January 16, 2003

Prisons

Human Rights Watch World Report 2003: United States: United States About 25 percent of state prisoners and 57 percent of federal inmates were convicted of a drug crime. Of those prisoners, 58 percent have no history of violence or high level of drug dealing activity.

This is just astounding to me. I often think about what I would do if I were president. The first priority in my mind would be to address state-sponsored torture, which in my mind would be prison rape. Second priority would be to reduce prison congestion by reviewing all cases of prisoners whose only crimes are nonviolent crimes against themselves.

But I had no idea that the percentages were THAT HIGH. 14.5% of state prisoners, and A THIRD of federal prisoners are those guilty of non-violent crimes against the self. How many of them have been raped? While the government looked the other way?

Anyone who defends the threat of prison rape as effective deterrence is just flat-out evil. Posted by Curt at January 16, 2003 02:21 AM