Kiriakou writes: "It's one thing for Barack Obama to visit a prison and talk
about wanting to commute the draconian sentences of federal prisoners with
drug convictions (which he has not yet done, incidentally). It's an entirely
different thing for the leader of the world's one billion Catholics to get a
first-hand look at how our country's prisons violate the civil and human
rights of their prisoners."
Pope Francis. (photo: AP)
The Pope Goes to Prison in America
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
23 September 15
Pope Francis arrived in Washington today, snarling traffic and drawing some
300,000 people into the city. I'm excited that the Pope, who has called out
capitalism for its indifference to the poor, and who has reached out to gay
Catholics, has come to the United States. But I'm even more excited about
his follow-on trip to Philadelphia, where he's going to meet with prisoners
in Philadelphia's Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.
It's one thing for Barack Obama to visit a prison and talk about wanting to
commute the draconian sentences of federal prisoners with drug convictions
(which he has not yet done, incidentally). It's an entirely different thing
for the leader of the world's one billion Catholics to get a first-hand look
at how our country's prisons violate the civil and human rights of their
prisoners. The only shame is that His Holiness won't see one of America's
private prisons.
The United States is not the only country in the world with private,
for-profit prisons, although it certainly has the most, and it has the
worst. The American Civil Liberties Union in 2013, for example, filed a
civil lawsuit against the State of Mississippi, which, although not known
for its enlightened treatment of its citizens and others these past 200
years, still must respect the Constitution, whether its elected officials
want to or not. Indeed, the 83-page complaint details evidence of "beatings,
rape, robbery, and riots," and says that the prison, which houses the
mentally ill almost exclusively, routinely denies prisoners access to
medication and psychiatric care.
The prison, the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, which is run by the
privately-owned, Utah-based Management & Training Corporation, an
innocuously-named company that profits on the misery of human beings, is so
overwhelmingly infested with rats that prisoners capture them, keep them as
pets, and use them as currency. A company spokesman told The Huffington Post
at the time the suit was filed that the company had made great improvements
in the prison over the previous 10 months. I can't even fathom the thought
of what conditions must have been like 10 months earlier.
After blowing the whistle on the CIA's illegal torture program and being
sentenced to 30 months in prison, I went directly to the Federal
Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania, rather than to a private
prison. But some of my cellmates did go to private prisons.
They told me stories of 200 men sharing a single toilet - with a broken
toilet seat - at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, Virginia.
They talked about being starved as punishment for talking back to a guard at
the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown. And they talked about
two televisions for 200 men at the Kit Carson Correctional Center in
Colorado, which resulted in fistfights every hour to decide which shows to
watch. They talked about the arbitrary use of solitary confinement as a
punishment for virtually every infraction, real and imagined, despite the
fact that the United Nations has declared the use of solitary confinement in
the United States as "cruel and unusual punishment" and as a violation of
basic human rights.
But most importantly, they talked about denying prisoners the most basic
levels of medical care and medication, especially for mentally ill
prisoners. In a case in March, a prisoner with a degenerative spinal
disorder in Fresno, California, accused for-profit prison medical provider
Corizon of taking away his wheelchair because he had filed a complaint about
the prison doctor. Corizon had settled another suit this year filed by the
family of a prisoner who became paralyzed while under Corizon's care. The
Corizon doctor had written "faker" in the prisoner's file, and he was not
given medical treatment until it was too late to treat him. These are just
two of dozens of lawsuits filed against Corizon.
Twenty states so far have contracted with private prisons. Even the federal
government avails itself of private prison beds and transportation centers.
For many prisoners, being sent to a private prison is a death sentence.
These facilities have no incentive to spend any money at all on maintenance,
recreation, or medical and mental health care. Indeed, they have an
incentive not to. They are answerable to their shareholders, and their goal
is not to rehabilitate anybody. It's to make a profit.
So, what evil capitalists are making money on this human misery? You might
be surprised. The country's two largest for-profit prison companies,
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, are traded on the
New York Stock Exchange. But according to Prison Legal News magazine, most
stockholders are not individual investors. They are banks, mutual funds, and
private equity firms, including public pensions. Indeed, just the public
employee retirement systems and teachers retirement systems of 19 states
account for 2.6 million shares of CCA and 1.1 million shares of GEO for a
total investment of some $114 million.
The Pope has a chance next week to take President Obama and Congress to the
woodshed for allowing these human rights violations to become the norm in
the U.S. prison system. Nobody should make a profit from human misery. It's
un-American. And it's definitely not Christian.
________________________________________
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.
Pope Francis. (photo: AP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
The Pope Goes to Prison in America
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
23 September 15
ope Francis arrived in Washington today, snarling traffic and drawing some
300,000 people into the city. I'm excited that the Pope, who has called out
capitalism for its indifference to the poor, and who has reached out to gay
Catholics, has come to the United States. But I'm even more excited about
his follow-on trip to Philadelphia, where he's going to meet with prisoners
in Philadelphia's Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.
It's one thing for Barack Obama to visit a prison and talk about wanting to
commute the draconian sentences of federal prisoners with drug convictions
(which he has not yet done, incidentally). It's an entirely different thing
for the leader of the world's one billion Catholics to get a first-hand look
at how our country's prisons violate the civil and human rights of their
prisoners. The only shame is that His Holiness won't see one of America's
private prisons.
The United States is not the only country in the world with private,
for-profit prisons, although it certainly has the most, and it has the
worst. The American Civil Liberties Union in 2013, for example, filed a
civil lawsuit against the State of Mississippi, which, although not known
for its enlightened treatment of its citizens and others these past 200
years, still must respect the Constitution, whether its elected officials
want to or not. Indeed, the 83-page complaint details evidence of "beatings,
rape, robbery, and riots," and says that the prison, which houses the
mentally ill almost exclusively, routinely denies prisoners access to
medication and psychiatric care.
The prison, the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, which is run by the
privately-owned, Utah-based Management & Training Corporation, an
innocuously-named company that profits on the misery of human beings, is so
overwhelmingly infested with rats that prisoners capture them, keep them as
pets, and use them as currency. A company spokesman told The Huffington Post
at the time the suit was filed that the company had made great improvements
in the prison over the previous 10 months. I can't even fathom the thought
of what conditions must have been like 10 months earlier.
After blowing the whistle on the CIA's illegal torture program and being
sentenced to 30 months in prison, I went directly to the Federal
Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania, rather than to a private
prison. But some of my cellmates did go to private prisons.
They told me stories of 200 men sharing a single toilet - with a broken
toilet seat - at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, Virginia.
They talked about being starved as punishment for talking back to a guard at
the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown. And they talked about
two televisions for 200 men at the Kit Carson Correctional Center in
Colorado, which resulted in fistfights every hour to decide which shows to
watch. They talked about the arbitrary use of solitary confinement as a
punishment for virtually every infraction, real and imagined, despite the
fact that the United Nations has declared the use of solitary confinement in
the United States as "cruel and unusual punishment" and as a violation of
basic human rights.
But most importantly, they talked about denying prisoners the most basic
levels of medical care and medication, especially for mentally ill
prisoners. In a case in March, a prisoner with a degenerative spinal
disorder in Fresno, California, accused for-profit prison medical provider
Corizon of taking away his wheelchair because he had filed a complaint about
the prison doctor. Corizon had settled another suit this year filed by the
family of a prisoner who became paralyzed while under Corizon's care. The
Corizon doctor had written "faker" in the prisoner's file, and he was not
given medical treatment until it was too late to treat him. These are just
two of dozens of lawsuits filed against Corizon.
Twenty states so far have contracted with private prisons. Even the federal
government avails itself of private prison beds and transportation centers.
For many prisoners, being sent to a private prison is a death sentence.
These facilities have no incentive to spend any money at all on maintenance,
recreation, or medical and mental health care. Indeed, they have an
incentive not to. They are answerable to their shareholders, and their goal
is not to rehabilitate anybody. It's to make a profit.
So, what evil capitalists are making money on this human misery? You might
be surprised. The country's two largest for-profit prison companies,
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, are traded on the
New York Stock Exchange. But according to Prison Legal News magazine, most
stockholders are not individual investors. They are banks, mutual funds, and
private equity firms, including public pensions. Indeed, just the public
employee retirement systems and teachers retirement systems of 19 states
account for 2.6 million shares of CCA and 1.1 million shares of GEO for a
total investment of some $114 million.
The Pope has a chance next week to take President Obama and Congress to the
woodshed for allowing these human rights violations to become the norm in
the U.S. prison system. Nobody should make a profit from human misery. It's
un-American. And it's definitely not Christian.
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
