The American official who was asked to re-open Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison approved of the choice, saying it was “the only place we agreed as a team was truly closest to an American prison.” Lane McCotter was only referring to the mechanics of the prison complex, but in making the comparison, he inadvertently foreshadowed what some prison experts say are much more shameful similarities.
Prisoners stripped naked, forced into humiliating poses, and photographed. Physical abuse that exceeds the merely punitive, and tactics meant to degrade and terrify. This kind of treatment has also been documented in prisons from Connecticut to California. The only thing missing, say these critics, is a sense of national outrage, similar to that expressed over the abuse in Iraq. Links in a chain.
Guests:
Fox Butterfield, national correspondent, The New York Times
James Whitman, professor of comparative law, Yale Law School and author, “Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide between America and Europe”
Alan Elsner, national correspondent, Reuters, and author, “Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America’s Prisons”: Tom Hodgson, Bristol County Sheriff