Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: cherish wisdom on June 03, 2004, 01:10:00 AM
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Apparently one of the guards who tortured Iraqi prisoners was employed by Utah Corrections. He was also employed at a "private prison" - could this be a youth facility? We need to know. Heres the scoop:
An uncomfortable backdrop to the Abu Ghraib story is the knowledge that various sorts of abuse are endemic throughout the American prison system. Along those lines, here's a clip from a piece Advertisement in Saturday's Times by Fox Butterfield:
"The experts also point out that the man who directed the reopening of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last year and trained the guards there resigned under pressure as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1997 after an inmate died while shackled to a restraining chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suffered from schizophrenia, was kept naked the whole time. The Utah official, Lane McCotter, later became an executive of a private prison company, one of whose jails was under investigation by the Justice Department when he was sent to Iraq as part of a team of prison officials, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs picked by Attorney General John Ashcroft to rebuild the country's criminal justice system."
Josh Marshall
Lane McCotter, he was the Director of Utah Corrections.
For those of you who are wondering - We just received a letter from Mark Surtleff, the Attorney General of The Great State of Utah - informing us in three sentences that they could not find any criminal charges for the following acts by staff:
1. force drugging a mentally ill child while six adults smiled and laughed while violently restraining her and exposing her naked buttocks
2. Depriving a child of medical care after injuring her in the above violent human restraint.
3. Stripping a child naked and leaving her with another naked girl in an open observation room where male staff and others could see their naked bodies.
4. Isolating a mentally ill child for one week for reporting her abusive treatment by staff.
These are just a few of things that were reported - but these things were not criminal according to the Utah criminal code. :flame: [ This Message was edited by: cherish wisdom on 2004-06-02 22:35 ]
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Hah, go figure, I try to compare the two issues and behold, they ARE connected by some sadistic twit.
Well, hey, askquestions.org is all over this now and investigating... god I hope the mainstream media picks this up.
In other news I slept real good last night after finding out that AQ.org has investigators dedicated to this now. :grin:
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I am compiling a file on McCotter and haven't yet found any connection to the industry. I haven't finished, but here's a link to a story from an inmate. Appears Mr M uses the same BM techiniques, and then some. We know that Ken Stettler was Dir of Youth Corrections. Perhaps they took training in the same school of thought.
http://jubilee-newspaper.com/torture_94.htm (http://jubilee-newspaper.com/torture_94.htm)
Excerpts:
On March 21, 1997, Michael Valent, a Utah State Prison (USP) inmate, died shortly after being released from 16 hours in ?the chair.? (not the electric chair). It is not uncommon for Prisoners to be strapped in this instrument of torture up to four days at a time.
We all know that after committing a crime of whatever degree, a person enters prison by way of the justice system. At this time the prisoner usually pleads guilty thereby saving the courts time and the taxpayer?s money. Punishment is then affixed, a certain number of years, fines, etc.
In the Utah State Prison however, this is not the case. The punishments continue to be assessed long after a person enters the gates. USP prison officials (O. Lane McCotter; Director, and J. Terry Bartlett; Deputy Director) have instituted a very mean little behavior modification system. The whole prison system is so obsessed with control that it has affected and changed personalities.
Let me give you some examples of what we are experiencing in The Control Unit.
Prisoners housed in the Control Unit are subjected to sensory deprivation, meaning no human contact except for conversation allowed during the few hours ?out of cell time? during the week. Two sections don't even have this.
When a prisoner goes out to see a caseworker, doctor's assistant, or clergy member, he is handcuffed behind the back, shackled at the feet and chained to the wall. There are no television or radios unless a person can afford it, few can. They are denied newspapers, magazines and books. There is no type of motor activity. We are talking about people who spend years in this type of environment. Communication with the outside world has been virtually cut off.
I have witnessed the Nazi like actions of the goon squad, with support from the other guards and administrative staff. They?ll run in on a prisoner, who most of the time is non-violent, and tackle him. They then handcuff, shackle, put a hood over his head, hook a leash to him and finally drag him off to ?Section 4.?
It has also been reported to me by several of the prisoners in this control unit that a form of psychological manipulation is being performed on them called psychotronics. This manipulation is often augmented by psychotropic drug enhancement. (More on this as we receive it ?Ed.)
And, it gets better... or should I say worse.
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Lane McCotter outlines changes to the Utah Department of Corrections
May 9, 1997
Contacts: Natalie Gochnour, 538-1503
Bridget Fare, 538-1509
Lane McCotter announced Friday afternoon an aggressive plan to address serious challenges in the state corrections system, including the medical care of prisoners and unprecedented population growth that has strained budgets and created employee recruitment and retention problems.
McCotter said that he had joined the governor and his chief of staff in a series of discussions about how to resolve recent incidents at the prison, particularly related to prison medical care. The governor asked McCotter several days ago to provide a specific strategy for addressing the issues.
Having presented his ideas to the governor, McCotter informed him that he felt the department had another critical need; to be freshened by new management. Consequently, he announced to the governor that he has chosen to conclude his service as executive director of the Department of Corrections. He expects to complete his duties, providing enough time for the governor to conduct a search for a new corrections director. The governor has asked Nolan Karras to oversee a nationwide search for a new executive director.
McCotter said that throughout his career in corrections he has observed that leaders have windows of peak effectiveness which last 5 to 6 years. "There comes a time when you recognize that you have made a contribution of which you are proud and which has a long-term positive impact on an organization. I am choosing to leave this assignment with pride about the work that I and others have done to make this one of the best managed corrections systems in the United States."
The governor said he was respectful of McCotter's decision. "Lane McCotter has provided outstanding service in a consistently high risk environment over more than 5 years," the governor said. "I am deeply grateful for his professionalism in carrying out this difficult job."
This completely eludes the fact that he routinely ordered the torture of prisoners
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH
(D.C. No. 94-CV-372)
Nathan B. Wilcox, Anderson & Karrenberg, (Ross C. Anderson and Kate A. Toomey
with him on the brief), Salt Lake City, Utah, for Plaintiff - Appellant.
Norman E. Plate, Assistant Utah Attorney General, (Jan Graham, Utah Attorney General,
with him on the brief), Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendants - Appellees.
Before EBEL, KELLY and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges.
KELLY, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff-Appellant Jessica Andersen appeals from the grant of summary judgment
in favor of Defendants-Appellees on her civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. 1983.
Plaintiff sought injunctive relief against O. Lane McCotter, in his official capacity as
Executive Director of the Utah Department of Corrections (DOC), and monetary relief
against various corrections officials, in their individual capacities, claiming that she was
fired from her position as an intern with the DOC in retaliation for exercising her First
Amendment rights. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon
which relief could be granted under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), arguing that they were
protected by the doctrine of qualified immunity. The motion was supported by affidavits,
and was therefore treated by the district court as a motion for summary judgment under
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. Applying the two-step qualified immunity analysis, the district court
found in the first instance that Defendants' actions did not violate Plaintiff's First
Amendment rights, and thus granted summary judgment. We exercise jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. 1291 and reverse.
Background
In the summer of 1993, Ms. Andersen, then a student at Weber State University,
began an internship with the Utah Board of Pardons. She received college credit, and was
paid for twenty hours of work per week. In September 1993, she was granted permission
by the Board of Pardons to work at the Bonneville Community Corrections Center
(BCCC), a facility managed by the DOC. Ms. Andersen's work at BCCC was credited by
the Board of Pardons toward the wages it paid her. Until March 1994, Ms. Andersen
worked as an intern at BCCC two nights per week, assisting in a therapy program for sex-
offenders.
Early in 1994 the DOC announced proposed changes in the sex-offender treatment
program. In February 1994, Ms. Andersen was interviewed by a Salt Lake City television
station. During the interview, which was televised on the evening news, she criticized the
proposed changes, expressing her concern that the changes could result in the premature
release of potentially dangerous sex-offenders into the community. Ms. Andersen
confined her comments to expressing her own opinion, and did not disclose any
confidential information. The next day Ms. Andersen was informed that she was being
terminated because she had said "something negative about the Department," thus
violating official DOC policy. The policy prohibited DOC employees from speaking to
the media without prior authorization.
Ms. Andersen filed suit under 1983, alleging that her criticism of the proposed
changes to the sex-offender treatment program constituted speech on a matter of public
concern, and was therefore protected by the First Amendment. She further alleged that
her exercise of her First Amendment rights was the sole motivating factor in her
dismissal. Defendants claimed qualified immunity, arguing that Ms. Andersen's status as
a "volunteer" controlled the issue, and that the law was not clearly established that
volunteers were afforded the same First Amendment protection as employees. In the first
part of the two-part qualified immunity analysis, the district court concluded that Ms.
Andersen's constitutional rights were not violated, and therefore did not reach the second
step in the qualified immunity analysis. See Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 232 (1991);
Hinton v. City of Elwood, Kan., 997 F.2d 774, 779-80 (10th Cir. 1993). In making this
determination, the district court applied the balancing test set forth in Pickering v. Board
of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1967), weighing Ms. Andersen's interest in commenting
upon matters of public concern against the DOC's interest, as a government employer, in
promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs.
On appeal, Ms. Andersen claims that her position with the DOC was a valuable
governmental benefit which could only be denied in a manner that comports with the
protections of the First Amendment. As such, she was entitled to the same protection
under Pickering as any public employee. In addition, she argues that the district court
improperly granted summary judgment because it performed the Pickering balancing test
without sufficient evidence. She also claims that the law was clearly established in this
area, thereby precluding Defendants' claims of qualified immunity. We agree.
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Very interesing that this person who was instrumental in the "care" of prisoners in Iraq was so respected in Utah - where authories continue to allow and sanction the abusive treatment of "troubled" youth. I'm troubled now too...that the government allows this.
The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)
May 16, 2004
Utahns Who Rebuilt Prison Are in Hot Seat
By Greg Burton
At the ceremonial reopening of the Abu Ghraib prison, a team of correctional experts recruited by the U.S. Department of Justice to assess and rebuild Iraq's prison system ordered in plates of figs, pastries and candies from the streets of Baghdad.
The modest banquet was well earned, say O. Lane McCotter and Gary DeLand, friends from Utah and former business associates who were living what they describe today as a dream adventure, complete with body armor, M16s and suitcases stuffed with $100 bills.
McCotter reached Baghdad in May 2003. Within days, L. Paul Bremer, then the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, instructed the former Utah Department of Corrections director to scale back the assessment and focus on putting prisoners in cells. Four months later, he reopened Abu Ghraib.
Iraq was to be an international coup for the U.S. prison industry. And Abu Ghraib, Iraq's most secure maximum-security prison, was to be DeLand and McCotter's crowning achievement.
Instead, the torture of Iraqi prisoners there at the hands of the U.S. military has shocked the world, disrupted the overall mission in Iraq and launched congressional inquiries not only into who may have ordered the mistreatment, but who picked McCotter and DeLand -- contractors with questionable records on prisoner civil rights -- to rebuild Iraq's correctional system.
"A legend": While DOJ's International Criminal Investigative Training Program (ICITAP) had revived collapsed judicial systems in Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia and Panama, the mission in Iraq was the first to include professionals from the correctional industry in the United States. And McCotter was DOJ's chosen leader.
McCotter's career includes two tours in Vietnam, a stint as director of the Army prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and tenures as a prison administrator in Texas, New Mexico and Utah.
While at Leavenworth in the 1980s, DeLand says McCotter, 63, worked with Colin Powell, then a deputy commander at the Kansas Army base, now President Bush's Secretary of State. It's the sort of résumé Attorney General John Ashcroft must have reviewed before choosing McCotter to go to Iraq. J's chosen leader.
"McCotter's a legend," says DeLand, another former Corrections director in Utah recruited by ICITAP. "He cleaned [Leavenworth] up after Vietnam -- when it was a mess."
But critics of how McCotter and DeLand handled prisoners in Utah -- where both men advocated the use of total restraint chairs and boards to immobilize scores of dangerous or mentally ill inmates -- say the pictures of abuse and humiliation at Abu Ghraib are eerily similar to video and written records that detail the plight of bound and naked Utah prisoners in the former isolation chamber at Utah's Point of the Mountain prison.
"If our government had a serious commitment to the humane treatment of prisoners, why would they send somebody to Iraq with a history of hostility to prisoner rights?" asks Carol Gnade, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Utah who battled McCotter and DeLand over inmate abuses. "What it shows is the U.S. government really doesn't take civil rights abuses in our own prison systems seriously."
Only when McCotter resigned in 1997 -- two months after inmate Michael Valent died after being strapped in a total restraint chair for 16 hours -- did the practice end in Utah.
McCotter's record, say critics, was more recently tarnished in New Mexico by civil rights abuses noted in a DOJ investigation into Centerville-based Management & Training Corporation, McCotter's current employer, which signed a contract in 2001 to run the Sante Fe County Detention Center.
Teaching rights: While there is no evidence McCotter and DeLand trained the military police force implicated in the abuse at Abu Ghraib, the two did collaborate on establishing a "corrections academy" in Iraq to teach Iraqis how to manage prison inmates. The three-week academy included coursework on fair treatment under civilian law, DeLand says, as well as detention standards for prisoners of war established under the Geneva Conventions.
DeLand also reviewed a military correctional training manual, which he says provided little or no direction on the humane treatment of prisoners. "I found about 5 percent of it useful." That manual, DeLand says, was used by the U.S. Army to train MPs to run the dozens of Interment Facilities in Iraq, including two tent camps outside Abu Ghraib.
DeLand eventually opened the Iraq Correctional Service in a former compound used by Saddam Hussein in western Baghdad, where he and McCotter say they taught Iraqis how to protect human rights and avoid corruption.
"We honest to God had some pretty lofty ideas when we went over there -- we're building a country," says DeLand. "And now, we've probably set all that back, telling the Iraqis they can't abuse prisoners, but we can."
Fueling the fire: Two weeks before the reopening of Abu Ghraib, a mortar attack killed at least five prisoners and wounded another 67 living in tents at the U.S. military-run Camp Vigilant, one of the two camps just outside the cement walls of Abu Ghraib.
That attack probably hastened the transfer of military prisoners into cells at Abu Ghraib constructed to house common criminals, says DeLand, and may have resulted in the mixing of low-risk Iraqi prisoners with suspected terrorists or Baathists whom Bush dealt into his "Deck of 52 Cards."
That volatile mix of inmates, the pressure to extract intelligence from detainees and the push to reopen Abu Ghraib under constant fear of sniper and mortar attacks, contributed to the collapse of proper oversight at the prison, DeLand says, and may have fueled the abusive treatment of Iraqi inmates by U.S. military police.
DeLand says Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, an Army reservist appointed in June 2003 to run military prisons in Iraq, failed to closely monitor conditions at Abu Ghraib. DeLand, though, had returned to Utah before prisoners at the tent-and-fence Internment Facilities surrounding Abu Ghraib were transferred into the reconstructed bricks-and-mortar prison. In recent news reports, Karpinski claims Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then running the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, suggested military intelligence teams teach MPs at Abu Ghraib how to break down prisoners.
By late summer 2003, after reopening prisons at Al Tasferat (400 beds), Al Rusafa (416 beds) and Al Salhya (100 beds for women and juveniles), McCotter and DeLand selected an Iraqi colonel named Juma Zamel to run those prisons, as well as Abu Ghraib when it reopened.
But before they left Iraq in September, they say Karpinski vetoed Zamel. When Karpinski instead suggested a U.S. military officer run the facility, McCotter "said, 'No way, this is a civilian prison,' " DeLand says. "We didn't last much longer."
McCotter and DeLand worked closely with MPs from the 72nd Military Police out of Henderson, Nev., and Indiana's 494th MPs, but they say they had no contact that they can recall with the 372nd MPs implicated in the abuse at Abu Ghraib, which began a month after the Utah men left Iraq.
On Sept. 3, 2003, McCotter says Abu Ghraib was turned "over to the military."
"They had already established a detention center at that complex," he says. "They were already housing detainees there because there were no other prisons available to hold all the detainees and hostages captured."
Shocked and angry: McCotter and DeLand say they are horrified by the images of torture at Abu Ghraib, but they also are angry about the sweeping condemnations of the U.S. military.
"We worked with military police every day," McCotter says. "We traveled with them, they helped us, and they provided the security so we could get [Abu Ghraib] open and operational. . . . The military police are literally on the front lines every day in Iraq. They were absolutely essential to everything we were doing."
Looking for another explanation of the torture, Karpinski has said prisoners were being detained too long at Abu Ghraib. DeLand agrees.
"The military doesn't know how to get people out of prison, they only how to get them in," DeLand says. "That's a big, big problem."
Congress, meanwhile, is asking questions about how Bush, Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld chose the civil contractors who worked with the military intelligence teams at Abu Ghraib.
Lawmakers also want to know how Ashcroft found McCotter, whose selection -- regardless of his role at Abu Ghraib -- is reviving outrage about the spotty history of human rights in our own prisons.
McCotter insists he can't recall who from the Bush administration asked him to go to Iraq.
"I'm retired military, my name probably surfaced from that," he says. "I got a call from them and they said I'd been recommended. I have no idea who." -- © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune.
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When I started as a federal narcotics agent, the budget that we were working with, it was less than $5 million a year, and there was only 125 agents for the entire world to work the narcotic trade that we were fighting in those days. Times have changed. The gluttony has grown.
--Nick Navarro, former Broward, FL Sherrif
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Photo of McCotter with DeLand and Wolfowitz
http://www.newsroom-l.net/wolfowitz.htm (http://www.newsroom-l.net/wolfowitz.htm)
*MP in Vietnam who eventually rose to the rank of colonel.
*Warden of the Army's central prison at Fort Leavenworth.
*1985-1987 Dir of Corrections in Tx, Ass Dir of the Texas Department of Corrections, later renamed the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Picked to head the Tx prison system after intense lobbying by Gov. Mark White. A period when prison violence made frequent headlines and Justice was threatening to fine the state as much as $1,000 a day if it did not make court-ordered improvements in the system.
*1986- McCotter resigned under pressure from newly elected Gov. Bill Clements
*1987-1991 Director of Corrections in New Mexico for Management & Training Corporation, a private, Utah-based corrections company
*1992-1997 Director of Corrections in Utah. Resigned under pressure.
*1997- Dir of business development with Management & Training Corp., headquartered in Centerville, Utah. Third-largest private prison company, operating 13 prisons.
http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.ph ... &sid=22942 (http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=22942)
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682 (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682)
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2572688 (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2572688)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287987.shtml (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287987.shtml)
Deland and Associates is a nationally recognized corrections firm which has contracted with MTC in the past.
http://www.flpba.org/private/utah.htm (http://www.flpba.org/private/utah.htm)
1980- The Management and Ttaining Corporation (MTC} was founded in 1980, "but its roots stretch back to the mid-1960s when it was the Education and Training Division of Thiokol Corporation. Since 1966, it has operated centers for Job Corps -- a U.S. Department of Labor job-training program that prepares disadvantaged youth for meaningful careers. MTC entered the corrections industry in 1987 when it opened one of the first privately operated corrections facilities in the United States." [1]
Key People
Robert Marquardt, Chairman of the Board
R. Scott Marquardt, President and Chief Executive Officer
Lyle J. Parry, Chief Financial Officer
Contact
500 N. Marketplace Drive
Centerville, UT 84014-1708
801 693-2600
Fax 801 693-2900
URL: http://www.mtctrains.com (http://www.mtctrains.com)
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml? ... orporation (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Management_and_Training_Corporation)
80?s While at Leavenworth, DeLand says McCotter, 63, worked with Colin Powell, then a deputy commander at the Kansas Army base, now President Bush's Secretary of State. It's the sort of résumé Attorney General John Ashcroft must have reviewed before choosing McCotter to go to Iraq. J's chosen leader.
http://www.marijuana.org/SLTribune5-16-04.htm (http://www.marijuana.org/SLTribune5-16-04.htm)
10/1988, a court-appointed prison monitor accused New Mexico state prison officials of erasing a portion of a videotape of a prison disturbance to cover up acts of brutality. McCotter accused the prison monitor of "fabricating atrocities" and said he believed the tape erasure was accidental.
http://www.harktheherald.com/print.php?sid=22942 (http://www.harktheherald.com/print.php?sid=22942)
11/1993 By this appeal the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU") seeks an order compelling the Executive Director of the Utah Department of Corrections ("Department"), O. Lane McCotter, to provide to the ACLU various documents and information regarding the new inmate telephone system. The decision of O. Lane McCotter, Executive Director of the Utah Department of Corrections, is affirmed and the appeal of the ACLU is denied.
http://www.archives.state.ut.us/appeals/93-07.htm (http://www.archives.state.ut.us/appeals/93-07.htm)
1997- 29-year-old schizophrenic inmate named Michael Valent was stripped naked and strapped to a restraining chair by Utah prison staff because he refused to take a pillowcase off his head. Shortly after he was released some sixteen hours later, Valent collapsed and died from a blood clot that blocked an artery to his heart.
"There were cases where inmates ended up sitting in their own feces. They were being tortured." (in the restraining chair) Mr. McCotter defended what was done to Mr. Valent and other prisoners, saying, `You have to have a way to deal with violent inmates.' "
Shortly after Valent's family went to court, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against three Utah DOC doctors, this time for binding a mentally ill man, naked save his underwear, to a stainless steel pallet called 'the board' for 85 straight days. The case was settled out of court, according to newspaper reports. "Generally, under McCotter's rule, human rights were not respected," notes Anderson. "After he left, things improved a great deal."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682 (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682)
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/ ... -05-27.cfm (http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/city_2004-05-27.cfm)
ABC?s account of Valent?s abuse. Valent was stripped naked, marched down the halls and, under an approved procedure at the time, placed in a special restraint chair, where he was left for 16 hours.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Inve ... 40520.html (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/iraq_prison_wardens_040520.html)
More on Valent. McCotter, who defended use of the chair, which was developed years earlier in Iran, resigned in the ensuing firestorm which put the restraining chair in the basement and replaced it with a restraining board. McCotter had also been fired from a prison in Texas for erasing tapes showing torture in a prison there and has many other accusations against him.
http://www.kwru.org/mfol/facesmichael.htm (http://www.kwru.org/mfol/facesmichael.htm)
Civil libertarians labeled the chair a torture device. But McCotter defended its use, saying: "You have to have a way to deal with violent inmates."
http://www.spitting-image.net/archives/001119.html (http://www.spitting-image.net/archives/001119.html)
Inmate?s account of regular abuse in Utah prisons.
http://jubilee-newspaper.com/torture_94.htm (http://jubilee-newspaper.com/torture_94.htm)
http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/ABO ... /0148.html (http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/ABOLISH/mar97/0148.html)
Though Lane is not a Sheriff and has never worked for County law enforcement, he does have a connection with the Association. Lane wrote the first jail inspection manual for the Utah Sheriffs? Association, and as Executive Director of the Utah Department of Corrections was a strong advocate for full state funding for jail contracting and reimbursement; an issue very critical to the USA.
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:o6 ... Utah&hl=en (http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:o6JV28sFeigJ:www.utahsheriffs.org/pdf/USA%2520Newsletter%2520Mar04.pdf+%22Lane+McCotter%22+Utah&hl=en)
While Dir of Utah prisons came under criticism for the escape of inmate Keith Lamar Shepherd and for hiring Dr. David Egli, a prison psychiatrist who previously had his medical license put on probation for inappropriate conduct. On probation, accused of Medicaid fraud and writing prescriptions for drug addicts.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595062363,00.html (http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595062363,00.html)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287987.shtml (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287987.shtml)
1997- McCotter said that Ron Gardner and the Disability Law Center were going to see to it the restraint chair was never used again. He referred to me (Gardner) and to the Disability Law Center as a gadfly. I'm sure he meant something annoying, but nothing to be worried about. I think that as Executive Director Mr. McCotter expected me to enter his office and plead that the chair not be used. I can assure you that that's not what I did. In fact, what I did do was to enter the office of the Governor of the State of Utah and speak directly to the Governor and to his chief legal advisor and explain to them the ramifications to the state of Utah if they continued to use this deadly restraint chair. A few weeks later Mr. McCotter was looking for a job, and the restraint chair has never again been used in the state of Utah.
http://www.nfb.org/bm/bm99/bm991103.htm (http://www.nfb.org/bm/bm99/bm991103.htm)
7/1997 McCotter leaves Utah Corrections after 6 years.
http://www.utah.gov/governor/newsrels/1 ... 70197.html (http://www.utah.gov/governor/newsrels/1997/newsrel_070197.html)
http://www.utah.gov/governor/newsrels/1 ... 50997.html (http://www.utah.gov/governor/newsrels/1997/newsrel_050997.html)
8/2002- Ricci died under a thick cloud of suspicion. Within weeks of Elizabeth Smart?s kidnapping, police and pundits had pegged him the leading suspect. When he succumbed to a brain aneurysm in state custody, public opinion had all but written off hope that Elizabeth would be found. But six months later, Elizabeth arrived home safely. Ricci, it turned out, was just a handy fall guy for the botched investigation.
Bruce Oliver, the attorney leading a wrongful death lawsuit against the DOC on behalf of Ricci?s widow, Angela, believes Uinta One was the incubator for abuses perpetrated at Baghdad?s Abu Ghraib prison.
Parolee Michael Whiteman, who just finished serving 11 years for a 1993 homicide, ?They took that man and secluded him and mind-fucked him until his head exploded.? In letters home, Ricci wrote of terrible treatment. He noted feeling lonely, numb and scared, and said guards restricted his showers to every two or three days. But prison officials monitored the letters, so Ricci didn?t go into much further detail, Angela said.
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/ ... -05-27.cfm (http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/city_2004-05-27.cfm)
10/2002- A prison watchdog group is bemoaning the possibility of housing out-of-state inmates in Utah's prison system to boost the state's sagging budget. The Citizens Education Project called the proposed plan to fill some 700 empty prison beds in the Department of Corrections a "tawdry enterprise." "There are many reasons why Utahns should reject any prisoner purchase plan legislators might propose to pad the corrections budget," Citizens Education Project organizer William R. Jensen said. "We passed a bill in 1999 outlawing the import of other states' inmates to a private prison in Grantsville. The private prison was rightly dumped. The objections to importing inmates for profit apply to public prisons as well."
http://www.flpba.org/private/utah.htm (http://www.flpba.org/private/utah.htm)
2003- Management & Training Corp operation of the Santa Fe jail was criticized by the Justice Department and the New Mexico Department of Corrections for unsafe conditions and lack of medical care for inmates. No further action was taken.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287987.shtml (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287987.shtml)
2/2003 Pro se appellant David Glasscock filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 while an inmate at the Central Utah Correctional Facility (CUCF). The only claim at issue in this appeal is Mr. Glasscock's allegation that prison officials violated his rights by opening privileged legal mail outside of Mr. Glasscock's presence.
http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/2003/02/02-4054.htm (http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/2003/02/02-4054.htm)
3/2003 Less than a year later, a team of Justice Department correctional experts was inside the Santa Fe jail investigating civil rights violations. Their report concluded that certain conditions violated inmates' constitutional rights, and that inmates suffered "harm or the risk of serious harm" from, among other things, woeful deficiencies in healthcare and basic living conditions. The report documented numerous and horrifying examples, and threatened a lawsuit if things didn't get better. Amid the fallout, the Justice Department pulled its approximately 100 federal prisoners out of Santa Fe and MTC fired its warden and pressured its medical subcontractor, Physicians Network Association, to ax one of its medical administrators.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682 (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682)
5/2003 AG Ashcroft announced that McCotter, along with three other corrections experts, had gone to Iraq. The very same day, Justice Department lawyers began their first negotiations with Santa Fe County officials over the extensive changes needed at the jail to avoid legal action.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682 (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682)
Ashcroft selected a man his own department was investigating, a man who had to leave the top corrections post in Utah or face scrutiny for what can only be called torture. Kidnapping and threatening people's wives. Blackmail. Indiscriminate arrests. Torture. But when Rumsfeld and his generals are asked who, exactly, was in real command of Abu Ghraib, they claim not to know even that, while their so-called commander in chief claims complete ignorance of every issue in this affair.
http://genehack.org/2004/05/31 (http://genehack.org/2004/05/31)
5/2003 the Ontario provincial government is currently investigating an inmate death at MTC's Canadian prison on May 5, and inquests into three other mysterious deaths over the past year are expected, according to an article in the Barrie Examiner.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682 (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682)
5/2004 U.S. Justice Department officials have come under fire for hiring a former Utah prison boss with a history of human rights complaints to oversee prisons in Iraq.
O. Lane McCotter, 63, was in Baghdad from May to September last year overseeing the reconstruction of Abu Ghraib as part of a team picked by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
McCotter's critics say the pictures of abuse and humiliation at Abu Ghraib are eerily similar to video and written records that detail the plight of bound and naked Utah prisoners in the former isolation chamber at Utah's Point of the Mountain prison.
Congress, meanwhile, is asking questions about how Ashcroft, President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld chose the civil contractors who worked with the military intelligence teams at Abu Ghraib.
http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.ph ... &sid=22942 (http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=22942)
Comments about the above story:
*Another Utah link in the chains of Bush's "New World Order."
*So Ashcroft looked to hiring people who would either participate in prisonner abuse or not put up a stink if they saw prisonner abuse.
http://www.harktheherald.com/index.php? ... ic&t=15832 (http://www.harktheherald.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=15832)
Also in Iraq, Gary Deland, another controversial former head of the Utah Department of Corrections. Anderson (SLC Mayor) said he was sadistic in the way he ran the state prison system in the mid-to-late-'80s ? a claim Deland denied.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Inve ... 40520.html (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/iraq_prison_wardens_040520.html)
In his office, Oliver pointed to the photo of an Iraqi prisoner, leashed at the neck to a U.S. servicewoman, then to the Time magazine illustration of another prisoner, hooded and bound. ?These two specific photos are the same things that this son of a bitch started at the Utah State Prison, and that affected Richard Ricci while he was incarcerated,? he said. The ?son of a bitch? to whom Oliver refers is former DOC director Lane McCotter
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/ ... -05-27.cfm (http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/city_2004-05-27.cfm)
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Here is another Utah member of the team of "experts" who was "chosen" to train and oversee the prison system in Iraq....
Gary DeLand is Executive Director of the Utah Sheriff's Association and a criminal justice consultant and trainer with expertise in policy development, jail/prison standards, legal issues, staff training and architectural projects for new jails and prisons. He began his corrections career in the 1960's and was the Salt Lake County Jail administrator from 1972 - 1979. He received a B.S. in Physical Education (with Corrective Therapy certificate), a B.A. in Sociology (with Criminology emphasis) and in 1985 earned his Master of Public Administration. DeLand was originally scheduled for the initial deployment in May, but would not join the group until 6 weeks later after a misfiled/misplaced passport application held him stateside. Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?
--Economist Milton Friedman
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Senator cites contractors in prison abuse
By Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer | June 2, 2004
WASHINGTON --Four former state prison officials hired by the Justice Department to help set up Iraq's prison system have backgrounds that should have precluded them from the private contracting jobs, a senator said Wednesday.
Each had lawsuits or other problems linked to their tenures in state government, Sen. Charles Schumer said. He called for the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate the "slipshod" hiring process that allowed them to work as private contractors.
"These are not the four people you would want to run any prison system," said Schumer, D-N.Y.
Three of them visited various Iraqi prisons over a period of about four months in 2003 and worked to get them operating. A fourth was given a supervisory position in the newly reconstituted prison system. The four officials were part of a 25-member team.
One of the four, Terry Stewart, was sued by the Justice Department in 1997, when he ran Arizona's Corrections Department. The lawsuit charged that at least 14 female inmates were repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and watched by corrections workers as they dressed, showered and used the bathroom.
At the time, officials also charged prison authorities had denied investigators access to staff and prisoners to examine abuse complaints.
After the state agreed to provide more stringent oversight of employees handling female inmates, the suit was dropped. Neither Stewart nor any other state officials admitted any wrongdoing.
Stewart was out of the country Wednesday and could not be reached. A Justice Department spokesman declined comment.
Schumer also cited John Armstrong, who left as Corrections Department chief in Connecticut last year after the agency was sued by female guards who alleged they were sexually harassed. Armstrong denied his departure had anything to do with the lawsuit.
Also named by Schumer:
--O.L. "Lane" McCotter, who resigned under fire as head of the Utah Corrections Department after a mentally ill inmate died after spending 16 hours strapped to a restraining chair.
--McCotter's predecessor, Gary DeLand, who headed the agency in the late 1980s, when civil rights lawyers charged his department denied appropriate medical care to inmates.
DeLand has denied the charge. A jury awarded nearly half a million dollars to an inmate incarcerated in 1989 when he suffered renal failure.
The jury found DeLand and other officials violated the inmate's constitutional rights be delaying medical care.
Lets see....restriants, and denial of medical care - These same things routinely happen in specialty programs for youth - and the government does nothing....
To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them...
-- Richard Henry Lee, 1787
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Once I tried to escape with some other girlies. Me and another girl were caught and taken to separate obs rooms where we were told to take everything off. Instead of giving us clothes they just left us there to freeze with nothing on for about a half hour. It was so humiliating - I'll never forget this disgusting experience at Provo Canyon School. If only we had a video or some picture to show the world....... :eek:
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So, the world is mad at us for treating Iraqis like we treat our kids...
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... world.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/13/wguan13.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/13/ixworld.html)
Excerpt:
In the latest revelation, yesterday's Washington Post published leaked documents revealing that Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the senior US officer in Iraq, approved the use of dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and sensory deprivation for prisoners whenever senior officials at the Abu Ghraib jail wished. A memo dated October 9, 2003 on "Interrogation Rules of Engagement", which each military intelligence officer was obliged to sign, set out in detail the wide range of pressure tactics they could use - including stress positions and solitary confinement for more than 30 days.
The White House has ordered a damage-limitation exercise to try to prevent the abuse row undermining President Bush's re-election campaign. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, has ordered that all deaths of detainees held in US military custody are to be reported immediately to criminal investigators. Deaths in custody will also be reported to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, and to Mr Rumsfeld himself.
Does this sound familiar? If the military can't do these things to prisoners of war, how does the industry get away with it?
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Gee, could it be that bozo Michael Moore isn't the only one suppressing evidence of abuse for political gain?
:silly:
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Many of the techniques used on the Iraqi prisoners are also being used on children seeking therapy at specialty programs for teens. My own child was stripped naked after an escape attempt. What is truly horrifying is that the Attorney General of the State of Utah does not believe it was a criminal act to strip her naked. Even when the entire world considers it horrifying and abusive to strip Iraqi prisoners naked as a form of punishment and humiliation - teen programs in the United States are doing these same things to American Children at their parent's expense.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism--how passionately I hate them!
--Albert Einstein
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Please, can you be specific? WHY does the AG think it is not a criminal act to strip a child naked as punishment? What legal basis is there in Utah to condone such treatment of children? Has the AG personally toured this facility and interviewed the director and staff to determine for himself the credibility of your allegations?
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No the Attorney General did not tour or investigate the facility - documents were reviewed and that is how the decision was made. The Attorney General and other officials in Utah are obviously protecting the interests of the teen programs. I personally asked the AG to give me the codes and laws which were used to base that decision on and my request has been ignored. In fact - I have reported this to every legislator in the entire State and only one has replied. Mr. Clark from St.George had no answers just wanted to know if any other legislator had replied. Something is seriously wrong in Utah. From what I've heard stripping is comonplace at the facility my child was in - Provo Canyon School. This practice has also been reportedly used in Utah prisons and at some WWASP facilities overseas.
He who laughs lasts
--Crazy Mac
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CW - What does DHS say about this? Weren't they involved in the investigation? What were their findings? From what I can tell from other postings, your daughter is not the only child alleged to have been seriously maltreated at this facility. In fact, it appears there are many others. Have these people also run into a brick wall?????
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I'd like to hear from other parents. My son was strip searched after visits home at the high-dollar, east coast facility. I assumed most if not all programs do this. They justify it by saying they are 'looking for drugs'. This procedure, btw, was not mentioned in the parent manual. A parent will not know it's happening unless the child reports it. It wasn't done publicly, but it's still humiliating.
My older son was forced to strip and walk down the middle of the hallway while the other teens lined the hallway and made sarcastic comments. This was at a military academy.
I've read many accounts of this happening with wilderness participants. First step, strip and get searched.
It's also a pretty standard procedure for people who are being committed to mental wards.
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Reply to Deborah:
My daughter was also stripped searched and we had no idea either. She and I asked questions for at least two hours and this procedure was never mentioned.
Reply to ANON re Utah DHS: ARE YOU SERIOUS - It is run by Ken Stettler who promotes these teen programs. I did hear from a reporter who is gathering information for a story that DHS did find some minor violations and asked Provo Canyon to correct them. This is all that they do. Here is a copy of the letter that was sent:
Dear ...:
Thank you for sharing your concens ab out UHS Provo Canyon School, a program licensed by the Department of Human Services to provide Residential Services to children. The complaint and all appropritate data and interviews have been completed. At this time, if there is any action to be taken, the Office of Licensing will work with the provider to resolve any issues or violations. If you desire to know the results of the investigation, you may file a GRAMA request with the Office of Licensing by contacting Jan Bohi, Office Technician, at 801-538-4242.
Sincerely, Kelly C. Husbands, MSW
Licensing Specialist, Nephi, Utah.
Cc: LJ Dustman, Supervisor and Criag Gillman, Director Provo Canyon School.
So, that's it. I also received reply from AT Gen indicating that they had concluded that no criminal charges could be filed based on the documents that were reviewed. I spent at least 40 hours of my time on all of this for what? All we received was two letters with three sentences.
It's no wonder people don't report and follow through on these things - it's just not worth the stress of the fight.
What's happening is truly disgusting. Unfortunately we don't have videos and photos of these things being done. These facilities are involved in human torture and degradation and those who have been elected and hired to protect the children are turning a blind eye and deaf ear to reports of abuse. The laws that have been enacted to protect children in these facilities are being ignored by the facilities, staff and local government.
Innocence implies the ability to restrain from the initiation of aggression, and to question those who don't.
Sorin Cucerai
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I'm just flying off the top of my head here, because I don't have time to research and anotate the following, BUT I remember:
Kelly Husbands is a fellow ward member of the same LDS church that Ken Stettler belongs to. They have been long-time friends. I seem to recall that she has recently left the department. Her departure had something to do with the "closeness" of her relationship with her boss, in that she could not serve as an appropriate investigator due to her strong allegiance to the status quo (Stattler).
It's interesting that, should you have a further complaint, you're asked to forward it to the secretary (office technician) from whence it will disappear swiftly.
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Spots - I've talked to Kelly Husbands - she is a HE. He lives in Nephi Utah and Ken Stettler is in Salt Lake City - so they are not in the same LDS ward.
Kelly Husbands resigned soon after Anson Arnett died and soon after his investigation of Provo Canyon School. I don't know if either had anything to do with it. But I personally told him everything that was going on there and gave him documents to prove it. He seemed to side with the program regardless. Kelly Husbands was also the only positive witness for the defence of the program where Ian August was tortured, and denied life saving medical intervention. Kelly is no longer working for the government. It would be interesting to know if he is working for the teen industry - since he is a MSW (Master of Social Work). Does anyone know? "Now, I'm a walking dead man," ... "And what bothers me is that I'm dead because I tried to help the kids. And it's all the fault of all those people over there at the DEA." [Dead Man Talking]
--Ben Guillory
[ This Message was edited by: cherish wisdom on 2004-06-15 18:56 ]
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Excerpt:
The hearing is scheduled to resume today with the testimony of Kelly Husbands, the licensing specialist who conducted the initial investigation into August's death. The administrative law judge is also scheduled to hearing closing arguments.
Source:
http://www.teenadvocatesusa.homestead.c ... erapy.html (http://www.teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/wildernesstherapy.html)
See "A QUESTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY"
in the Death of Ian August
FYI - Kelly Husbands was in the same LDS ward as the owner of Skyline Journey (Wardle).
:roll:
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Stand Corrected - Kelly Husbands was a witness for the defence of those who were responsible for the negligent, torture death of Ian August. He did not testify in favor of those responsible for the negligent, starvation and torture death of Aaron Bacon.
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard was not what I meant.
---Richard Nixon
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PCS has a troubled past, as do most of these programs. Common sense should prevail when considering private placement ... the more restrictive and custodial the facility, the greater the potential for abuse. Second, parents often make the mistake of equating an expensive program with the quality of care and treatment when in reality, programs are only as good as the people running them.
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On 2004-06-14 10:02:00, spots wrote:
"I'm just flying off the top of my head here, because I don't have time to research and anotate the following, BUT I remember:
Kelly Husbands is a fellow ward member of the same LDS church that Ken Stettler belongs to. They have been long-time friends. I seem to recall that she has recently left the department. Her departure had something to do with the "closeness" of her relationship with her boss, in that she could not serve as an appropriate investigator due to her strong allegiance to the status quo (Stattler).
It's interesting that, should you have a further complaint, you're asked to forward it to the secretary (office technician) from whence it will disappear swiftly. "
This is inaccurate, Kelly Husbands is a member of the same LDS ward that the former owner of Skyline Journey belongs to. Husbands was the DHS licensor for SJ but Stettler was uncomfortable with Husbands/Wardle being members of the same ward and as such, assigned someone else to monitor SJ while awaiting the results of the administrative hearing.
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Just heard about some horrific female-prisoner abuse from a nurse I know who worked in a New Mexico prison. According to her - the female prisoners were constantly sexually abused by the prison guards. They were forced to give sexual favors for privalages. There were beatings and strippings and other abuses that she witnessed. I've encouraged her to notify authorities for what it's worth. From my experience the authorities do little to nothing.
WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION
-- Ethiopian Proverb
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It Happened Here First: Exporting America's Most Notorious Prison Officials to Abu Ghraib
Democracy Now
June 2nd, 2004
One man ran a prison system in Utah where a 29-year-old schizophrenic died after he was stripped naked and strapped to a restraining chair for 16 hours.
Another man ran the system in Arizona where 14 women were raped, sodomized or assaulted by prison guards.
Another ran Connecticut's prison system where at least two people died after being severely beaten.
All of the men who ran these prison systems were forced out by lawsuits or political controversy. But rather than being sent to prison themselves, these men were sent to Iraq by the US government to set up the prisons there. Actually, one prison - Abu Ghraib. {includes rush transcript]
In the weeks since the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib grabbed national headlines here in the US and around the world, the Bush administration and the Pentagon have attempted to put forth a consistent story: that the abuses were the work of individual soldiers, acting on their own and that there was no systematic program of abuse at the prison.
But over the past few weeks, this version of events has been shot down by veteran correspondent Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker. Contrary to the Administration's claims, Hersh revealed that the torture at Abu Ghraib was part of a Pentagon-approved Black Ops program authorized by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Today, on Democracy Now!, we are going to look extensively at the four-man team of correctional advisers dispatched by the US government to Iraq shortly after the occupation began. Their job was to get the notorious Abu Ghraib prison up and running for the US occupation forces.
For people or governments concerned with human rights, their resumes and records read like warning labels for who not to have running a prison--especially in a country where the US claims to be building democracy.
The four men are:
Lane McCotter: A former warden of the U.S. military prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, former cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Corrections Department and the former director for the Texas Department of Corrections. He now runs the private prison-company: Management and Training Corporation.
- Read 36-page Justice Department report documenting inhumane conditions at Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center in New Mexico under McCotter: [Download pdf]
John Armstrong: the former director of the Connecticut Department of Corrections. Terrry Stewart, former director of the Arizona Department of Corrections and his top deputy Chuck Ryan.
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It looks like there have been terrible abuses in all of the prison systems where these men were in leadership positions - Utah, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona.
Prisoner abuse is happening right here in the USA. Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Mark Twain
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CW - Prisons in America are notorious for abusing the human and civil right of inmates. Why everybody is suddenly in an uproar about prison abuse in Iraq has more to do with politics than it does humanitarian concerns. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is the sorry truth.
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I love this hypocritical world.
Europe is just digging a deeper hole for everyone when they don't care unless they can use it politically for their benefit. I'd be eternally grateful if they found out about what we do to our kids - and not shut up about it. Sure, they'd just be doing it for feel-good self rightousness, but at least those poor kids could get out.
Whats funny, is it all comes down to what the USA choses to do. Period. Europe, the middle east, Asia, none of them can make us do squat. Its going to be up to US to make or break this world.
So, how do we tell america about this?
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http://www.statesman.com/news/content/s ... Abuse.html (http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/US_President_And_White_House_Advisers/US_Prisoner_Abuse.html)
Justice Dept. Repudiates Memo on Torture
By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON ? The Bush administration laid out its legal reasoning for denying terror war suspects the protections of international humanitarian law but immediately repudiated a key memo arguing that torture might be justified in the fight against al-Qaida.
The release Tuesday of hundreds of pages of internal memos by the White House was meant to blunt criticism that President Bush had laid the groundwork for the abuses of Iraqi prisoners by condoning torture. The president insisted Tuesday: "I have never ordered torture."
But critics said the developments left unresolved some questions about the administration's current guidelines for interrogating prisoners in Iraq and around the world. For example, a 2002 order signed by Bush says the president reserves the right to suspend the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war at any time.
"These documents raise more questions than they answer," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The White House is better off coming clean and releasing all relevant and nonclassified documents."
The White House released Defense Department memos detailing some of the harsh interrogation methods approved ? and then rescinded ? by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in 2002 and 2003. The administration continues to refuse to say what interrogation methods are approved for use now.
Six soldiers face criminal charges for abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib complex near Baghdad. Another soldier pleaded guilty and received a one-year prison term. The Justice Department has filed criminal assault charges against a contract CIA interrogator, accusing him of beating a prisoner in Afghanistan who later died.
An Aug. 1, 2002, Justice Department memo argues that torture ? and even deliberate killing ? of prisoners in the terror war could be justified as necessary to protect the United States. The memo from then-assistant attorney general Jay Bybee also offers a restricted definition of torture, saying only actions that cause severe pain akin to organ failure would be torture.
Bybee is now a justice on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Justice Department backed away from Bybee's memo Tuesday. Senior department officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the memo would be rewritten because it contains advice that is too broad and irrelevant. The officials, who briefed several reporters in a widely publicized news conference, said department policy allowed them to demand anonymity.
The White House also released documents detailing some of the most harsh interrogation methods Rumsfeld approved for use on prisoners at the lockup at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Rumsfeld's Nov. 27, 2002, memo approved several methods which apparently would violate Geneva Convention rules, including:
_Putting detainees in "stress positions," such as standing, for up to four hours.
_Removing prisoners' clothes.
_Intimidating detainees with dogs.
_Interrogating prisoners for 20 hours at a time.
_Forcing prisoners to wear hoods during interrogations and transportation.
_Shaving detainees' heads and beards.
_Using "mild, non-injurious physical contact," such as poking.
Prisoners at Abu Ghraib were interrogated for as long as 20 hours at a time, kept hooded and naked, intimidated with dogs and forcibly shaved. Bush and other administration officials have said other treatment at the Iraqi prison, such as forcing prisoners to perform sex acts, beating them and piling them in a naked human pyramid, were unquestionably illegal.
Less than two months later, on Jan. 15, 2003, Rumsfeld rescinded approval for those methods without saying why. He appointed a Pentagon panel to recommend proper interrogation methods.
That panel reported to Rumsfeld in April 2003, and its recommendations included prohibiting the removal of clothes, which it said could be considered inhumane treatment under international law. Rumsfeld issued a new set of approved interrogation methods later that month, disallowing nakedness and requiring approval for four techniques: use of rewards or removal of privileges; verbally attacking or insulting the ego of a detainee; alternating friendly and unfriendly interrogators in a "good cop, bad cop" method; and isolation.
Bush had agreed in February 2002 that al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were not protected by the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war because they violated the laws of war themselves.
Bush's previously secret Feb. 7, 2002, order also agrees with Justice and Pentagon lawyers that a president can ignore U.S. law and treaties.
"I accept the legal conclusion of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice that I have the authority to suspend Geneva (conventions) as between the United States and Afghanistan," Bush wrote. "I reserve the right to exercise this authority in this or future conflicts."
Bush and Rumsfeld have said the Geneva Conventions do apply to all prisoners in Iraq.
But Rumsfeld acknowledged last week that he ordered a suspected terrorist to be secretly held in Iraq without notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld said he approved an unspecified number of other, similar secret detentions.
___
Associated Press writers Curt Anderson, Robert Burns and Scott Lindlaw contributed to this report.
_
June 23, 2004 - 8:50 a.m. CDT
Copyright 2004, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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Oh please, where was the outrage when Iraqi's hung the charred bodies of US soldiers off some bridge? Nice touch, but as we are seeing, barbarism in the Middle East is a way of life. Saddams doberman pincher dogs didn't just bark and menance captive Iraqi's -- they ripped them apart, limb by limb.
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The treaty on torture was a great feat and a noble one. Our government should abide by it. If we are to be respected as a nation we must not stoop to the low and inhumane methods used by sadistic and evil leaders like Hussein and Hitler. Just because some fringe militants burned the bodies of US soldiers is no excuse for our Soldiers to do likewise.
What we have right now is massive governmental corruption. It is disgusting. My experience with this industry and the governmental lack of concern for the welfare of mentally ill children in these facilities has shown me that our government is corrupt. Shit runs downhill. President Bush and many of his advisors are corrupt. This is why they turn a blind eye and deaf ear to reports of child abuse in this teen industry. If those photos had not been shown to the world those Iraqi men would be tortured today.
Where's our humanity and value for human life? If we can justify what has been done in the name of the war on terror because some hoodlums did worse, how can we claim to be civilized?I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole
--Malcolm X
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On 2004-06-23 10:01:00, Anonymous wrote:
Oh please, where was the outrage when Iraqi's hung the charred bodies of US soldiers off some bridge?
All over the world. Not so much, though, as the shock and sympathy immediately following the 911 attack. Damned shame this administration frittered away all that commiseration and sold us out for the big bucks and political currency instead. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor, and nothing is ever to be
attained without it.
--Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
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http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article ... =2&cid=842 (http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20040819205409990001&_ccc=2&cid=842)
AOL News - Study Says Doctors Were Involved in Iraqi Prisoner Abuse
Updated: 12:16 AM EDT
Study Says Doctors Were Involved in Iraqi Prisoner Abuse
By EMMA ROSS, AP
LONDON (Aug. 19) -- Doctors working for the U.S. military in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib
prison, profoundly breaching medical ethics and human rights, a bioethicist charges in The Lancet medical journal.
In a scathing analysis of the behavior of military doctors, nurses and medics, University of Minnesota professor Steven Miles calls for a reform of military medicine and an official investigation into the role played by physicians
and other medical staff in the torture scandal.
The study cites evidence that doctors or medics at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison falsified death certificates to cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so that he could be further tortured.
He cites evidence that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he could be further tortured. No reports of abuses were initiated by medical personnel until the official investigation into Abu Ghraib began, he found.
''The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations,'' Miles said in this week's edition of Lancet. ''Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist helped design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu Ghraib.''
The analysis does not shed light on how many doctors were involved or how widespread the problem of medical complicity was, aspects that Miles said he is now investigating.
A U.S. military spokesman said the incidents recounted by Miles came primarily from the Pentagon's own investigation of the abuses.
''Many of these cases remain under investigation and charges will be brought against any individual where there is evidence of abuse,'' said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, U.S. Army spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq.
In a related matter, two military officials in Washington said Thursday that a high-level Army inquiry will cite medical personnel who knew of abuse at Abu Ghraib but did not report it up the chain of command. The inquiry also will criticize senior U.S. commanders for a lack of leadership that allowed abuses to occur, but finds no evidence they ordered the abuse, said the sources, who spoke condition of anonymity.
Photographs of prisoners being abused and humiliated by U.S. troops in Iraq have sparked worldwide condemnation. Although the conduct of soldiers has been scrutinized, the role of medical staff in the scandal has received
relatively little attention.
''The detaining power's health personnel are the first and often the last line of defense against human rights abuses. Their failure to assume that role emphasizes to the prisoner how utterly beyond humane appeal they are,'' Miles said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
He said military medicine reform needs to be enshrined in international law and include more clout for military medical staff in the defense of human rights.
Miles gathered evidence from U.S. congressional hearings, sworn statements of detainees and soldiers, medical journal accounts and press reports to build a picture of physician complicity, and in isolated cases active
participation by medical personnel in abuse at the Baghdad prison, as well as in Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.
In one example, cited in a sworn statement from an Abu Ghraib detainee, a prisoner collapsed and was apparently unconscious after a beating. Medical staff revived the detainee and left, allowing the abuse to continue, Miles reported.
Depositions from two detainees at Abu Ghraib described an incident in which a doctor allowed a medically untrained guard to sew up a prisoner's wound.
A military police officer reported a medic inserted an intravenous tube into the corpse of a detainee who died while being tortured to create evidence that he was alive at the hospital, Miles said.
At prisons in both Iraq and Afghanistan, ''Physicians routinely attributed
detainee deaths on death certificates to heart attacks, heat stroke or natural causes without noting the unnatural (cause) of the death,'' Miles wrote.
He cites an example from a Human Rights Watch report in which soldiers tied a beaten detainee to the top of his cell door and gagged him. The death certificate indicated he died of ''natural causes ... during his sleep.'' However, after media coverage, the Pentagon changed the cause of death to homicide by blunt force injuries and suffocation.
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist at Harvard University-affiliated Cambridge Hospital who wrote a book on doctors and torture in Nazi Germany, called the Lancet analysis ''a very good, detailed description of violations of
medical policies involving medical ethics.''
In a July 29 New England Journal of Medicine essay, Lifton urged medics to report what they know about American torture at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, and said in an interview Thursday that a non-military-led investigation of doctors' conduct is needed.
''They made choices,'' he said. ''No doctor would have been physically abused or put to death if he or she tried to interrupt that torture. It would have taken courage, but it was a choice they had.''
The World Medical Association, an umbrella group for national medical associations, reiterated its policy of condemning any doctor's involvement in abuse or torture of detainees.
In an editorial comment, The Lancet condemned the behavior of the doctors, saying that despite dual loyalties, they are doctors first and soldiers
second.
''Health care workers should now break their silence,'' the journal said. ''Those who were involved or witnessed ill-treatment need to give a full and accurate account of events at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Those who are still in positions where dual commitments prevent them from putting the rights of their patients above other interests should protest loudly and refuse
cooperation with authorities.''
Johnson, the Army spokesman, said the U.S. military ''will allow no actions that undermine or compromise medical professionals' commitment to caring for the sick and wounded, regardless of who they are or their circumstances.''
In his article, Miles dismissed Pentagon officials putting the blame for the abuse on poor training, understaffing, racism, pressure to procure intelligence and the stress of war.
''Fundamentally, however, the stage for these offenses was set by policies that were lax or permissive with regard to human rights abuses, and a military command that was inattentive to human rights,'' Miles concluded.
AP-NY-08-19-04 2348EDT
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IT SEEMS LIKE THE SAME THING HAPPENS IN SOME OF THESE YOUTH PROGRAMS. THE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS COVER UP THE ABUSE OF THE STAFF AND OTHERS...
Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
Mahatma Gandhi, My Autobigraphy, p. 446
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Give it up!! you're really reaching now aren't you?? :???:
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Not really. Every demagog who eventually wins a notorious place in history starts out as some well intended altruist out to save somebody else's children.
Innocence implies the ability to restrain from the initiation of aggression, and to question those who don't.
Anonymity Anonymous (http://fornits.com/anonanon)
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
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On 2004-06-23 10:01:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Oh please, where was the outrage when Iraqi's hung the charred bodies of US soldiers off some bridge? Nice touch, but as we are seeing, barbarism in the Middle East is a way of life. Saddams doberman pincher dogs didn't just bark and menance captive Iraqi's -- they ripped them apart, limb by limb. "
Is it enough for you for our country to be not quite as bad as the worst barbarians on the planet? Not good enough for me.If you ask the Government for the right to assemble you deserve to be told no .
--Jim Lesczynski, Manhattan LP chair, on "unorganized" gathering @ Central Park