Abu Ghraib abuse: Made in American prisons

[seemslikeadream]

Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, represented several prisoners in Georgia who sought compensation in the late-1990s for treatment that was remarkably similar to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. An undertaker named Wayne Garner was in charge of the prison system at the time, having been appointed in 1995 by the governor, Zell Miller, who is now a U.S. senator.

Garner considered himself a tough guy. In a federal lawsuit brought on behalf of the prisoners by the center, he was quoted as saying that while there were some inmates who "truly want to do better ... there's another 30 to 35 percent that ain't fit to kill. And I'm going to be there to accommodate them."

On Oct. 23, 1996, officers from the Tactical Squad of the Georgia Department of Corrections raided the inmates' living quarters at Dooly State Prison, a medium-security facility in Unadilla, Ga. This was part of a series of brutal shakedowns at prisons around the state that were designed to show the prisoners that a new and tougher regime was in charge.

What followed, according to the lawsuit, was simply sick. Officers opened cell doors and ordered the inmates, all males, to run outside and strip. With female prison staff members looking on, and at times laughing, several inmates were subjected to extensive and wholly unnecessary body cavity searches. The inmates were ordered to lift their genitals, to squat, to bend over and display themselves, etc.

more
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2604176

[Karenina]

1. Read it

and weep.

[seemslikeadream]

2. why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

"But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."

-- Barbara Bush on "Good Morning America," March 18, 2003.

Thanks Karenina for always being there.

[phoebe]

3. more..

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/iraq_prison_wardens_040520.html

Wardens Chosen to Establish Iraq Prison System Had Past Abuse Allegations

By Brian Ross
ABCNEWS.com

May 20, 2004— A number of former state prison commissioners chosen by the Bush administration to establish a prison system in Iraq left their old posts after allegations of neglect, brutality and inmate deaths, an investigation by ABCNEWS has found.