Mark Ciavarella: Racial Injustice! For-Profit Prisons & 'Kids for Cash'

Pa. Judge Sentenced To 28 Years For Selling Black Teens To Prison

CHOLLY

10/8/15

Mark Ciavarella leaves the federal courthouse in Scranton, Pa., in February.

Pa. Judge Sentenced To 28 Years In Massive Juvenile Justice Bribery Scandal

A Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison in connection to a bribery scandal that roiled the state's juvenile justice system. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was convicted of taking $1 million in bribes from developers of juvenile detention centers.

The judge then presided over cases that would send juveniles to those same centers. The case came to be known as "kids-for-cash."

The AP adds:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he's already been punished enough.

"The media attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly branded as the 'Kids for Cash' judge," their sentencing memo said.

The Times Leader, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., reports that the court house in Scranton was overflowing this morning. More than a dozen people who said they had been affected by the judge's decision stood outside, awaiting the sentencing.

Jeff Pollins was in that crowd. His stepson was convicted by Ciavarella.

"These kids are still affected by it. It's like post traumatic stress disorder," Pollins told the Times Leader. "Our life is ruined.

It's never going to be the same... I'd like to see that happen to him," he said.

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...l?sc=tw&cc=share

http://www.africanamerica.org/topic/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-for-selling-black-teens-to-prison

PRIVATIZATION SUCKS!

We've already determined that the great push for PRIVATIZATION doesn't work. 

For-Profit HEALTH CARE SUCKS! 

For-Profit PRISONS are costly and cost lives.

Don't kid yourself that FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS will fare better. 



Immigrants in ICE detention center. (photo: John Moore/Getty)

Immigrants Held in ICE Detention Centers Are Dying Due to Medical Negligence

By Erika Eichelberger, VICE

26 February 16

hen Pablo Gracida-Conte was admitted to the Eloy immigrant detention center in Arizona on June 10, 2011, the 54-year-old Mexican immigrant had no history of chronic illness, and no significant medical issues.

Nine days after he arrived at Eloy — which is run by the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America and overseen by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) — he went to the medical clinic complaining of vomiting and heavy sweating. Over the next three months, he continued reporting symptoms that included excruciating abdominal pain, headache, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, dizziness, heartburn, insomnia, weakness, nausea, poor appetite, and eventually inability to speak without stopping to catch his breath.

On October 25, 2011, Gracida was finally sent to the ER, where he died five days later. An autopsy attributed his death to cardiomyopathy, a treatable disease affecting the heart muscle. His is one of eight cases of medical negligence-related deaths at ICE facilities around the country outlined in a report released on Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and the Detention Watch Network.

"Mr. Gracida's long list of sick call requests reads as a desperate, repeated cry for help that was ignored until it was too late," the report states.

ICE conducted an internal review of Gracida's death and found that medical staff had violated the agency's detention standards governing medical care in failing to provide timely treatment and send him to the ER earlier. It concluded that his death "might have been prevented." Despite ICE's own admission of negligence, a 2012 ICE inspection of medical care in the Eloy facility made note of Gracida's death but did not mention any problems with his care.

Stories of questionable deaths, abuse, and neglect at US immigrant detention facilities are nothing new — they've been piling up since the agency was created by the Homeland Security Act in 2002. The latest report argues that despite efforts by the Obama administration to reform the system, deaths related to healthcare failures continue and oversight of facilities remains abysmal.

"It doesn't seem possible for ICE to police itself," said Jennifer Chan, associate director of policy at NIJC and coauthor of the report. "Independent oversight and accountability is needed."

The report, which examined in-custody death reviews by ICE as well as facility inspection reports between 2010 to 2012, highlights eight deaths in which the agency identified non-compliance with its own medical standards as contributing to patients' demise, including four deaths that the agency deemed preventable. In addition to the standards violations in Gracida's case, documents attest to violations that include failure to pre-screen patients for illness and to refer patients to specialty care, failure to communicate crucial medical information between clinicians, and understaffing of personnel.

Following an investigative series of articles on detainee deaths published by the New York Times in 2008 and 2009, the Obama administration implemented several reforms to the immigrant detention system. It mandated death reviews, created a new facility inspection process, and introduced stricter standards governing conditions at detention centers.

But Thursday's report argues that these reforms aren't strong enough to prevent unnecessary deaths. Even though ICE's own reviews identified violations of medical protocols as contributing factors in these deaths, ICE detention facility inspections conducted before and after the deaths often did not even acknowledge those egregious medical mistakes. According to the report, ICE inspectors gave passing grades to all but one of the eight facilities before and after the deaths.

An ICE spokesperson said that the agency "takes seriously the health and welfare of all those in its custody," as well as the death of any individual that occurs in the agency's custody. "ICE will review the report when it is provided to assess what actions, if any, should be taken in response," she added. The spokesperson noted that ICE is working on improving conditions of confinement, and acknowledged that all detainees should receive timely care. Any detainee that requires follow-up treatment for a medical condition would be scheduled for appointments as needed, she said, including for outside specialty care.

In 2010, the Times called out the "culture of secrecy" at ICE, reporting that ICE officials worked regularly to cover up evidence of abuse. Chan says this culture persists today: "With all of these death reviews, it was like pulling teeth trying to get these documents released."

Much of the oversight failures by ICE boil down to the fact that its facilities, unlike the federal prisons in the Bureau of Prisons system, have no third-party overseer. So even if the Obama administration implements stricter healthcare and inspection rules, "there's no guarantee that [ICE is] training staff adequately or practicing" the new rules, Chan noted.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment as to whether it is considering creating such an ombudsman for ICE.

ICE's use of private prison contractors may also increase the likelihood of poor medical care for detainees. About two-thirds of immigrant detainees across the US are held in county jails and state prisons which contract with ICE, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The rest are kept in facilities run by private prison corporations or by ICE itself.

Of the eight deaths outlined in the report, six occurred at privately run detention centers run by the Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group, and Immigration Centers of America. Critics argue that these companies' cost-cutting incentives can lead to substandard care. 

Dora Schriro, a former special advisor to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, said during a press call about the report on Thursday that "the reliance on others to perform core governmental duties" is dangerous.

A spokesperson for the GEO Group said that it cannot comment on individual cases due to privacy concerns, but said that the facilities in question provide "high-quality services... pursuant to strict contractual requirements."

"Our company strongly refutes allegations to the contrary," he said, adding that all of GEO's facilities are independently accredited by the American Correctional Association, and that during ACA's most recent assessment of GEO facilities, the detention centers concerned in the report received perfect scores.

The Corrections Corporation of America and Immigration Centers of America did not respond to requests for comment.

The US has the largest immigration detention system in the world, with an average of 34,000 peopledetained on a daily basis in more than 250 facilities around the country, and a price tag of $2 billion a year. The facilities are rife with allegations of abuse and neglect. The ACLU and Human Rights Watch have identified numerous cases of sexual abuse of immigrants held in ICE detention. NIJC has filed over a dozen complaints with DHS alleging mistreatment of LGBT immigrants, including denial of medical care, arbitrary long-term solitary confinement, sexual assault, and harassment.

There have been 56 deaths in ICE custody during the Obama administration, including six suicides. Because of the lack of transparency regarding in-custody deaths, it's hard to say how many of them over the years were due to medical neglect. A 2008 Washington Post investigation identified 30 questionable deaths that occurred at ICE facilities between 2003 and 2008.

"Being held in immigration detention should not be a death sentence," Chan said. "The Obama administration promised to make reforms to address the high number of deaths that happened in detention, and although the number has decreased... that doesn't mean that current deaths don't matter."

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35412-immigrants-held-in-ice-detention-centers-are-dying-due-to-medical-negligence

Bernie Sander HEROIC STAND IN CHICAGO! RSN: Bernie Sanders Tells Chicago 'Rahm Should Resign'

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | My Very Muslim Christmas

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "Although I am Muslim, I have a deep affection and respect for Christmas. Affection because I was raised Catholic and the holiday season is a nostalgic hug as comforting as a warm crackling fire and hot apple cider."
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Black Lives Matter Holds 'Black Xmas' Protests in Minnesota, California
David Bailey, Reuters
Bailey writes: "Black Lives Matter held demonstrations in Minnesota and California on Wednesday to protest police killings of unarmed blacks, dubbing the day 'Black Xmas' to show it could affect the economy on one of the busiest shopping days of the year."
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Bernie Sanders Tells Chicago 'Rahm Should Resign'
Gideon Resnick, The Daily Beast
Resnick writes: "During a quick visit to the Windy City on Wednesday, the candidate hit all the crowd-pleasing marks in a speech about criminal justice reform. Addressing a crowd of less than a hundred, Sanders spoke the language of a city filled with targeted rage."
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Bernie Sanders. (photo: Joshua Lott)

During a brief stop in Chicago, the presidential hopeful railed against police militarization and said he wouldn’t want the mayor’s endorsement even if it were offered.

ernie Sanders doesn’t whisper.

He yells and he yells effusively, gripping any nearby podium like a vise almost as if to keep him from toppling over from the fire in his belly.

During a quick visit to the Windy City on Wednesday, the candidate hit all the crowd-pleasing marks in a speech about criminal justice reform. Addressing a crowd of less than a hundred, Sanders spoke the language of a city filled with targeted rage.

He took the unassuming stage at the Village Leadership Academy, a K-8 school near the University of Illinois, around 20 minutes later than his scheduled start time.

For this reason, and the fact that the senator was eager to get back to Vermont for the holidays, he blustered through a 20-minute riff on the inequities of the criminal justice system in the United States. Flanked by members of the Communications Workers for America, a union that has already endorsed him; academic Cornel West; and rapper Killer Mike, Sanders sped through a list of criminal justice reform proposals that have become synonymous with his by-the-people, for-the-people campaign. This was a speech especially catered to Chicago but evocative of the national movement of justice crusaders he hopes to lead.

Sanders wants to eliminate for-profit prisons, end mandatory minimum sentencing, and remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances.

“Too many lives have been destroyed because people have police records,” Sanders said to raucous applause in the tiny auditorium, which looked like a place where elementary school talent shows would take place.

This is all within Sanders’s typical target range: the sweeping talk of economic change and social justice, a kind of antithetical populist response to the equally effusive chest-thumping of Donald Trump.

It is significant, though, that the speech was delivered in a city where 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by police.

A young man standing behind Sanders on the right wore a shirt that read “Rahm failed us,” echoing the calls of many for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign after intentionally withholding the release of the graphic video depicting the shooting death of the teenager. Sanders, who met earlier in the day with Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, the man who narrowly lost to Emanuel in this year’s election, has had no qualms about sharing his position on the mayor’s apparent indiscretions.

“Any elected official with knowledge that the tape was being suppressed or improperly withheld should resign. No one should be shielded by power or position,” Sanders said in a statement about Emanuel earlier in the month.

On Wednesday evening, the candidate further solidified his disinterest in making nice with the public enemy mayor.

“If the question is do I want or need Rahm Emanuel’s support for president,” Sanders said when asked, “with all due respect to the mayor, no, I don’t.”

Emanuel, of course, is a Democratic establishment fixture who formerly served in the Obama administration and was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton. And despite the mayor’s critical mishandling of one of the most graphic police shootings in recent years, he thinks he will still have Hillary Clinton’s support.

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask her,” Emanuel said last week when asked if the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination would still support him given the circumstances. “The question of whether I continue to have her support is up to her, but I feel pretty confident that I do.”

Clinton, who like many others called for a Department of Justice investigation into Chicago’s policing practices, balked at the opportunity to formally denounce the mayor and his involvement.

“He loves Chicago, and I’m confident that he’s going to do everything he can to get to the bottom of these issues and take whatever measures are necessary to remedy them,” Clinton told The New York Times.

The rift—albeit minor—between Sanders and Clinton has only been exacerbated by a lawsuit between the Sanders campaign and the Democratic National Committee over a data breach in which Sanders staffers accessed confidential voter data belonging to Clinton’s campaign. And while Sanders apologized for this mishap, he is willing to strike a much more defiant tone against the Clinton-Emanuel establishment ties.

A spokesperson for his campaign did not respond when asked if Sanders would consider an independent run if his tiffs with the DNC continue.

As he departed the stage to catch a flight back to Vermont, leaving a slew of gold streamers emblazoned on the curtain behind him, Sanders did make it clear that Emanuel did not represent his particular interests or goals.

“People can draw their own conclusions,” press secretary Symone Sanders told me when I asked if the scruffy presidential candidate would formally call for the Chicago mayor’s resignation. She pointed to the candidate’s previous statement about the circumstances surrounding the release of the video of McDonald’s death. But she assured The Daily Beast that Sanders didn’t come to Chicago just to pick a fight.

“We didn’t come to Chicago to call for Rahm’s head,” she said.

While there was no blood on the stage, it kind of seemed like they did.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34232-bernie-sanders-tells-chicago-rahm-should-resign

NBA Lends Its Name and Its Stars to Campaign Against Gun Violence
Zach Schonbrun and Michael Barbaro, The New York Times
Excerpt: "The National Basketball Association, alarmed by the death toll from shootings across the country, is stepping into the polarizing debate over guns, their regulation and the Second Amendment with an advertising campaign in partnership with one of the nation's most aggressive advocates of stricter limits on firearm sales."
READ MORE

1950s Nuclear Target List Overs Chilling Insight
Scott Shane, The New York Times
Shane writes: "For the first time, the National Archives and Records Administration has released a detailed list of the United States' potential targets for atomic bombers in the event of war with the Soviet Union, showing the number and the variety of targets on its territory, as well as in Eastern Europe and China."
READ MORE

US Pursued Secret Contacts With Assad Regime for Years
Nour Malas and Carol E. Lee, The Wall Street Journal
Excerpt: "The Obama administration pursued secret communications with elements of Syria's regime over several years in a failed attempt to limit violence and get President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power, according to U.S. and Arab officials."
READ MORE

Santa's Home Is Melting. Will We Ever Bring It Back?
Tim Folger, National Geographic
Folger writes: "Vast and white, easily visible from space, Earth's Arctic ice cap seems such a permanent fixture - a frozen country at the top of the world - that the idea that it could ever vanish almost defies comprehension. But by the middle of the century most of it will in fact vanish, thanks to our burning of fossil fuels. The North Pole and most of the ocean around it will be free of sea ice in summer for the first time in thousands of years."
READ MORE

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This, that....Mass Incarceration, Climate Change Heroes, Senator Sanders

Supreme Court Ruling Starts Emptying Prisons

The Supreme Court in a near-unanimous 8-1 decision, struck down parts of a three-strikes law that it has been protecting for decades.

REVERBPRESS.COM|BY ALLAN MASRI

"California courts sentenced a man to life imprisonment for stealing a pair of socks worth $2.50. When bankers steal hundreds of millions of dollars and get no jail time at all, ordinary people have to believe the legal system makes no sense at all.
Republican president Richard Nixon started this off by declaring a War on Drugs in 1971. Prosecutors everywhere used this so-called War as an excuse to put black Americans in prison. As a result, while blacks in California comprise only 3% of the population, the prison population convicted of a third strike offense is 45% black. It doesn’t help the black population that most of them can’t afford a decent lawyer, but still, police concentrate on rousting and arresting young black men
Republican front group and law-making syndicate ALEC added to the prison population by writing determinate sentencing laws and convincing state legislatures to pass them. These bills had the effect of forcing blacks to spend decades in prison for possession of what were erroneously defined as Schedule I drugs. Private prison corporations, who profit heavily when more people are sent to prison, also support ALEC."

Corporate Takeover's photo to the group: Sen Bernie Sanders For President!!

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If you are wondering what all the fuss about Bernie Sanders is here's a sample. And Bernie Sanders never had to evolve into these positions as he has been The Champion of All the People his entire career. Not just to get a vote.

Senator Whitehouse, another hero who stands up for the future!

League of Conservation Voters

In a recent floor speech, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse counters every argument from presidential candidates who try to deny or ignore the scientific consensus of climate change and the urgent need for action. Thank him for standing up to climate change deniers here >>http://bit.ly/18K5aZO...

See More

League of Conservation Voters

In a recent floor speech, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse counters every argument from presidential candidates who try to deny or ignore the scientific consensus ofclimate change and the urgent need for action. Thank him for standing up to climate change deniers here >> http://bit.ly/18K5aZO

You can watch his speech here: http://bit.ly/1GZ7ZCK

Reader Supported News

 

"It was bigger than Steve King’s Freedom Summit, bigger than the GOP’s Lincoln Dinner, in fact bigger than both of those events combined, and you can even throw in Joni Ernst’s pig roast." Scott Galindez, RSN

Bernie Draws 10,000 to Massive Madison Rally

READERSUPPORTEDNEWS.ORG|BY SCOTT GALINDEZ, READER SUPPORTED NEW

Daily Kos: Senate Republicans defend billionaires by keeping Citizens United alive

Daily Kos Recommended

Palin family involved in brawl: White on white crime strikes again Scott Walker just stabbed irony in the back Nostradumbass: Stephen Colbert slams Fox for saying Bush was right Signature needed: Republicans could shut down government over immigration WAKE UP FOLKS! This is YOUR WATER! 35 Democrats join House GOP to weaken the Clean Water Act You can read the full dissent here. The so-called Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act passed 262 to 152. 227 Republicans and 35 Democrats voted for it. 151 Democrats and 1 Republican (Chris Smith of New Jersey’s 4th) voted against it. Who were the 35 Democrats? Ron Barber (AZ-02) John Barrow (GA-12) Sanford Bishop (GA-02) Cheri Bustos (IL-17) Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05) Jim Clyburn (SC-06) Jim Costa (CA-16) Henry Cuellar (TX-28) Bill Enyart (IL-12) Sam Farr (CA-20) Marcia Fudge (OH-11) Pete Gallego (TX-23) John Garamendi (CA-03) Joe Garcia (FL-26) Gene Green (TX-29) Alcee Hastings (FL-23) Steven Horsford (NV-04) Robin Kelly (IL-02) Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01) David Loebsack (IA-02) Jim Matheson (UT-04) Mike McIntyre (NC-07) Gloria Negrette McLeod (CA-35) Bill Owens (NY-21) Collin Peterson (MN-07) Nick Rahall (WV-03) Cedric Richmond (LA-02) Raul Ruiz (CA-36) Kurt Schrader (OR-05) David Scott (GA-13) Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09) Bennie Thompson (MS-02) Marc Veasey (TX-33) Filemon Vela (TX-34) Tim Walz (MN-01) Tim Bishop (NY-01) offered an amendment to prevent enactment of the bill if its implementation would harm water quality. It failed 170 to 240. 228 Republicans and 12 Democrats voted against it. 170 Democrats voted for it. Here are the 12 Democrats who voted against it. John Barrow (GA-12) Sanford Bishop (GA-02) Jim Costa (CA-16) Henry Cuellar (TX-28) Bill Enyart (IL-12) Gene Green (TX-29) Jim Matheson (UT-04) Bill Owens (NY-21) Collin Peterson (MN-07) Nick Rahall (WV-03) Kurt Schrader (OR-05) David Scott (GA-13) The White House issued a veto threat to the bill, noting that it "would derail current efforts to clarify the scope of the CWA, hamstring future regulatory efforts, and create significant ambiguity regarding existing regulations and guidance." Chick-fil-A demotes woman after she took time off for a double mastectomy Cartoon: Dysfunction Junction Cartoon: From the front lines of the war on seat reclines Airhead Barbie coulda been our VP!  Ya voted for her? Good for you! Sarah Palin on war: 'Go big or go home' McCain nostalgic for the good old days when Bush had Iraq won Massachusetts finds probable cause to investigate firing of activist teacher Shocking mutation and 'burn-out' scenarios revealed about escalating Ebola epidemic MI-Gov scandal: Snyder administration quietly canceled $98K fine for for-profit prison food vendor Aramark Iceland volcano update: Accelerating (Plus: Got questions? Here's your chance for answers) Senate Republicans defend billionaires by keeping Citizens United alive Log in or sign up for Daily Kos, the nation's largest progressive community. Sign up to receive the Daily Kos Recommended email by clicking here. Thanks for all you do, The Daily Kos team

P.S. Please help keep Daily Kos strong by chipping in $3.

From RSN:

A watchtower rises above the maximum security complex at Pelican Bay State Prison in California. (photo: Ben Margot/AP)

America's Invisible and Costly Human Rights Crisis

By Ralph Nader, Common Dreams

24 January 14

hen the news broke years ago that U.S. forces were using torture on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, many politicians and the public expressed appropriate horror. There was shock and disappointment that our country would resort to such inhumane, abusive actions against our fellow human beings, most of whom then were innocent victims of bounty hunters in Afghanistan.

 

With this frame of reverence in mind, it is unfortunate that many Americans do not contemplate-or are simply unaware of-blatant torture occurring in prisons every day right here in the United States.

 

This form of physical and psychological violence is called many things: "isolation", "administrative segregation", "control units", "secure housing" and by its most well-known designation, solitary confinement. This practice of imprisonment is widely used across our nation with disturbingly little oversight and restriction. The full extent of the use of solitary confinement is truly alarming-it is most certainly a human rights abuse and a blight on our national character.

 

Imagine yourself being locked in a small windowless room for days, weeks, or years…perhaps even for the majority of your life. You receive food and water through a small slot and have little-to-no human contact-you might go days or weeks without speaking to another person. You are allowed out for perhaps an hour a day for some exercise. This is the living reality for tens of thousands of Americans in our prison system. Self-mutilation and suicide attempts among those in solitary confinement are far too common. Not surprisingly, studies have shown that the majority of prison suicides are inmates who were being held in solitary.

 

Many more studies have shown that solitary confinement has a severe psychologically damaging effect on human beings. For prisoners already suffering from mental illness, it exacerbates their problems. Senator John McCain wrote of his experience in solitary confinement as a P.O.W. in Vietnam: "It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment."

 

Many might dismiss and even justify punishment by solitary confinement by convincing themselves that those subjected to it are "bad people." But this is a gross misunderstanding of its common use in our prisons. Many prisoners held in solitary are mentally ill, mentally handicapped, or illiterate. Some are placed in solitary purportedly for their "safety" to protect them from themselves or from other prisoners.

 

Some put in solitary are children as young as 14 or 15. What type of prison infraction would result in a 15 year old being locked up in solitary?-"15 days for not making the bed; 15 days for not keeping the cell door open; 20 or 25 days for being in someone else's cell" are some, according to a report on the issue by Human Rights Watch.

 

Journalist James Ridgeway calls the use of solitary confinement "a second sentence." The first sentence is, of course, being sent to prison. The second sentence is totally decided by the warden and guards without appealable criteria. As such, the act of disobeying instructions or vaguely interpreted prison rules or the whim of the warden can warrant a lengthy stay in solitary. The lack of accountability in this area is notorious and critical. For many prisoners, a stay in solitary is a death sentence.

 

Ridgeway, along with Jean Cassella, founded Solitary Watch in 2009. Their goal is to bring attention to what really goes on in America's prisons, which are subjected to so little public exposure of their daily operations.

 

The United States is the world leader in locking people up. There are currently about 2.3 million imprisoned people in the United States. About 25 percent of them are there for nonviolent drug offenses, victims of the insatiable "prison-industrial complex" which costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year. Of these millions of inmates, it is estimated that as many as 80,000 are being held in solitary confinement according to Solitary Watch. Prisons are not required to provide data on how and when they use this highly questionable method of incarceration. Over 40 prisons are considered "supermax" facilities where the majority of cells are solitary units. These prisons alone account for about 30,000 people.

 

For-profit corporate-owned prisons like solitary confinement because it extends a prisoners' sentence.

 

It is also far more expensive to keep prisoners in solitary confinement-one study estimates that the average cost of housing an inmate in a supermax prison is $75,000, as opposed to $25,000 per cell in a regular state prison. This cost is passed along to taxpayers.

 

Imagine how things might change if more ordinary Americans had access to inspect the prisons their tax dollars pay for. A precedent for this exists. In Great Britain, "Independent Monitoring Boards" offer a unique civic perspective on regulating what happens inside prison walls. Ordinary citizens are able to volunteer to be these independent monitors. Volunteers are allowed unannounced access to prison facilities anytime, day or night. The volunteers are free to tour the prison, speak with the inmates, sample the food, and inspect the clothing and the state of medical care.

 

Such an idea of citizen responsibility might seem highly unusual to most Americans to whom prisons are largely out of sight and out of mind. The first step in addressing this crisis of abuse is raising awareness.

 

Reporters are rarely given full access to prisons so they can report on what is going on inside. Let the press in! The best source of information about the state of our prisons is the prisoners themselves-but press access to them is restricted and the Department of Justice is not listening to their appeals. With this barrier in place, prisons are virtually shut off from any accountability or independent oversight.

 

Wardens and guards are the only ones making decisions about the treatment of many prisoners.

 

And where are the judges? All judges-federal, state, and local should have firsthand knowledge of the conditions in prisons so that they can make better informed decisions when sentencing those who come before them. Here's a bold suggestion that might move the needle. All nine members of the United States Supreme Court should spend 48 hours in solitary confinement. Imagine how quickly the treatment of our incarcerated population would change if those at forefront of our judicial system had a small taste of what it is like to be locked in a tiny cell, alone, with no human contact for such an amount of time. Just 48 hours! There is precedent for some state judges actually spending time in prison years ago.

 

Some prisoners, such as Herman Wallace, have spent the majority of their lives suffering under these conditions. Wallace spent 41 years in solitary confinement while maintaining his innocence. The warden of the Louisiana prison where he was held ascribed his "Black Pantherism" as the reason.

 

Wallace was released in October of last year and died three days later at the age of 71. These acts of astonishing cruelty should not happen in a country governed by the rule of law.

 

Too many people overlook the plight of prisoners, deeming them criminals and not concerning themselves with the plights of people they feel have no place or say in our society. There is little recognition of wrongful convictions and the role of rehabilitation that has worked in other western countries with far less recidivist rates then in the U.S. This mindset is a major obstacle in drawing attention to the inhumane treatment inmates often receive in our justice system.

 

The legendary investigator Jim Ridgeway says of the Solitary Watch project: "We're not trying to let criminals out. We're just trying to let people know what is going on."

 

For those who want to do something now, consider donating to Solitary Watch's campaign "Lifeline to Solitary." This lean and efficient campaign means to establish contact with prisoners held in long-term solitary. This connection serves two purposes-it allows Solitary Watch to correspond with prisoners and report on their conditions. Secondly, it provides those in isolation a key connection to the outside world and a reminder that they do matter.

 

Prisons are a grim and unpleasant part of our system of justice. That said, we can do much, much better about how to humanely treat people who are serving their time often under grotesquely long sentences for non-violent crimes.

FOCUS: Paul Krugman | The Populist Imperative

Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "If, as has been widely reported, President Obama devotes much of his State of the Union address to inequality, everyone should be cheering him on. They won't, of course."
READ MORE

Andy Borowitz | Kim Jong-un: Bieber Just a Few Arrests From Being My Friend

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un announced on state television today that he believes the pop star Justin Bieber is 'just a few arrests away' from visiting North Korea as his friend."
READ MORE

The Hidden History of the CIA's Prison in Poland
Adam Goldman, The Washington Post
Goldman reports: "The CIA prison in Poland was arguably the most important of all the black sites created by the agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."
READ MORE

The Crumbling Case Against Snowden
John Cassidy, The New Yorker
Cassidy reports: "The news headline from Thursday's live chat with Edward Snowden, on the Free Snowden Web site, was that he wants to come home - but he wants the laws changed first."
READ MORE

Robert Parry | Neocons Take Aim at Syrian Peace Talks
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Parry writes: "The Washington Post's neoconservative editorial page is still beating the drums for U.S. military intervention in Syria, but its latest demand for violent reprisals against the Syrian government dropped a key element in the previous propaganda campaign."
READ MORE

Holder Now Says: 'No Bank Too Big to Indict'
Doina Chiacu, Reuters
Chiacu reports: "No American financial institution is too large to indict and no bank executive immune from criminal prosecution, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a television interview."
READ MORE

Ralph Nader | America's Invisible and Costly Human Rights Crisis
Ralph Nader, Common Dreams
Nader writes: "The full extent of the use of solitary confinement is truly alarming - it is most certainly a human rights abuse and a blight on our national character."
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They're Fast-Tracking the Future, TPP Style - But We Can Stop Them
Richard Eskow, Campaign for America's Future
Eskow writes: "There has been an understandable sense of outrage over the Obama administration's attempt to ram the most extreme trade deal yet through Congress with a 'fast-track' provision that forbids amendments or filibustering."
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