Not that major media cares or anything but, whats the big deal? Prison abuse by what are essentially prison guards runs across the board. So now everyone is calling for the head of the world's biggest Warden, Donald Rumsfield. While all this is going on, a long-hidden but ugly truth is coming to light, abuse of inmates in American prisons. Just as the videotaped footage of the Rodney King beating made a reluctant nation face the reality of police brutality, so too will the gory photos of prisoners in Abu Ghraib make a nation partially in deniel look at it's own "correction" system.
A recent 5/8 report in the New York Times quotes an official from a prison alternatives group who stated: "Nationwide, during the last quarter century, over 40 state prison systems were under some form of court order, for brutality, crowding, poor food or lack of medical care," said Marc Mauer who is the assistant director of the Washington-based Sentencing Project. Texas, the president's home state was cited in the Times story as having a particularly brutal prison system. These prisons have the most common types of troubles; inmates complaining of violence, rape, extortion, things related to prisoners fighting each other.
And then there are the facilities known more for brutality by the prison guards (erroneously called corrections officers), such as the one that ironically the poor small-town military officers being charged in the Iraqi abuse case will eventually find them selves, the Ft. Leavenworth Kansas military facility.
Several years ago I did a story about a man named Floyd Graham, Graham was a troubled man who spent the better part of twenty years at the prison at Ft. Leavenworth, according to his family, he simply wasn't in his right mind due in no small part to his experiences there. Five years straight was spent in solitary confinement, and it was normal for him to endure beatings by prison guards "any time of morning, any time of night, they'd bum-rush into his cell and just beat him until he was unconcious."Though convicted of bank robbery in New York state, he was moved around to various prisons across the country. Graham was released in '98 and led a peaceful life in Buffalo until-for whatever reason-he stopped taking his medicine. He is now back in prison as the result of a robbery charge, and an altercation with a police officer. I don't know where Graham was sentenced to, but if its back in Kansas, he'll have company soon.
Though the pictures of the abuses are numerous-with the worst yet to come-it is one in particular that threatens to send away 17soldiers, including an Army Reserve Staff Sgt., the one that shows the Iraqi prisoner standing on a box with his head covered, and wires attached to his hands. This is the one where he was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. The Reserve Staff Sgt. in question is Chip Frederick, a Virginia Prison guard, he is being charged with assault (striking detainees and ordering them to strike each other), and indecency (observing one scene, posing in a photo while sitting on top of a detainee) among other charges. Whats not being questioned is the mind-set of anyone who will dream up the images in the photos. The Great Satan Indeed. This is bound to cost more American lives due to the actions of a few small-town pizza and beer guzzling rednecks, those Middle Eastern Muslim sects don't forget.