for any reason. And let's be clear on what's meant by torture and inhumane treatment. It includes punching a prisoner or detainee in the mouth or kicking him or her in the stomach or butt.
Except for the non-binding "Universal Declaration", all the others are binding international law, and the US is a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Convention. And hold on, there's more. The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a criminal offense for US military personnel and US nationals to commit war crimes to include cruel treatment and torture covered under the Fourth Geneva Convention. And virtually every human rights organization is on the record banning all kinds of torture anywhere for any reason.
A BRIEF DIVERSION ON TORTURE OVERSEAS
I must include some important information about one type of torture that may be only going on overseas - for now. Although the US is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture, it's routinely ignored and violated them with impunity in US prisons and abroad. Further, the CIA's use of psychological torture was exempted in the UN Convention.
With cover from that exemption, Professor Alfred McCoy's new book - A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War of Terror - exposes the CIA's secret efforts to develop new forms of torture over that period. He explained how they conducted intensive research to crack the code of human consciousness and through much trial and error came up with human devastating psychological and self-inflicting torture techniques - from sensory disorientation or the severe pain from tortures like forced continuous standing for 24 - 48 hours.
The CIA experiments continue now at Guantanamo and other overseas hellhole torture-prisons. But 2 new techniques have been added - cultural sensitivity and individual fears and phobias. This four-fold assault on the human psyche is now being used against prisoners held in overseas prisons, and the detainees affected (most picked up randomly and guilty of no offense) are being used as human "lab rats" in a gruesome, vile and clearly illegal and immoral experiment to devise the most effective psychological techniques to break down a human subject - to break a human being so totally it's near impossible to recover.
I could find no information on if these experiments are now being conducted in US domestic prisons. But that doesn't mean they're not. They may be happening here, but we don't know about them. But the key point is this. Once the use of torture in all forms gains currency, it's inevitable it will spread everywhere. And let's be very clear on one other point. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (the so-called McCain Anti-Torture amendment) passed in December last year is so full of loopholes and offsets by other legislation that it's worthless and will do nothing to stop the tortures explained above.
THE DEATH PENALTY - THE "HEART OF DARKNESS" OF OUR CRIMINAL-INJUSTICE SYSTEM
Life in prison is a living hell for all those in one as all the victims know who've been there or those of us who've read about it in detail as I have. Being there is like being in one of the 5 levels of Dante's hell where those consigned to spend eternity are doomed to eternal punishment.
All prisons are hellholes. But for those prisoners with any hope of release one day, the second lowest level of Dante's hell is any of the so-called "supermax" prisons. They're supposedly intended to house society's most dangerous, incorrigibly violent inmates, but many sent there aren't that at all like the many political prisoners consigned that fate because the state wishes to bury them alive and keep them isolated. The number in these "special" hellholes are a small but growing percent of the total prison population, and those in them spend their waking and sleeping hours locked in small, often windowless, cells for long sentences of many years. They're deprived of all contact with other inmates and only allowed out for brief periods a few times a week for showers and some solitary exercise in a small, enclosed space. They're deprived of all mental stimulation from human contact, recreation or education, and are nearly always shackled hands and feet and escorted by armed guards whenever they leave their cells. Prisoners who've endured this torture, come out, and spoken publicly about it have described it to be like living in a tomb. And the state inflicted misery they've been subjected to often results in a host of severe emotional problems including insanity. Try locking yourself in your bathroom with a little plain food and water for 24 hours (if you can stand it) and see how you feel. Then multiply that by 20 or more years.
The state and federally sponsored murder factories known as "death rows" are, without a doubt, the lowest and worst level of Dante's hell. Dante might have written his words "Abandon every hope, all ye who enter" for the abandoned souls sent to these barbaric death factories. They only look different than Auschwitz. Those entering never come out (except the few lucky ones DNA evidence exonerate). As of April, 2005 there were 3452 on "death row" in the 37 states with the death penalty including 36 in federal prisons and 7 held by the US military. The vast majority of them are poor or disadvantaged and their racial breakdown is as follows: 45.5% white, 41.7% black, 10.4% Hispanic, 1.2% Asian, 1.2% American Indian and .5% unknown. Nearly all of them, 98.5%, are male.
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