Many Americans comfort themselves with utterly dangerous delusions that our nation is entitled to some kind of superior status, that somehow the leadership of our nation shares any shred of humanity that gives us any basis for claiming any moral superiority to say, communist China.
But when you take any effort to scratch anywhere below the surface, you realize just how ghastly a nation we have become.
Right here in good ‘ole sunny Florida, we run an entire prison system that would make Nazi death camp guards smile.
Systemic, ghastly and brutal prison abuse is standard operating procedure. Torture, rape, brutally inhumane treatment. It’s all being done in your name. It’s all being done on your behalf. It’s all being done under your watch. You are responsible for this. You. Me. And every single other citizen that sits here on the outside allowing these abuses to continue.
Something needs to be done….the first step is you reading the story below and making a commitment be become more aware.
So why should this matter to you? Why should you not just adopt the attitude that,
“To hell with them, they’re in prison, they did something wrong…if they’re raped or tortured, good for them…that’s what they deserve!”
Well starting with an entirely base analysis focused entirely on your own self preservation and personal safety objectives, the most important thing is that 95% of prisoners will be released back into our communities. They will be on the streets with you and your children. The mental and emotional state of a convicted burglar is entirely different than the compromised mental state of a released prisoner who was subjected to rape, torture and prison abuse.
But on a more expanded and humanistic view, all members of society have an absolute obligation to treat other humans with dignity and concern for their safety. Every criminal that is guilty of any crime must be provided a safe environment to serve out his debt to society. His debt to society is incarceration, the debt is not and cannot be the other punishments of torture, rape and violence.
It’s also important to consider the impact these torture chambers have on other members of society…those victims who work as corrections officers or staff in prisons. Read the abuse they suffer:
Krzykowski’s concerns kept mounting. In her view, the T.C.U. was unacceptably run-down: the walls were mildewed, the hallways were caked in grime, and the sewage system was often backed up. In the staff break room, cockroaches had overrun the kitchen area, infesting even the microwave. Oddly, the water from the kitchen faucet was scalding, so Krzykowski began using it to make ramen noodles for lunch.
One Saturday in June, 2012, Krzykowski was finishing a shift when she heard that an inmate in the T.C.U. named Darren Rainey had defecated in his cell and was refusing to clean it up. He was fifty years old, and, as Krzykowski recalls it, he gave people unnerving looks, “like he was trying to see inside you.” He had been convicted of possession of cocaine, and suffered from severe schizophrenia.
“What’s going on with Rainey?” Krzykowski asked a guard.
“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll put him in the shower,” he told her.
Krzykowski remembers hearing this and feeling reassured. “I was thinking, O.K., lots of times people feel good after a shower, so maybe he will calm down. A nice, gentle shower with warm water.”
The next day, Krzykowski learned from some nurses that a couple of guards had indeed escorted Rainey to the shower at about eight the previous night. But he hadn’t made it back to his cell. He had collapsed while the water was running. At 10:07 P.M., he was pronounced dead.
Krzykowski assumed that he must have had a heart attack or somehow committed suicide. But the nurses said that Rainey had been locked in a stall whose water supply was delivered through a hose controlled by the guards. The water was a hundred and eighty degrees, hot enough to brew a cup of tea—or, as it soon occurred to Krzykowski, to cook a bowl of ramen noodles. (Someone had apparently tampered with the T.C.U.’s water heater.) It was later revealed that Rainey had burns on more than ninety per cent of his body, and that his skin fell off at the touch.
Krzykowski said to the nurses that, surely, there would be a criminal investigation.
“No,” one of them told her. “They’re gonna cover this up.”
