Americans Face Guantanamo-Like Torture Everyday in a Super-Max Prison Near You

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




Boston Review / By Lance Tapley

Americans Face Guantanamo-Like Torture Everyday in a Super-Max Prison Near You
To little public outcry, tens of thousands of citizens are being held in horrific conditions in super-harsh, super-maximum security, solitary-confinement prisons.

January 18, 2011 |


Editor's Note: Courageous WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning is reportedly suffering some of the same horrible experiences detailed in the article below, including 23 hours a day of solitary confinement, which has been labeled torture by numerous prison and psychological experts.

“They beat the shit out of you,” Mike James said, hunched near the smeared plexiglass separating us. He was talking about the cell “extractions” he’d endured at the hands of the supermax-unit guards at the Maine State Prison.

“They push you, knee you, poke you,” he said, his voice faint but ardent through the speaker. “They slam your head against the wall and drop you on the floor while you’re cuffed.” He lifted his manacled hands to a scar on his chin. “They split it wide open. They’re yelling ‘Stop resisting! Stop resisting!’ when you’re not even moving.”

When you meet Mike James you notice first his deep-set eyes and the many scars on his shaved head, including a deep, horizontal gash. He got that by scraping his head on the cell door slot, which guards use to pass in food trays.

“They were messing with me,” he explained, referring to the guards who taunted him. “I couldn’t stand it no more.” He added, “I’ve knocked myself out by running full force into the wall.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/149233/americans_face_guantanamo-like_torture_everyday_in_a_super-max_prison_near_you/

[niyad]

1. but, this is the greatest, bestest country in the whole world

[Deep13]

2. Our penal system is an abomination. nt

[mimitabby]

3. how sad

[felix_numinous]

4. The penal system doesn't even pretend to be rehabilitation

anymore. Now it is slave labor and to appease the seemingly endless supply of masochistic personalities who now have an institution to support them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. I know one person who served time in prison on drug charges

Dramas like Oz (HBO) and Bad Girls (BBC) actually underplay the degradation that occurs in prison, where the guards are sometimes just as bad as the inmates.

With the inmates officially designated as "bad people" (and some of them really are very nasty, but others are just misguided), it becomes "OK" to torment them. Society at large doesn't care, because again, the official line is that these are "bad people," who just cause trouble for "good people."