Abu Ghraib Comes Home: Alien Detainees and Private U.S. Contractors

[struggle4progress]

Commentary, By Charles Munnell & Nestor Rodriguez, Pacific News Service,
Jun 25, 2004

A lawsuit recently filed in Federal Court in San Diego on behalf of nine male and female detainees in the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison has legal and political implications that extend far beyond allegations of torture in Iraq. The suit addresses one of the most important issues of contemporary governance: Are prison contractors, working for the U.S. government, beyond the reach of law?
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As irrational as it may sound, private companies, cloaked in the full authority of the United States government, are not subject to the same legal constraints as government personnel. In a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1999 specifically exempted government contractors from a substantial degree of liability in Malesko v. Correctional Services Corporation.

Justice Stevens, writing in the minority, prophetically noted that "because a private prison corporation's first loyalty is to its stockholders, rather than the public interest, it is no surprise that cost-cutting measures jeopardizing prisoners' rights are more likely in private facilities than in public ones."
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The Abu Ghraib suit deals with the tip of an iceberg. There is a vastly larger class of alien prisoners incarcerated by American corporations. A recent study by the University of Houston Center for Immigration Research reveals that many of the issues raised by the Abu Ghraib lawsuit are also present in the network of immigrant prisons run by private companies and local governments under contract to the United States government.
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