Tag Archives: prison

America’s prison for terrorists often held the wrong men

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An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.

“The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren’t “the worst of the worst.” From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn’t belong there.”

Stories like this one — and the way those accused respond to them — raise a troubling (to me) question about American journalism. Why can’t we have one news organization that everyone can agree is factual and fair. Just one. “Truthiness” is no longer a joke.

Somewhere in the White House and the Pentagon, men and women are figuring out ways to discredit this story and the people who reported it. I won’t try to list the tactics they employee because we are all too familiar with them.

And those who chose not to believe stories like this one need only the flimsiest excuse (“There goes the Liberal Media again.” or “Fox News says it’s not true.”).

Remember how skeptical the world was of the claims by German citizens that they didn’t know what was going on in the concentration camps?

“Whoa! Hold on there smays.com! You aren’t comparing Guantanamo to Auschwitz are you?”

No. I’m talking about what we, the American people, allow our government to do on our behalf. If we’ve been holding hundreds of innocent men for five or six years and –in some cases– torturing (I know, I know… water boarding is not torture) them, will our best explanation be, “We were at war.”

Ich bin beschämt

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison

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“More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today.

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving even far more populous China a distant second, noted the report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.” — Washington Post

If I didn’t have bad luck…

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Kennett (Missouri) police recently assisted a U. S. Marshal in apprehending 66-year-old Pearl Elizabeth Martin, who escaped from a Georgia prison. In 1969. How did they track Ms. Martin down? Last Wednesday afternoon, she backed into a parked Kennett police car that was parked in the Kennett City Hall parking lot. A computer check eventually revealed that she was wanted for the escape 40 years ago.

What do real thugs think of The Wire?

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Sudhir Venkatesh knows a thing or two about street gangs and got some New York thugs together to watch the season opener of The Wire to get their take on the show and the characters. From his Freakonomics blog post:

“For the first episode, we gathered in the Harlem apartment of Shine, a 43-year-old half Dominican, half African-American man who managed a gang for fifteen years before heading to prison for a ten-year drug trafficking sentence. I invited older guys like Shine, most of whom had retired from the drug trade, because they would have greater experience with rogue cops, political toughs, and everyone else that makes The Wire so appealing. They affectionately named our gathering “Thugs and ‘Cuz.” (I was told that the “‘cuz” — short for “cousin” — was for me.)

There was plenty of popcorn, ribs, bad domestic beer, and fried pork rinds with hot sauce on hand. The pork rinds, apparently the favorite of the American thug, ran out so quickly that one of the low-ranking gang members in attendance was dispatched to acquire several more bags.”

What did the bad boys think? Bunk is on the take; McNulty and the Bunk will split and Prop Joe should whack Marlo. [Thanks, John]

Rhubarb at Dunklin County Courthouse

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“Helluva rhubarb up at the courthouse last Friday. One of the prisoners tried to take his attorney hostage, stabbed her two or three times — not real serious — then took off running down the hall.  One of the deputies and the investigator for the Prosecutor’s office tackled him and subdued him. In the process the investigator was stabbed in the face. Everybody says the prisoner was lucky that Raymond Scott was not (still) the sheriff, because Raymond would have killed him right on the spot.”

Last laugh

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Patrick Knight is scheduled to be executed later this month for the fatal shooting of his neighbors, Walter and Mary Werner, almost 16 years ago outside Amarillo. To come up with his final statement, Knight is accepting jokes mailed to him on Texas’ death row or emailed to a friend who has a Web site for him. The friend then mails him the jokes. Knight said the joke he finds the funniest will be his final statement the evening of June 26.

Knight said he got the idea for a joke as his last statement after a friend, Vincent Gutierrez, was executed earlier this year and laughed from the death chamber gurney: “Where’s a stunt double when you need one?”

Jack Abramoff

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Bush and AbramoffThat’s jack Abramoff on the left and you know the gentelman on the right. The picture was taken at a campaign fundraiser in December 2003. Kim Eisler, Washingtonian magazine writer and a friend of Abramoff’s, confirmed the photo’s authenticity for The Associated Press. He said he had seen the picture at Abramoff’s house.

Abramoff helped raise more than $100,000 for Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. He is serving nearly six years in prison for a fraudulent Florida casino deal and is cooperating with the FBI in a bribery investigation involving members of Congress and the Bush administration. [Associated Press]

Four more years!

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Dave Winer wonders if President Bush will leave office at the end of his term:

“Someone should ask him that question and listen carefully to the answer. An unequivocal “yes” is the only acceptable answer. I don’t think he’s planning to leave. That’s what all this maneuvering is about. The next step will be they’ll find some American citizens who are terrorists, and Congress will vote that in time of war the President doesn’t need to charge them with anything to imprison them until the war is over. They can already put non-citizens, legal or illegal, in prison, indefinitely without charging them.”

I wish that seemed crazier to me than it does.

Prison Goodies

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Corrections Today Magazine (“Official Publican of the American Correctional Association”) is really pretty interesting reading. The copy I browsed included articles such as: “Jail Time Is Learning Time”; “Reducing Risk and Responding to Mental Health Needs”; and “Use of Force: The Correlation Between Law Enforcement and Clinical Care.” But the ads were even more interesting. My favorite was one for Keefe Group (“Everything you need for your commissary!”).

Prison Goodies

If you can’t hop in the pick-up and run down the the Quick Shop, where do you get the things you need to make a cell a little more liveable? The prison commissary. The coffee and snacks make sense. And if you don’t have AC, an electric fan moves up the appliance ladder. The corrections officers like the idea of see-through TV’s and MP3 players (?)… but what’s the deal on the moisturizing bar? And I seem to recall reading something about status associated with pristine white athletic shoes (stepping on a guys shoes can get you killed).

Right and wrong aside, I don’t do the crime… ’cause I can’t do the time.