The same department of justice that continues to prosecute a case against Assange? I'm nonplussed. Boris Becker (UK), Amanda Knox (IT), speak to prison brutality (and those are well known international personages.)
I linked the DOJ and not the Equal Justice Initiative because I thought they would be less likely to be seen as partisan or politically motivated. But here’s EJI on the same issue: https://eji.org/issues/prison-conditions/ and Harvard Political Review making a similar argument to my top post (that US prisons don’t adequately rehabilitate): https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress/
Ukraine, Mexico, and Brazil are nowhere near as highly developed as the US.
Spain is definitely closer, but Spain doesn’t execute people like the US does. Of course problems with prisons exist elsewhere.
What’s specifically appalling about the US is the juxtaposition of extreme wealth and relative freedom with widespread, institutionalized abuse and neglect of prisoners, not just to their detriment, but to the detriment of the US as a whole.
Rehabilitation doesn’t work. The modern sociological study of crime and criminals began at the latest in the 70s. They’ve been looking for a reliably working method of rehabilitation for 50 years and have nothing. Prisons works fine as incapacitation, keeping criminals warehoused until they age out of their prime criminal years but rehabilitation doesn’t work.
> Prisoner rehabilitation does not work, says former prisons boss
> Sir Martin Narey says focus should be on treating inmates with decency and dignity
> California’s prisons are supposed to be rehabilitating inmates, not merely warehousing them, but a new report from the state auditor says it’s not effectively reducing recidivism among those released from the system.
I agree that our justice and prison systems need a recalibration to one, focus on violent crime, aggravated sexual crime, property crime, and de-emphasis on personal vice correction while also trying to guide prisoners to a better path.
At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison systems in the world are similar or worse and suspects before they become prisoners have fewer legal rights afforded them.
That said, the catch-and-release as well as the watch-and-do-nothing approach we're seeing in some places are aggravating crime and they are not doing anyone any favors, the criminals or the victims.
> At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison systems in the world are similar or worse
This might be true but I do not think it’s true of most peer countries (Western Europe, Canada, etc). I do believe that US prisons are among the least humane of this group as well as the least effective at rehabilitation. Again, this is not to say that those other systems do not have problems, just that the severity of the worst abuses and the extent of abuse in general is worse here.
Ukraine: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/08/ukraine-four-...
Mexico: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/mexicos-federal-prisons-a-...
Spain: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77231-8_...
Brazil: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/qa-why-is-prison-v...
And in Paradise (I mean Cuba): https://democraticspaces.com/trending/2022/3/29/prisoners-de...
Etc...