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More Than Just a Few" Bad Apples

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More Than Just a Few Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Resist Newsletters Resist Collection 8-30-2004 Resist Newsletter, July-Aug 2004 Resist Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/resistnewsletter Recommended Citation Resist, "Resist Newsletter, July-Aug 2004" (2004). Resist Newsletters. 364. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/resistnewsletter/364 Inside: Resisting Prison and Military Abuse ISSN 0897-2613 • Vol. 13 #6 A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority July/August 2004 More Than Just a Few "Bad Apples" Confronting Prison Problems in Iraq and in the US Zimbardo had students play the roles of ROSEBRAZ guards and prisoners. The study had to be halted after only a few days when the ondemning the abuse of Iraqi pris­ "guards" began to abuse their fellow stu­ oners as "fundamentallyun-Ameri­ dent "prisoners." In a recent Boston Globe Ccan," Donald Rumsfeld ignores the editorial (May 9, 2004) comparing his strikingly similar circumstances facing two experiment's finding with the abuses in million US prisoners. Abu Ghraib, Zimbardo wrote: While Congress, the military-and pun­ Some of the necessary ingredients [ for dits alike argue that the Abu Ghraib pho­ stirring human nature in negative direc­ tos do not depict conditions in American tions] are: diffusion of responsibility, prisons, they forget that a few months be­ anonymity, dehumanization, peers who fore atrocities were caught on tape at Abu model harmful behavior, bystanders who. Ghraib, we watched our own videotape of A banner depicting abuse at Abu Ghraib do not intervene, and a setting of power guards at the California Youth Authority prison spans a Los Angeles overpass. Photo differentials. Those factors were appar­ beating youth under their watch. by Damian Dovarganes, courtesy of San Diego ently also operating in Iraq. But in addi­ A few years earlier, at California's Military Counseling Project tion there was secrecy, no accountabil­ Corcoran State Prison, guards staged and of Corrections. He resigned that position ity, no visible chain of command, con­ wagered on "gladiator fights" between pris­ in 1997 after a prisoner died while shackled flicting demands on the guards from the oners. As in Iraq, there have been deaths to a restraining chair naked for 16 hours. CIA and civilian interrogators, no rules in custody. For example, in Florida in 1999, With additional revelations of more enforced for prohibited acts, encourage­ guards beat prisoner Frank Valdez to death. atrocities, the call rises to court martial ment for breaking the will of the detain­ And if there was any doubt that prisons Lynndie England and other abusers, get ees, and no challenges by many bystand­ beget torture, one need only remember Peli­ rid of the few "bad ·apples," reduce the ers who observed the evil but did not can Bay State prison, where prison guards number of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib blow the whistle. immersed a m~ntally ill prisoner in a tub of and possibly even close the prison. boiling w~ter. Unfortunately, history and research Challenging Prisons show that eliminating torture requires more Prisons as we have them now have not Parallels in Iraq and US Prisons than just removing so-called bad apples always existed, and the movement to abol­ These are not isolated incidents, and from the barrel. The Abu Ghraib catastro­ ish prisons was born 200 years ago. After the similarities do not end there. The Iraqi phe, and the atrocities that occur in Ameri­ visiting the first modem prison in the US, prisons are now run by the same people can prisons everyday, should instead make the Pennsylvania Eastern State Penitentiary who run our prisons at home: two of the us rethink the use of prisons as answers to in 1842, Charles Dickens wrote, "There is a seven soldiers accused in the Abu Ghraib what are social, economic and political depth ofterrible endurance ... which no man scandal are prison guards in the US. The problems- both in Iraq and here at home. has a right to inflict upon his fellow man appointed to reopen Abu Ghraib last Research underlines this truth: A semi­ creature ... I believe it to be cruel and wrong." year was the director of the Utah Department nal 1971 study by Stanford's Philip G. continued on page two Vol. 13, #6 RESIST Newsletter Page 1 More Than Just a Few "Bad Apples" continued from page one curring. In fact, we recently learned from Charles White, the first prisoner of East­ the US State Department that rather than ern State, was not unlike many locked up making us safer, these draconian measures today in the US. Just 18 years old, his prison have led to a sharp increase in both the record states: "Burglar. Farmer by trade. number of incidents labeled "terrorist" and Can read. Theft included one twenty-dollar the toll in victims in the last year. watch, one three-dollar gold seal, one gold The solution to the Abu Ghraib night­ key. Sentenced to two years confmement." mare isn't as simple as locking up England Williams was assigned a number, "l ",· and her fellow military personnel in the which would replace his name throughout same cages that they oversaw. It won't be his stay. A black hood was placed over his resolved by firing Rumsfeld or reducing the head whenever he left his cell. number of Iraqi detainees. Closing Abu That was 1829. Today, there are 78,000 Ghraib is at most a superficial gesture. prisoners 19 years old and under, and two These proposed solutions will fail be­ million adult prisoners. Our society con­ cause, as Professor Zimbardo recently told Graphic by Laura Whitehorn tinues to label prisoners as less than hu­ the New York Times, "It's not that we put man, lock them in cages, strip them naked son may be willing tq help a terrorist; ex­ bad apples in a good barrel. We put good and even allow their murder and rape. Like pansion of the power to summarily deport apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts Williams and the Iraqi detainees, prisoners without judicial review; a six-month mora­ anything that touches it." Americans are at Virginia's Wallens Ridge State Prison torium on student visas and broad new now faced with a choice: we must either have been forced to wear black hoods. powers of surveillance including national relinquish our innocent self-image or dis­ On top of it all, prisons don't make our identification cards and the authority to mantle the barrel. communities safer. In the first national wiretap any phone or computer that might study on the impact of imprisonment on be used by a suspect. Rose Braz is the director of Critical crime, the Washington, DC-based Sentenc­ While not all of the above proposals Resistance, a former Resist grantee. For ing Project found that people in states with came to fruition, many did. Since Septem­ more information, contact Critical more prisons and more people in prison ber 11, more than 1,100 people-almost all Resistance, 1904 Franklin St #504, Oaldand, were no safer than people in other states. from majority Muslim countries- have CA 94612; www.criticalresistance.org. Since 1997, Critical Resistance has been been detained. Almost three years later, working to debunk the myth that the prison more than 600 detainees remain imprisoned industrial complex (PIG) will make our com­ at Guantanamo Bay without charge. One munities safer. After Septe.mber 11, 2001, man, Mohammed Rafiq Butt, held un­ we found ourselves also working to de­ charged for a month in a New Jersey INS bunk the myth that expanding the prison lock-up, died before anyone, including his industrial complex, internationally and do­ family in Pakistan, knew that he had been mestically, would make this nation safer. arrested. In the aftermath of September 11, The same flawed principles of retribution the government has secretly moved detain­ and retaliation that have driven the growth ees-they were "disappeared"-their at­ of the PIC as an answer to what we label torneys unable to find them. Meanwhile, the stock prices of compa­ ILLEGITIIIATI AUTIIORlff "crime" at home have no~ been employed as ,.,,,,_.,,, ~ CltMtfl ~ /1161 an answer to September 11. These policies nies that sell surveillance equipment For information and grant guidelines, write have driven this nation to war and threaten doubled in value directly after September to: Resist, 259 Elm St., Suite 201 Somerville, MA 02144 to expand the PIC further at home and in 11. And companies that build and run pri­ www .reslstinc.org; [email protected] Iraq. One result is the Abu Ghraib crisis. vate prisons, which were on the brink of bankruptcy before September 11, experi­ Resist Newsletter is published ten times a year by RESIST, Inc., (617) 623-5110. The Loss of Freedom, Rights for All enced as much as inuch as 300% gains af­ views expressed in articles, other than edi­ Following September 11, we witnessed ter September 11 in anticipation of intern­ torials, are those of the authors and do not a myriad of proposals to expand the PIC, ment camps and new prisons. necessarily represent the opinions of the most coming under "The USA PATRIOT While the PIC and "homeland security" RESIST staff or board. Act of 2001." Ironically, the restrictions on efforts claim to be about safety and order, RESIST Staff: Robin Carton our freedom came in the guise of protect­ in reality both have made the lives of most Yafreisy Mejia ing our freedom. people-especially people of color and the Carol Schachet Among the more alarming proposals poor-less safe and more disordered. RESIST Interns: Jean Smith made in the aftermath of September 11: in­ The behemoth prison industrial complex Molly Geidel definite detention of legal immigrants­ that was in place prior to September 11 did without charge-and in some cases the not ·prevent what occurred that day.
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