Thursday, December 17, 2015

Prison and jails worse off than policing

The problems in policing in America pale in comparison to the problems in prisons and jails.  There is even less transparency in correctional institutions, little media coverage and prisoners have no political clout. Frequently outside organizations have to step in. For instance, According the  NYT:
"New York has agreed to a major overhaul in the way solitary confinement is administered in the state’s prisons, with the goal of significantly reducing the number of inmates held in isolation, cutting the maximum length of stay and improving their living conditions. 
 
The five-year, $62 million agreement, announced on Wednesday, is the result of a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union over the treatment of inmates in solitary confinement in the prisons. For 23 hours a day, 4,000 inmates are locked in concrete 6-by-10-foot cells, sometimes for years, with little if any human contact, no access to rehabilitative programs and a diet that can be restricted to a foul-tasting brick of bread and potatoes known at the prisons as “the loaf.”

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