Let's have some praise where praise is due: For the inmates in Louisiana who have pitched in as first responders and other helpers for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

[James]Cox, a prisoner for nearly 30 years, is serving time for armed robbery at the Washington Correctional Institute. In the past two weeks, though, he has also been a first responder, one of dozens of inmates in orange jumpsuits who have been driving forklifts, clearing debris and handing out food and water to people living here near the Mississippi line.

As Louisiana digs out from Hurricane Katrina, convicts have been opening roads with axes and chainsaws and doing other useful work. At Angola State Penitentiary, near Baton Rouge, inmates produced mattresses for shelters. Some prisoners have even donated money from what little they are paid so evacuees can buy postage stamps.

by TChris

A NY Times editorial explains why the Pennsylvania House passed a bill that would prevent individuals on probation or parole from voting.

The Pennsylvania bill represents an odious attempt by lawmakers to undo a state court ruling overturning a law that required newly released prisoners to wait five years before getting the right to vote. Republican lawmakers who disliked the court ruling liked it even less when community activists in Democratic parts of the state began to inform ex-felons that they now had the right to return to the polls.

Voting is a right of citizenship. Voting fosters rehabilitation by allowing ex-offenders to feel a connection to others, to be woven into the social fabric. The counterproductive and undemocratic bill is likely to die in the Pennsylvania Senate, but the Times is right to label this attempt to suppress voting rights as "shameful" and "reprehensible."

by TChris

There is finally some positive news to report in our prison nation:

Death rates from suicide, homicide and AIDS all dropped by double digits in 2002, the latest year for which data is available, the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported Sunday.

Credit is due to prisoner advocates who force the government to obey the Constitution.

[A]dvocacy groups have become much more aggressive in filing lawsuits to improve conditions behind bars, said Kara Gotsch, public policy coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project.

The LA Times today explores the topic of radical muslim groups in California state prisons:

Federal investigators suspect that an Islamist prison gang, called Jamiyyat Ul Islam Is Saheeh, or Assembly of Authentic Islam, may have links to three Muslim men recently implicated in a possible plot to attack National Guard Recruitment Centers in California.

....Last month, police in Torrance arrested Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, and Levar Haney Washington, 25, in connection with a string of gas station robberies. Washington converted to Islam in Folsom while serving time for assault and robbery, authorities said. Police staked out the pair and were led to Hammad Riaz Samana. Sources familiar with a federal investigation of the trio say they are suspected of planning to stage a series of terrorist attacks in California.

The vast majority of Muslim inmates are peaceful.

by TChris

Many in the "lock 'em up" crowd believe deprivation of liberty alone provides inadequate suffering to constitute true punishment. Some (particularly those who are certain that the innocent are never convicted) believe that any incarcerated person deserves whatever pain and abuse might be inflicted upon him. Others just don't care, which is why society largely ignores the problem of prison rape.

The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission is learning that the problem is too endemic to ignore. The effect of sexual abuse on individual inmates is devastating, but, as commission chairman Judge Reggie B. Walton recognizes, "people [who] say inmates get what they deserve ... don't think about the overall impact on society."

by TChris

Inmates in jails and prisons make collect calls to stay in touch with their families. Jail administrators and prison wardens don't much care what it costs the families to accept those calls, so they sign contracts with telephone companies that permit outrageous charges while giving a kickback to the government. The Center for Constitutional Rights sued the New York State Department of Correctional Services and MCI seeking to end that practice in New York.

The lawsuit, Walton v. NYSDOCS, seeks an order prohibiting the State and MCI from charging exorbitant rates to the family members of prisoners to finance a 57.5% kickback to the state. MCI charges these family members a 630% markup over consumer rates to receive a collect call from their loved ones, the only way possible to speak with them, CCR says.

A judge dismissed the suit as time-barred, but the CCR has appealed. (Law geeks take note: the linked article contains a link to the CCR's brief.) Whether or not the lawsuit gets reinstated, New York and other jurisdictions should stop punishing the families of the incarcerated who often have their telephone service disconnected because they can't afford to pay for the collect calls. Yet a proposed New York law to require telephone companies to provide fair-market rates to jails and prisons has gone nowhere.

Kudos to Colorado Saddlery.

In a program that works for both the company and prison inmates, inmates are at work creating custom-crafted riding saddles and earning $5.25 an hour instead of the 60 cents an hour the prison pays inmates. That means money to pay restitution to victims and child support, as well as money for a better start when they leave prison and return to society.

by TChris

The more extreme members of the right wing believe that any harm a prisoner experiences is just part of the punishment he or she should endure. But punishments are fixed by courts, not by prisons. When the government takes custody of an individual, it is the government’s obligation to be a responsible custodian. That means protecting prisoners from foreseeable injury.

According to a Justice Department study, our prisons have done a woeful job of protecting inmates from sexual abuse.

The study concluded that there were 8,210 alleged acts of sexual violence reported to officials in the nation's jails and prisons, which hold about 2.1 million inmates. Of those, officials were able to substantiate 2,090 allegations, the study said. Justice Department officials acknowledged that probably many more sexual assaults have taken place.

At least one sector of the economy is booming - the private prison industry:

Since 2000, the number of federal inmates in private facilities — prisons and halfway houses — has increased by two-thirds to more than 24,000. Thousands more detainees not convicted of crimes are confined in for-profit facilities, which now hold roughly 14 percent of all federal prisoners, compared to less than 6 percent of state inmates.

The war against drug offenders and immigrants has fueled the boom which is expected to continue to grow. Stories of abuses abound. Here's an excellent article by Alan Pendergast of Westword on how private prisons have turned out in Colorado. Another good read is this article by Christian Parenti.

In anticipation of the release today of new Abu Ghraib photos and videos, I was searching around, and found this speech:

It is interesting that the nation which boasts the most about freedom and democracy is one of the world’s most rabid incarcerators. It is also interesting that the nation that deigns to serve as the world’s teacher on human rights brought you the vile indignities, tortures and terror of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq!

For many of us who dwell in these manmade hells, Abu Ghraib was no surprise; we have seen or heard the same things in the gulags where we are. Is it mere coincidence that many of the most notorious tyrants and slimy torturers at Abu Ghraib were, in their private lives, state prison guards? Or that the very ringleader, the man shown in most of those vicious photos, worked here, at this very prison, for over six years?

Where do you think he learned what he shared with his Iraqi captives? From a book? America has a long and distinguished career as cager, shackler, handcuffer and torturer. It has had over three centuries of practice against Africans and Indians.

By Mumia Abu-Jamal, "one of over 2 million men, women and children encaged in America’s gulags, the fastest growing public housing development in the United States."

by TChris

New York City, in response to litigation, will no longer require every woman detained in the Rikers Island jail to undergo a gynecological exam.

The city for years had told every woman admitted to the Rikers Island jail that she had to undergo a pelvic exam, a Pap smear and a breast exam or move into isolation, said Richard Cardinale, the lead attorney in the class-action lawsuit.

The settlement requires the city to inform women that they can refuse the exams without retaliation.

The city also agreed to pay millions of dollars to people who were strip-searched in city jails after arrests on suspicion of misdemeanor charges or violations such as traffic infractions.

Sometimes I think we are living inside a made-for-tv sci-fi movie, co-written by George Orwell and Charles Dickens, and directed by a sadist. Here's the latest. The Bureau of Prisons will be installing fatal electrical stun fences on the perimeters of seven maximum security facilities. The reason: it's cheaper than prison guards.

Seven high-security federal prisons will be getting lethal electrified fences in a $10 million project intended to reduce the number of perimeter guards needed. The 12-foot-high "stun-lethal" fences, similar to ones used at some state prisons, can be set to deliver a shock if touched once, and a fatal jolt if touched a second time.

If you're a contractor, get your bids in now. The winner of the fence installation contract will be announced in the fall. If you're a taxpayer, ask yourself, how many times have you read about a federal prison breakout? The correct answer is zero.