Rich Lowry writes in The shame of our prisons:

Our tolerance for prison rape, considered a subject fit for late-night TV humor, is a great mystery. We profess to abhor rape, to adore personal dignity, to uphold the rights of the downtrodden -- yet we sentence tens of thousands of men every year to the most bestial kind of abuse, without a second thought beyond the occasional chuckle.

The silence surrounding this national shame has been broken by a right-left coalition in Washington that is pushing federal prison-rape legislation, likely to pass and be signed into law this year. It will be a first step to alleviating the problem, if not the end of the vile jokes. . . .

The bill seems impossible to oppose, but that hasn't stopped elements of the Bush Justice Department from resisting. They worry that the bill trespasses on federalism principles, even though the Supreme Court has held that deliberate indifference to rape violates the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

[Link via Instapundit who says, "I don't see the federalism issue here -- you've got state action, and a violation of constitutional rights. So where's Ashcroft on this?" He'd also like an answer from Bill Lockyer.] The Government does not know the full extent of the problem. Stop Prisoner Rape reports that the FBI's crime statistics don't include male rape victims.

The categories of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report were created in 1929, according to the report. The forcible rape of men is explicitly excluded from the annual analysis of the “violent crime” in the U.S., which draws from the reports of 17,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The FBI’s report states that it “has traditionally defined rape victims as female.”

The bi-partisan Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2003 has been introduced in Congress. It needs your help. Click here to send a letter to Bush and Ashcroft urging their support. The bill's stated purpose is "to provide for the analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape in Federal, State, and local institutions and to provide information, resources, recommendations, and funding to protect individuals from prison rape."

Maryland is not alone in its rising rate of infectious diseases among prisoners.

Nearly one in three inmates entering the Maryland prison system is infected with HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus -- many of them with more than one infection -- according to a blood survey released yesterday by state health officials.

The most prevalent infection in Maryland state prisons was hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus that can cause liver disease, including cancer and cirrhosis, and other serious complications, according to the report by the Maryland AIDS Administration. At a time when less than 2 percent of the U.S. population is infected with hepatitis C, 29.7 percent of Maryland prisoners had it, said Liza Solomon, the agency's director.

Even if you don't care about prisoners, you should know that this has consequences for all of us.

The higher rate of disease among prisoners has major public health implications beyond prison walls, she said, because inmates eventually are released into the community, where they can spread the infections. Reaching undiagnosed inmates in prison is an important opportunity for the state to limit diseases that can disrupt or prematurely end lives.

Here's more on the problem and what should be done about it.

In a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of Mississippi death row inmates, conditions are so bad they are driving inmates insane.

A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of six inmates by the American Civil Liberties Union says the stifling heat, filth, insects and other conditions could explain why some of those on death row are suffering from mental illness.

At a hearing on the lawsuit earlier this year, James Balsamo, the director of environmental health and safety at Tulane University, said he took temperature, humidity and air volume readings in about 15 cells at Parchman last August, and found the heat index exceeded 100 degrees

Many inmates keep their windows closed to protect themselves from spiders and insects, he said, which adds to the heat and ventilation problems.

Another witness, Dr. Terry Kupers, a California psychiatrist who has written a book on prison madness, said he found several inmates with mental problems in a tour of death row last August.

''They mess up their cell, they're totally disheveled, they scream day and night, they smear feces, they throw feces and urine down the hall, they flood the tier,'' Kupers testified.

In a recent telephone interview, Kupers said conditions at Parchman were worse than any he's seen at death rows in six states and they directly contribute to severe emotional and mental problems.

More information on the lawsuit is available here.

“When we brought this case in July we knew that prison conditions were terrible,” said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU's National Prison Project. “The expert reports we have now received are so disturbing that we are asking the court to move this case up on the docket before prisoners suffer further harm or even death.” In a civilized society, Winter said, “no one should be subjected to treatment like this. The state may be authorized to execute death-sentenced prisoners, but it may not torture prisoners to death while they are pursuing their rights to appeal their sentences.”

Since the death penalty was reinstated in Mississippi, 41% of the death sentences have been overturned.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate conservative, on Wednesday criticized our nation's harsh criminal sentences and said two million people in jail is too many.

He criticized the proliferation of "mandatory minimum" sentences, which can mean long prison terms for relatively minor or nonviolent crimes. "In many cases, our sentences are too long," Kennedy said. Justice Clarence Thomas nodded in apparent agreement. He made his comments after the two justices had asked the House Appropriations Committee for $73.4 million for salaries, upkeep and other court expenses for the 12 months that begin in October.

But Kennedy and Thomas last month both voted to uphold three-strikes laws. And Congress Thursday is poised to pass the Amber Alert bill, that now contains provisions which will drastically reduce judicial discretion in sentencing and in particular, in downward departures, which will result in the imposition of many more mandatory minimum sentences. Someone ought to stop this runaway train.

A defense lawyer and paralegal representing an Egyptian client charged in a major New York terrorism case were held in a locked cell for two hours after concluding their meeting with their client, despite repeated requests to leave. A federal judge has ordered an investigation.

The lawyer and the paralegal who visited Mr. Sattar on March 20 told a guard they were ready to leave at 3:20 p.m., according to a memo sent by his lawyers to the judge. They asked again at 4:45 p.m., and as 5 p.m. approached, they asked a guard to call their offices so their co-workers would not worry about them, the memo said, but the request was refused. They were released at 5:15, the memo said.

This was not the first time the legal team had problems at the jail, MCC in lower Manhattan. But the situation has gotten progressively worse.

In the last two weeks, our associates and a paralegal have encountered problems which go beyond what we have previously experienced," they wrote, citing what they called "the completely unacceptable behavior" by staff members at the jail.

The jailers' response was essentially, "Sorry, it was busy, we forgot."

The number of persons imprisoned in the U.S. now exceeds two million, according to the latest Justice Department statistics.

The Sentencing Project has the details.

Prisons and jails held one out of every 142 U.S. residents. The prison and jail population, long the world's largest, has almost doubled since 1990.

....There were 2,019,234 people in prisons or jails at the end of June 2002, according to the report. About two-thirds of the total were in state and federal prisons, and the rest were in local jails.

"The relentless increases in prison and jail populations can best be explained as the legacy of an entrenched infrastructure of punishment that has been embedded in the criminal justice system over the last 30 years," said Malcolm Young, the group's executive director.

In the 12 months that ended June 30, the jail population went up by 34,235 inmates, a 5.4 percent rise and the largest increase since 1997, according to the report. State prisons added 12,440 inmates, a 1 percent increase, while the federal prison system grew by 8,042 inmates, a 5.7 percent increase.

Among the other findings of the report:

• A total of 7,248 jailed inmates and 3,055 state prisoners were younger than 18.

• The federal government's prison system had the largest number of inmates at 161,681, followed by California with 160,315 prisoners and Texas with 158,131 inmates.

• Twenty states experienced an inmate population increase of 5 percent or more during the 12-month period.

• Female prisoners totaled 96,099 at the end of June, accounting for 6.7 percent of all inmates. There's more.

The rate of incarceration in the United States, 702 inmates per 100,000 residents, continues to be the highest in the world. Among black males 25 to 29, 12.9% were in prison or jail. Overall, 4.8% of black males were in prison or jails, compared to 1.7% of Hispanics and 0.6% of whites. Black women in prisons and jails continue to outnumber their white (5 times as many) and Hispanic (more than twice as many) counterparts.

This is America--land of the free?

How low can corrections officers get? Read on, from today's Boston Herald:

A mentally retarded black inmate was handcuffed behind his back and forced to eat cake like a dog for the amusement of six white Essex County correction officers, who apparently forgot security cameras were rolling overhead, a source and authorities said.

``They were pushing his face down into the cake, flicking his ears,'' the source said. The source, who has not seen the tape but had its contents relayed to him, charged inmate Arthur Austin was made to kneel on the floor with his arms handcuffed behind his back, while his face was shoved in the cake.

Essex Sheriff Frank Cousins confirmed Austin was handcuffed, but said he was told he was fed from a countertop. ``There is a recording of this incident,'' Cousins, who has not seen the tape, acknowledged yesterday.

The humiliating horseplay, which Cousins said was played out at least two times and possibly three on Sunday, has resulted in Capt. Elaine Bushway and correction officers Jason Copp, Brian Lavoie, Rob Kostin, Joseph Goldstein and Thomas Francesconi being placed on paid administrative leave.

More on the Chicago jail beatings and coverup from Chicago Tribune investigative reporters Steve Mills and Maurice Possley today: The Chief Investigator says he sent report to the jail's director, Ernesto Velasco.

The chief investigator of an alleged mass beating of prisoners at Cook County Jail in 1999 says he was pressured to clear guards of wrongdoing, but eventually delivered a report sustaining charges to then-jail executive director Ernesto Velasco, who has said he was unaware of the report.

The account from Charles Holman, a veteran internal affairs investigator at the jail, contradicts the account of Velasco, who told a House committee hearing last week that he never saw Holman's report and did not know the investigation had been completed. ...

He said Velasco came up to him and inquired about the nearly 12-inch-tall stack of documents. Holman said he told the jail director that it was his report of the beating allegations.

"He asked me about the outcome," Holman said. "I said we sustained quite a few charges. I told him out of my own mouth."

Velasco not only denied ever seeing the report, but also speaking to Holman about it. As we wrote earlier, Velasco has been nominated by the Governor of Illinois to head the Illinois Department of Corrections. His nomination is now on hold until more is learned about Velasco's knowledge of and response to the report on these jail beatings.

At least 49 inmates told investigators they were beaten, but the report sustained brutality allegations only against Richard Remus, the head of the SORT unit. In an interview, Remus denied beating anyone. Other SORT officers also denied the brutality claims, according to a spokeswoman for Sheahan. The report sustained violations against nine other officers, including one superintendent, and ruled as "inconclusive" charges against 40 other officers--meaning the charges could neither be proved nor disproved.

We think it's time for a change in Illinois. The Governor should follow the lead of Los Angeles which hired Bill Bratton as Police Chief and select an uncompromised, principled outsider to lead the Department of Corrections.

The problem with Houston's crime lab is growing fast.

"Prosecutors have ordered new DNA testing on evidence used to convict 10 more people, four of them now on death row, after an independent audit uncovered widespread problems at the Houston police lab." "Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has said several hundred cases perhaps as many as 400 will be retested. Twenty-one had been ordered by Saturday, including seven involving death row inmates."

One of the main problems with the Houston lab was that holes in the roof leaked water, possible contaminating the DNA samples and compromising the testing. But for a state audit in December, this might have gone unreported. As a result of the audit, DNA testing was suspended at the lab.

Sooner or later, if it hasn't happened already, an innocent person is going to be put to death. Not only does Texas lead the country in number of executions, but if Houston were a state, it would come in second. This should be the final straw to imposing a moratorium on the death penalty in Texas.

Bump and Update: The Associated Press reports that the investigative articles below have resulted in halting confirmation hearings for Ernesto Velasco as the head of the Illinois Department of Corrections. Velasco was the executive director of the Cook County Jail for the past seven years, until last month when he resigned. Illinois residents owe a big thank you to reporters Steve Mills and Maurice Possley. Credit also goes to Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich who nominated Velasco and today decided to halt the confirmation until receiving more information.

Chicago Tribune Investigative reporters Maurice Possley and Steve Mills continue their excellent coverage of the mass beatings of inmates and cover-ups by the Cook County Sheriff's Department they revealed yesterday. It turns out there was a second and separate such incident a year and a half later.

Seventeen months after a team of 40 guards at Cook County Jail allegedly terrorized and beat inmates, another group of guards punched and kicked five other inmates while they were shackled, according to two former jail guards.

The two former guards allege they received death threats from other guards and were harassed into resigning this month after they refused to cover up the July 29, 2000, beatings....

I saw them hitting them with elbows, stomping on their faces and heads, kicking them in the face," Fairley testified. "I yelled at them to stop because what I saw was too violent. But they didn't."

The inmates contend that during a shakedown for contraband and weapons, guards began tossing all of their belongings out of their cells, then forced them to run a gantlet of officers who punched them. That touched off a brawl that ended with the handcuffing and shackling of the five inmates and then the alleged beating....

The Cook County sheriff's Internal Affairs Division ruled that the claims of the inmates and the guards were "inconclusive," a middle finding between sustained and exonerated. Other guards who have been deposed so far have denied the beating....

When the disturbance erupted, Fairley said, he was summoned from another tier in the cellblock to help.

"I heard screaming. I heard people hitting each other, flesh upon flesh," he testified. "I saw blood splattered all over the doors, all over the walls, all over the piles of garbage and the floor of the corridor. A lot of blood."

When the fight ended, the five inmates were handcuffed and four were shackled at the ankles and put in an area known as the "pump room." Fairley said he went to the doorway. The four guards, he said, were "jumping in the air, coming down on their heads with their knees. I saw them kicking them in every part of their bodies with all their might."

....In a telephone interview, [inmate] Fields said the beatings were sparked by a complaint he wrote to the Cook County state's attorney's office and the FBI about the alleged beating of another inmate. Fields said that after he complained, two jail officers told him, "Anybody who don't like what happened, we'll send you to the hospital."

Fields said the guards "beat us like we were savage animals. They beat us down to the ground. They stomped us, kicked us in the face."

....Richard Gackowski, 37, another guard and a friend of Fairley's, testified in a separate deposition that the lieutenant later told him that before the inmates were cuffed, he had grabbed Mitchell, the inmate who had a cast on his leg.

"He stated to me that he grabbed inmate Mitchell's good leg and did everything he could--twisted it, jumped on it, hit it--did whatever he could to get that leg to snap," Gackowski said. "And it just wouldn't snap and he laughed about it. He thought it was funny."

Nathson Fields, one of the inmates quoted in the article, had his death penalty conviction reversed because his trial judge took bribes, for which he was sent to prison. One of the bribes was from Fields' co-defendant. The States Attorney promised a prompt re-trial ( or really a first trial as reviewing judge said) but has done everything he can to drag it out. (Thanks to Rev. Mr.George W. Brooks, Director of Advocacy, Kolbe House for the Fields update.)

Why aren't Ashcroft's federal prosecutors all over this, charging federal civil rights offenses against the offending Sheriffs? Oh, we forgot, they're out busting bong sellers and re-directing websites.

The Chicago Tribune blasts the Cook County Sheriff's Office over the beatings of inmates, calling it "out of control" and "a cesspool."

Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan's operation is out of control. His undisciplined sheriff's and correctional staff have been caught up in so many incidents of brutality, wrongdoing, falsification of reports and otherwise inappropriate behavior that the only way to count them is by the number of taxpayer dollars that are shelled out in their wake for legal settlements.

Sheahan refuses to learn from past mistakes. He refuses to fix serious, life-threatening problems that are stunningly obvious to everyone but him and his legion of lapdogs....

The Cook County Board has had to shell out millions in civil settlements and attorneys' fees defending county correctional officers and sheriff's police for their on- and off-duty antics.

The sad part is nothing is likely to come of the investigaton and Internal Affairs report, other than some "slaps on the wrist." The Tribune is right, this guy has to go.

A 50 page report has been released showing massive inmate beatings by prison guards in Chicago in 1999 and an incredible coverup, continuing to this date. From a Chicago Tribune article today by veteran investigative reporters Maurice Possley and Steve Mills:

Four years ago, an elite squad of 40 Cook County Jail guards invaded a maximum-security cellblock for the sole purpose of beating and terrorizing prisoners, then filed false reports to cover it up, according to Cook County sheriff's internal affairs documents, prisoner interviews and sheriff's sources.

On Feb. 24, 1999, in a night inmates still recount with horror, members of the sheriff's Special Operations Response Team (SORT) accompanied by four guard dogs without muzzles ordered 400 prisoners to leave their cells in response to a gang-related stabbing three days earlier.

Moving systematically through four tiers, the guards clad in riot gear ransacked cells, then herded inmates into common areas where they were forced to strip and face the wall with hands behind their head, according to a 50-page report by the sheriff's Internal Affairs Division obtained by the Tribune....

At least 49 inmates told investigators they were beaten, including former Death Row prisoner Leroy Orange, who received a pardon based on innocence last month from former Gov. George Ryan, and Miguel Castillo, who spent 11 years in prison for murder until he was exonerated and freed.

"Everybody who had a tattoo got their ass whipped," Orange said in an interview. "It was scary. The dogs were barking and the guards were just beating the [expletive] out of everybody. I've never seen anything like it."

After the 90-minute sweep, guards denied inmates immediate medical attention, the report found.

The internal affairs report said Remus failed to "enforce humane treatment" by "directing his SORT supervisors and SORT Team Members to administer corporal punishment to detainees." It sustained 29 violations against Remus, including that he beat two inmates. No other officer was individually cited for beating inmates.

The internal affairs investigation sustained violations against nine others-- then-Supt. James Edwards, a lieutenant, two sergeants, and one officer for filing false reports, some to cover up the incident. Four canine officers were cited for bringing dogs into the cells in violation of jail procedures."

Here is a timeline of the beatings. There is a lot more, go read the whole article, it is simply chilling.