The revelation that torture and unconstitutional abuses against all human rights by our own government in prisons around the world is accepted policy has shocked some, but it has not really done anything to bring an accounting. Such is also the case with our own prison system in America. I have written on this a few times before here, and asked that we speak out against these abuses and for accountabilty as well as a total retooling of our sentence structure to be undertaken in America. I am asking that again. It is against all human dignity to see the reality of what goes on in our own prisons, as it is in many cases no different than what went on in Abu Ghraib. We simply cannot say we are a country with a conscience if we allow these abuses to continue.
More below
From the article below:
"The report concurred with previous analyses attributing much of the nationwide increase in women's imprisonment to the war on drugs. The proportion of women serving time for drug offenses has risen sharply in recent years, while the proportion convicted of serious violent crimes has dropped, it said."
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War on drugs my a**. People in this country are imprisoned with longer terms and higher fines in facilities they do not need to be in simply for posession of marijuana! They do not even have to have done anything else but have it on them. And inmates in many states have lost their right to appeal. This is supposed to be America? I wonder, do women get arrested if they are discovered possessing a bottle of NEXIUM the PURPLE PILL or some "allowable" drug because the pharmacutical company drug dealers support political candidates? This isn't a war "against" drugs, this is a war FOR the pharmaceutical companies. This is truly a vicious cycle with many people getting rich from it at the expense of many souls who simply become ghosts in our system.
There is absolutely no justification in incarcerating a woman in a state or federal facility for possession of drugs that did not lead to a violent crime that causes her to be a menace to society! This is also being done in my view to keep the kickback money flowing into state prisons that keep them in good with their political buddies. And as we have already reported about, conditions at many of these prisons are appalling because of the privitization of services in them (especially healthcare which has resulted in deaths,) guards on the take, and gang violence that I believe is many instances is egged on rather than dealt with properly. However, there have been strides made to face these problems and the Commission On Prison Abuse is set to deliver their report sometime soon. But the is still so much to be done.
Women who commit petty crimes or who are only found possessing drugs should be able to either serve their terms in facilities that help them face their problems and work to make them self-sufficient citizens, or at home under house arrest to serve out their terms. They can then still serve their terms under the law and also continue to be mothers to their children (if they are in a stable home situation.)It would also ease the burden on an already overstrained system that drains money that could be used for programs that help rather than hinder recovery.
The current prison system in this country is an abomination to all human dignity and our Constitution. And after already seeing the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other places around the world and knowing that many of those who committed those abuses came from our own American prison system, we know it goes on right here everyday.
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Mountain States Imprisoning More Women
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
NEW YORK - Oklahoma, Mississippi and the Mountain states have set the pace in increasing the imprisonment of women, while several Northeastern states are curtailing the practice, according to a new report detailing sharp regional differences in the handling of female offenders.
The report, to be released Sunday by the New York-based Women's Prison Association, is touted as the most comprehensive state-by-state breakdown of the huge increase in incarceration of women over the past 30 years.
Overall, the number of female state inmates serving sentences of more than a year grew by 757 percent between 1977 and 2004, nearly twice the 388 percent increase for men, the report said.
Though the surge occurred nationwide, it was most notable in the Mountain states, where the number of incarcerated women soared by 1,600 percent, the report said.
According to federal statistics cited in the report, Colorado had 72 female inmates in 1977 and 1,900 in 2004, while the comparable numbers increased from 28 to 647 in Idaho, from two to 473 in Montana, from 187 to 2,545 in Arizona and from 30 to 502 in Utah.
Idaho, Wyoming and Montana were among six states, along with Oklahoma, North Dakota and Hawaii, where women comprised more than 10 percent of the prison population in 2004 -- compared to the national average of 7 percent. In Rhode Island, by contrast, only 3.2 percent of the inmates were women.
Oklahoma had the highest per capita imprisonment rate for women -- 129 behind bars for every 100,000 women in its population. Mississippi was second with a rate of 107. Women in those states were roughly 10 times more likely to be imprisoned than women in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which shared the lowest rate of 11.
Nationwide, there were 1.42 million inmates in state and federal prisons at the end of 2004, including 96,125 women -- up from 11,212 in 1977.
Though the overall surge of women behind bars has continued in recent years, it has tapered off in the Northeast, the report said. From 1999 to 2004, it said, the number of female inmates dropped by 23 percent in New York and 21 percent in New Jersey -- part of broader reductions that also cut the number of male inmates.
The report concurred with previous analyses attributing much of the nationwide increase in women's imprisonment to the war on drugs. The proportion of women serving time for drug offenses has risen sharply in recent years, while the proportion convicted of serious violent crimes has dropped, it said.
Bob Anez, a Corrections Department spokesman in Montana, confirmed that drug offenses -- especially related to methamphetamine -- were a major factor in the high proportion of female inmates in the state. Half the women imprisoned from January through March had committed meth-related offenses, he said.
Jerry Massie of Oklahoma's Corrections Department also said rising drug convictions were a factor in the high number of imprisoned women, but he noted that Oklahoma has one of the highest incarceration rates for men as well as for women.
Ann Jacobs, executive director of the Women's Prison Association, said states with high rates of women behind bars should look closely at alternative sentencing, particularly mandatory treatment as an option for drug offenders.
"It's startling to think that Oklahoma incarcerates 129 of every 100,000 women, while other states can provide public safety by incarcerating 11 of every 100,000," she said. "Women in Oklahoma can't possibly be 10 times worse."
K.C. Moon, executive director of the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Resource Center, said the state's high incarceration rate is linked to the types of crimes that are felonies -- including simple drug possession and relatively minor thefts.
"Those are two types of crimes that are typically committed by women," Moon said. "In Oklahoma, we choose to make lower-level crimes felonies, therefore we stand out like a sore thumb."
The Women's Prison Association and like-minded groups focus attention on female inmates in part because they are more likely than men to be primary caretakers of children, and their incarceration can place severe strains on families.
The report urged an expansion of research to identify factors that have contributed to the increase of female inmates and to develop policies which help at-risk women lead law-abiding, self-sufficient lives. Jacobs said the reduction of female inmates now occurring in some Northeast states would be worth celebrating only if coupled with investment in social programs that could reduce recidivism.
Mountain States Imprisoning More Women
Associated Press writer Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report. _
On the Net:
Women's Prison Association
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"We all know these things, and we need not reassure ourselves and should not congratulate ourselves that our society is less cruel than some others, although it is worth noting that there are many that are less cruel than ours. And this searing revelation at Abu Ghraib should lead us to examine more thoroughly the routine horrors in our domestic prison system."
Al Gore, May 26th, 2004/ Speech regarding Abu Ghraib torture/NYU
And we surely do agree with Mr. Gore on this. We were discussing this before his brilliant speech on abuses at Abu Ghraib and were so gratified he mentiioned it here. If you then also agree, please sign our petition at this link:
(I was going to send this to Governors, but we need more signatures. If it can get to 100 I can then bring the number up to try to get more. Please help us with this effort to have our voices heard for our Constitution and human dignity.)
Petition Against Abuses In America's Prisons
The latest statistics on the American prison system:
200,000+ children are in juvenile detention centers and jails.
2 Million Americans are currently incarcerated in our prison system ( that is approximately the size of the entire city of Soweto, South Africa)
1 out of every 75 men is currently incarcerated.
Sixty percent of all incarcerated for drug related crimes are first offenders.
We also have the highest prison population in the world.
And 100% of those incarcerated are also at risk of being tortured in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States constitution, and many have been and are still victims of a brutal prison system, it's tactics being implemented from Georgia, to California, to Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.
The moral degradation and torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison and others in this "war on terror" (led by many who were and are also affiliated with the American prison system) at the hands of the U.S. military and the Pentagon is not new to the American prison system, nor should it be a shock to those who have researched this topic. This inhumane and unconstitutional treatment has been normal practice in the American prison system for decades.
Our own Congress as recently as 1996, passed a bill (Prison Litigation Reform Act) in order to ensure that in most cases, those abused by this system do not receive compensation for their abuse. It would also now appear that by voting for Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General and allowing Donald Rumsfeld to retain his position as Secretary of Defense, even after proof emerged that this procedure was OKed from the highest levels of our government, that our leaders also believe in violating the United States constitution, and in the torture and humiliation tactics employed in our own prisons and around the world that does nothing to further justice. This should not stand with Americans of conscience and morals.
This petition is then hereby written in order to protest against the unconstitutional, unAmerican, and inhumane treatment of those in our prison system, and to call for an investigation of such tactics by the Governors of all states, and to also recommend a revision of existing Federal sentencing standards in regards to first time drug use offenders. These procedures overcrowd our prisons, thus putting a tremendous strain on our budgets and robbing the lives of many of our young people who are ruined forever because of one mistake.
We are also protesting the unprofessional and deadly tactics implemented by Prison Health Systems, a company whose presence now in 36 states concerns us, based on a NY Times expose' dated, February 27, 2005. We then request a thorough investigation into their practices by non-partisan state commissions in all states this company operates in, and for proper compensation to be made to the families of all of those who have lost loved ones in their care. We also applaud New York state for investigating these allegations, and call on all other states where this company operates to do the same.
Congress must also seriously consider legislation to repeal or at the very least fine tune the Prison Litigation Reform Act, in order to truly and fairly represent those prisoners who are unjustly and unconstitutionally attacked and tortured in regards to compensation, and to provide for proper medical attention to patients in our prisons, especially children and the mentally retarded who are too often silent victims.
We as American citizens can no longer sit by and watch while our fellow citizens are tortured and abused in a system based on political kickbacks and greed and say we have a soul. The time for action is now, and by signing this petition you tell all of those in Congress and our states who condone such behavior over the wellbeing of all of our citizens by looking the other way, that we will no longer tolerate torture in America.
The absolute lack of professionalism and ethics that have led to this country's prisons being no better in many instances than those in third world countries must be addressed. This also isn't about defending criminals, this is about defending justice, dignity, and our children. It is unconscienable that this is being allowed to take place in our country. Profit should not come before people, as we are literally privitizing them to death. This goes against all we stand for as Americans in a country where the current leaders now talk about "compassion," but know absolutely nothing about it in practice. We demand change. We demand justice. We demand that our constitution be respected, and that those who violate it be made accountable for their actions.
Preserving human dignity and protecting human rights are our duties as Americans and human beings of conscience. Thank you for your help to have our voices heard on this most important issue.
My other entries on this topic:
Diary 6
Diary 5
Diary 4
Diary 3
Diary 2
Diary 1