Kiriakou writes: "Prisoners across America went on strike last week to
protest poor wages, a lack of adequate medical care, poor food, and the
utter absence of any educational or training opportunities. This doesn't
sound like a big deal. But it's unprecedented."
Rally for the rights of prisoners. (photo: Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA/AP)
American Prisons: Protest Dog Food, Go to Solitary Confinement
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
18 September 16
Prisoners across America went on strike last week to protest poor wages, a
lack of adequate medical care, poor food, and the utter absence of any
educational or training opportunities. This doesn't sound like a big deal.
But it's unprecedented. Prisoners in the United States are forbidden by law
from going on strike. And, indeed, federal Bureau of Prisons regulations
prohibit strikes as "interfering with the smooth running of the
institution," an offense punishable by immediate transfer to solitary
confinement.
I had it pretty easy during the two years I spent in federal prison after
blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program. Still, I wouldn't wish
prison on anybody. It's dehumanizing, depressing, and as the "greatest
country in the world," we should be utterly ashamed of the prison system we
have.
Let's look at prisoners' demands.
Wages: The Wall Street Journal reports that many prisoners earn between
$0.74 and $3.34 per day. I have news for them. When I worked as an orderly
in the prison chapel in the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto,
Pennsylvania, I earned $0.60 per month. That's right. Per month. That's
normal in prisons across the country. There are far more prisoners than
there are jobs, and there's even less money to pay them. Incidentally, for
most prisoners, salaries come from commissary profits. So it's usually
prisoner money paying for prisoner labor. But the matter is worse than that.
Many prisoners work full-time in something called "UNICOR," also known as
Federal Prison Industries. It is in UNICOR that federal prisoners earn that
dollar a day to build furniture, man call centers, and do any number of
other jobs. This amounts to slave labor that somebody, somewhere, is making
a profit on.
And there are even worse components to it. First, as an example, prisoners
at Loretto were put to work making electronic cable for the U.S. Navy. But
at a dollar a day, their hearts weren't in it. So much of the cable was
deemed to be substandard that it had to be scrapped. Even without labor
costs, it was a complete waste of the taxpayers' money.
Furthermore, paying prisoners subservient wages and forcing them to work in
a commercial, for-profit enterprise puts other Americans out of work. How in
the world can a small company compete with prison labor? It can't. And as a
result, Americans are thrown out of work.
Food: My first full day in prison was a Friday. That's fish day in federal
prisons across the country. As I was walking to the cafeteria, a fellow
prisoner warned me, "Don't eat the fish. Ever. We call it 'sewer trout.'" I
stayed away from the fish. But when I got down to the food line, I saw boxes
stacked up. They were all marked, "Alaskan Cod. Product of China. Not for
Human Consumption. Feed Use Only." It wasn't even human-grade food.
Just before I got to prison, a private food service company, John Soules
Foods Inc., "accidentally" sold dog food to prisons to be fed to prisoners
mismarked as "ground beef." There was no punishment for the company or its
executives, other than a $392,000 fine, the cost of the investigation, paid
to the U.S. Treasury. Prisoners got nothing. Not even an apology. And the
shame of the story is that nobody could even tell that it was dog food. It
tasted the same as everything else prisoners are served.
Medical care is probably the most important of the issues strikers want to
see addressed. Certainly, volumes could be written about the abysmal state
of healthcare in U.S. prisons. Four people died of preventable medical
problems while I was at Loretto. Nobody in the administration cared. Holly
Sterling, the wife of imprisoned CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, told me
recently that a prisoner near Jeffrey last week asked permission to go to
sick call because he wasn't feeling well. The corrections officer denied his
request. The prisoner died two hours later of a heart attack.
Prisons routinely deny basic medications, access to a doctor, and any access
to outside medical professionals or tests. Many prison officials will admit
privately that, sentimentality aside, it is far cheaper for them to just let
a prisoner die than to pay for expensive outside medical care.
Educational Opportunities: There are none. Period. In the federal system,
educated prisoners teach other prisoners how to get their GEDs. But that's
it. In the "good old days," prisoners could learn a skill - plumbing,
electrical, mechanics, etc. The idea was that if they had a skill, they
could find a job upon release. That, in turn, would reduce recidivism. But
that was in the good old days. Now there's nothing. It's no wonder that
recidivism is so high.
I refrained from encouraging prisoners to go on strike last week. I didn't
want to be responsible for anybody being sent to solitary confinement, which
the United Nations has deemed to be a form of torture. But I support the
strike 100 percent. I hope it's successful. And if it isn't, then maybe it
ought to become a more permanent action.
________________________________________
John Kiriakou is an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies.
He is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator
with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Rally for the rights of prisoners. (photo: Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA/AP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
American Prisons: Protest Dog Food, Go to Solitary Confinement
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
18 September 16
risoners across America went on strike last week to protest poor wages, a
lack of adequate medical care, poor food, and the utter absence of any
educational or training opportunities. This doesn't sound like a big deal.
But it's unprecedented. Prisoners in the United States are forbidden by law
from going on strike. And, indeed, federal Bureau of Prisons regulations
prohibit strikes as "interfering with the smooth running of the
institution," an offense punishable by immediate transfer to solitary
confinement.
I had it pretty easy during the two years I spent in federal prison after
blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program. Still, I wouldn't wish
prison on anybody. It's dehumanizing, depressing, and as the "greatest
country in the world," we should be utterly ashamed of the prison system we
have.
Let's look at prisoners' demands.
Wages: The Wall Street Journal reports that many prisoners earn between
$0.74 and $3.34 per day. I have news for them. When I worked as an orderly
in the prison chapel in the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto,
Pennsylvania, I earned $0.60 per month. That's right. Per month. That's
normal in prisons across the country. There are far more prisoners than
there are jobs, and there's even less money to pay them. Incidentally, for
most prisoners, salaries come from commissary profits. So it's usually
prisoner money paying for prisoner labor. But the matter is worse than that.
Many prisoners work full-time in something called "UNICOR," also known as
Federal Prison Industries. It is in UNICOR that federal prisoners earn that
dollar a day to build furniture, man call centers, and do any number of
other jobs. This amounts to slave labor that somebody, somewhere, is making
a profit on.
And there are even worse components to it. First, as an example, prisoners
at Loretto were put to work making electronic cable for the U.S. Navy. But
at a dollar a day, their hearts weren't in it. So much of the cable was
deemed to be substandard that it had to be scrapped. Even without labor
costs, it was a complete waste of the taxpayers' money.
Furthermore, paying prisoners subservient wages and forcing them to work in
a commercial, for-profit enterprise puts other Americans out of work. How in
the world can a small company compete with prison labor? It can't. And as a
result, Americans are thrown out of work.
Food: My first full day in prison was a Friday. That's fish day in federal
prisons across the country. As I was walking to the cafeteria, a fellow
prisoner warned me, "Don't eat the fish. Ever. We call it 'sewer trout.'" I
stayed away from the fish. But when I got down to the food line, I saw boxes
stacked up. They were all marked, "Alaskan Cod. Product of China. Not for
Human Consumption. Feed Use Only." It wasn't even human-grade food.
Just before I got to prison, a private food service company, John Soules
Foods Inc., "accidentally" sold dog food to prisons to be fed to prisoners
mismarked as "ground beef." There was no punishment for the company or its
executives, other than a $392,000 fine, the cost of the investigation, paid
to the U.S. Treasury. Prisoners got nothing. Not even an apology. And the
shame of the story is that nobody could even tell that it was dog food. It
tasted the same as everything else prisoners are served.
Medical care is probably the most important of the issues strikers want to
see addressed. Certainly, volumes could be written about the abysmal state
of healthcare in U.S. prisons. Four people died of preventable medical
problems while I was at Loretto. Nobody in the administration cared. Holly
Sterling, the wife of imprisoned CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, told me
recently that a prisoner near Jeffrey last week asked permission to go to
sick call because he wasn't feeling well. The corrections officer denied his
request. The prisoner died two hours later of a heart attack.
Prisons routinely deny basic medications, access to a doctor, and any access
to outside medical professionals or tests. Many prison officials will admit
privately that, sentimentality aside, it is far cheaper for them to just let
a prisoner die than to pay for expensive outside medical care.
Educational Opportunities: There are none. Period. In the federal system,
educated prisoners teach other prisoners how to get their GEDs. But that's
it. In the "good old days," prisoners could learn a skill - plumbing,
electrical, mechanics, etc. The idea was that if they had a skill, they
could find a job upon release. That, in turn, would reduce recidivism. But
that was in the good old days. Now there's nothing. It's no wonder that
recidivism is so high.
I refrained from encouraging prisoners to go on strike last week. I didn't
want to be responsible for anybody being sent to solitary confinement, which
the United Nations has deemed to be a form of torture. But I support the
strike 100 percent. I hope it's successful. And if it isn't, then maybe it
ought to become a more permanent action.
John Kiriakou is an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies.
He is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator
with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
