DARE Generation Diary: Torture at home

Micah at DARE Generation Diary uncovers the outrage of the day.

PROVIDENCE -- Three state correctional officers, including a captain who allegedly forced an inmate to taste his own feces on Valentine's Day, were arrested and charged yesterday with multiple counts of assaulting five inmates in the Adult Correctional Institutions.

[snip]

The prisoners allegedly involved were serving short sentences for crimes such as felony shoplifting and drug possession.

The torture at Abu Ghraib got lot of attention, as it should have, but the same outrageous behavior is occuring daily right here at home. They've been practicing these tactics on American prisoners for years. The guards here allegedly physically assaulted the inmates with their fists and clipboards, threw objects at them and one inmate, for the simple infraction of trying to smuggle cigarettes into the jail was forced to eat his own feces.

The guard's defense attorney claims they were just doing what is a difficult job. However, to my knowledge the inmates were not unruly or presenting any danger to the guards or the general population at the time of the assaults. It is not their job to inflict punishment or to humiliate the inmates, although if you visit any prison today you would find this sort of conduct is commonplace.

Prisoners are still human beings. The guards' job is just that, to guard against the prisoners harming each other and/or from escaping imprisonment. That they fail to protect non-violent offenders from the prison predators within the inmate population is common knowledge. That they inflict their own extra-judicial punishments on the inmates is a crime. One can only hope these guards will pay a stiff enough peanlty for their transgressions that others will think twice before they act out their own sadistic urges.