November 30, 2012

theatlanticvideo:

500 Plates and Counting: Immortalizing Death Row’s Last Meals

In The Last Supper, activist Julie Green has created a series of ceramic plates, each of which illustrate the final meal requests of prisoners on death row to protest the United States’ use of capital punishment. Images range from lobster and ice cream to a single Jolly Rancher. One prisoner even requested that his mother come to cook him his favorite comfort food. Created by Dark Rye, the online magazine from Whole Foods (a business not typically associated with progressive talking points), the documentary chronicles how Green became so drawn to the issue.

12:29pm
(Notes: 199)
  
Filed under: Video Death row Prison United States Capitol Punishment Politics Art Ceramics 
August 24, 2012
A Different Justice: Why Anders Breivik Only Got 21 Years for Killing 77 People As an American, or maybe just as a moral human being, it’s hard not to feel appalled, even outraged, that Norwegian far-right monster Anders Breivik only received 21 years in prison for his attacks last year, including a bombing in Oslo and a cold-blooded shooting spree, which claimed 77 lives. That’s just under 100 days per murder. The decision, reached by the court’s five-member panel, was unanimous. He will serve out his years (which can be extended) in a three-room cell with a TV, exercise room, and “Ikea-style furniture.” The New York Times quoted a handful of survivors and victims’ relatives expressing relief and satisfaction at the verdict. It’s not a scientific survey, but it’s still jarring to see Norwegians welcoming this light sentence. Norway’s criminal justice system is, obviously, quite distinct from that of, say, the U.S.; 21 years is the maximum sentence for anything less severe than war crimes or genocide. Still, it’s more than that: the entire philosophy underpinning that system is radically different. I don’t have an answer for which system is better. I doubt anyone does. But Americans’ shocked response to the Breivik sentence hints at not just how different the two systems are, but how deeply we may have come to internalize our understanding of justice, which, whatever its merits, doesn’t seem to be as universal as we might think. Read more. [Image: AP]

A Different Justice: Why Anders Breivik Only Got 21 Years for Killing 77 People

As an American, or maybe just as a moral human being, it’s hard not to feel appalled, even outraged, that Norwegian far-right monster Anders Breivik only received 21 years in prison for his attacks last year, including a bombing in Oslo and a cold-blooded shooting spree, which claimed 77 lives. That’s just under 100 days per murder. The decision, reached by the court’s five-member panel, was unanimous. He will serve out his years (which can be extended) in a three-room cell with a TV, exercise room, and “Ikea-style furniture.” The New York Times quoted a handful of survivors and victims’ relatives expressing relief and satisfaction at the verdict. It’s not a scientific survey, but it’s still jarring to see Norwegians welcoming this light sentence.

Norway’s criminal justice system is, obviously, quite distinct from that of, say, the U.S.; 21 years is the maximum sentence for anything less severe than war crimes or genocide. Still, it’s more than that: the entire philosophy underpinning that system is radically different. I don’t have an answer for which system is better. I doubt anyone does. But Americans’ shocked response to the Breivik sentence hints at not just how different the two systems are, but how deeply we may have come to internalize our understanding of justice, which, whatever its merits, doesn’t seem to be as universal as we might think.

Read more. [Image: AP]

1:24pm
(Notes: 168)
  
Filed under: News World news Norway Anders Breivik Criminal justice Law Prison Politics 
August 8, 2012
"At 6:26 p.m local time last night, an hour or so after the last appeal was denied, Texas executed a mentally retarded black man named Marvin Wilson, a man who could not handle money or navigate a phone book, a man who sucked his thumb and could not always tell the difference between left and right, a man who, as a child, could not match his socks, tie his shoes or button his clothes, a 54-year-old man with an IQ of 61 which, his attorneys were quick to point out, is ‘below the first percentile of human intelligence.’"

— Andrew Cohen, on how Texas ignored a Supreme Court decision to execute Marvin Wilson.

1:24pm
(Notes: 295)
  
Filed under: News Politics Marvin Wilson Texas Prison Executions Law Supreme Court Longreads Longform 
June 20, 2012
"Dostoevsky was right: How we treat our prisoners says more about us than it does about them."

— Andrew Cohen, on the enormous price we pay by ignoring mentally ill prisoners.

9:07am
(Notes: 262)
  
Filed under: Prison Jail Supermax Law 
June 18, 2012
An American Gulag: Descending into Madness at Supermax As he sits today in Supermax, Jack Powers had amputated his fingers, a testicle, his scrotum and his earlobes, has cut his Achilles tendon, and had tried several times to kill himself. Those tattoos you see? Powers had none until 2009, when he started mutilating with a razor and carbon paper. He did much of this — including biting off his pinkie and cutting skin off his face — in the Control Unit at Supermax while prison officials consistently refused to treat his diagnosed mental illness. Rules are rules, prison officials told him, and no prisoners in that unit were to be given psychotropic medicine no matter how badly they needed it. Read more. This is the first in a three-part series about the new class-action lawsuit filed Monday against the Bureau of Prison and the officials who run ADX-Florence, the so-called “Supermax” facility that houses some of the nation’s most dangerous criminals. The second part will focus on the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit. The third part will focus upon some of the many legal issues involved in the litigation.

An American Gulag: Descending into Madness at Supermax

As he sits today in Supermax, Jack Powers had amputated his fingers, a testicle, his scrotum and his earlobes, has cut his Achilles tendon, and had tried several times to kill himself. Those tattoos you see? Powers had none until 2009, when he started mutilating with a razor and carbon paper. He did much of this — including biting off his pinkie and cutting skin off his face — in the Control Unit at Supermax while prison officials consistently refused to treat his diagnosed mental illness. Rules are rules, prison officials told him, and no prisoners in that unit were to be given psychotropic medicine no matter how badly they needed it.

Read more.

This is the first in a three-part series about the new class-action lawsuit filed Monday against the Bureau of Prison and the officials who run ADX-Florence, the so-called “Supermax” facility that houses some of the nation’s most dangerous criminals. The second part will focus on the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit. The third part will focus upon some of the many legal issues involved in the litigation.

2:40pm
(Notes: 165)
  
Filed under: Longreads Prison Supermax News Mental illness 
February 29, 2012
A Guantanamo Inmate Becomes a Prison Snitch This is the guy whose story military prosecutors are going to endorse in court against other detainees. This is the guy who is going to be subject to cross-examination by lawyers for Hambali and Mohammed. This is the guy who is going to promise that he is telling the truth now. Remember when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called men like Kahn “killers” and when President George W. Bush called them “the worst of the worst”? Six years later, Kahn has a new name: star government witness. It’s mind boggling.  I don’t blame Kahn. He’s doing whatever he can to get out of Gitmo. And I don’t necessarily blame the Obama Administration for using the convenient tactic of turning the detainees against one another to expedite trials for some of the prisoners. What other choice do the feds have now that Congress has limited their ability to transfer the men to the States for federal civilian trial? In any event, whatever else Kahn’s testimony will do, the whole episode gives new meaning to the phrase “by hook or by crook.” Read more. [Image: Reuters]

A Guantanamo Inmate Becomes a Prison Snitch

This is the guy whose story military prosecutors are going to endorse in court against other detainees. This is the guy who is going to be subject to cross-examination by lawyers for Hambali and Mohammed. This is the guy who is going to promise that he is telling the truth now. Remember when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called men like Kahn “killers” and when President George W. Bush called them “the worst of the worst”? Six years later, Kahn has a new name: star government witness. It’s mind boggling. 

I don’t blame Kahn. He’s doing whatever he can to get out of Gitmo. And I don’t necessarily blame the Obama Administration for using the convenient tactic of turning the detainees against one another to expedite trials for some of the prisoners. What other choice do the feds have now that Congress has limited their ability to transfer the men to the States for federal civilian trial? In any event, whatever else Kahn’s testimony will do, the whole episode gives new meaning to the phrase “by hook or by crook.”

Read more. [Image: Reuters]

2:10pm
(Notes: 47)
  
Filed under: Politics News Guantanamo Prison 
February 9, 2012
Are America’s Prison Towns Doomed? For decades, the trade-off of becoming known as a “prison town” and being associated with incarceration has been a worthwhile trade-off for municipalities in financial straits. And states in need of a place to put their growing inmate populations during the height of the War on Drugs were willing to pay good money for it. This is where publicly-traded, private prison companies such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO, formerly known as Wackenhut, — what Eric Schlosser dubbed the “prison industrial complex” — stepped in. They offered cheaper and more efficient prison management than state-run systems because they could use non-union employees at lower wages with less training. But much like the real estate market crash of the last ten years, the belief that the incarceration market was recession-proof and could only rise is being proved wrong. Declining crime rates are leaving more prisons empty. There isn’t enough crime to keep the prison industry afloat as it currently stands. To save money, more states are moving their prisoners back to state-run facilities when space is available. Without prisoners, the private companies managing the facilities are leaving. And the small towns who bet on an ever-growing incarceration rate are left further in debt with few sources of capital. Read more. [Image: Reuters] A compelling, difficult story from The Atlantic Cities about incarceration and struggling American towns. Here’s a question for y’all: Can we reconcile our satisfaction about falling crime rates with concern for those losing their livelihoods?

Are America’s Prison Towns Doomed?

For decades, the trade-off of becoming known as a “prison town” and being associated with incarceration has been a worthwhile trade-off for municipalities in financial straits. And states in need of a place to put their growing inmate populations during the height of the War on Drugs were willing to pay good money for it.

This is where publicly-traded, private prison companies such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO, formerly known as Wackenhut, — what Eric Schlosser dubbed the “prison industrial complex” — stepped in. They offered cheaper and more efficient prison management than state-run systems because they could use non-union employees at lower wages with less training.

But much like the real estate market crash of the last ten years, the belief that the incarceration market was recession-proof and could only rise is being proved wrong. Declining crime rates are leaving more prisons empty. There isn’t enough crime to keep the prison industry afloat as it currently stands.

To save money, more states are moving their prisoners back to state-run facilities when space is available. Without prisoners, the private companies managing the facilities are leaving. And the small towns who bet on an ever-growing incarceration rate are left further in debt with few sources of capital. Read more.

[Image: Reuters]

A compelling, difficult story from The Atlantic Cities about incarceration and struggling American towns. Here’s a question for y’all: Can we reconcile our satisfaction about falling crime rates with concern for those losing their livelihoods?

11:08am
(Notes: 62)
  
Filed under: Prison The Atlantic Cities Business America War on Drugs our 
August 12, 2010
"If the future of prisons is to be turned inside out, with criminals in the wild and their guards in a suburban midwestern office, how will the experience of being a convict change? The psychology of incarceration is well known not only to researchers, but to readers of Dostoyevsky and viewers of Oz. But to have your every step monitored as you make your way through life, ostensibly free—well, that is, so to speak, a brave new world."

—

Graeme Wood ponders the future of prisons without walls.

1:50pm
(Notes: 11)
  
Filed under: The Atlantic Magazine Prison Security Society 
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