Month: November 2016

Our nation is founded on the basic human rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution. A human right is something everybody has, regardless their ages, sexes, national origins, races, religious preferences and immigration status. Even those who are in prison are protected by the U.S. Constitution. However, not all organizations respect the human rights of others -- especially some of our nation's prisons. Prisoner abuse runs rampant in the United States, and it is largely ignored. Harmful acts of physical and sexual assault are committed against the incarcerated population nearly every day in...

On July 6, 2016, dozens of officers at the Mid-State Correctional Facility, outside Utica, conducted an unannounced -- and inexcusably violent -- raid on the prison's inmates. More than 30 prisoners suffered injuries, according to a report in the New York Times, including broken ribs, broken noses, contusions, and forced sodomy. The attack was an act of retaliation. Three days earlier, one of the prison's guards suffered an injury to his head. The causes of his injury are the subject of dispute. The guards' union claims that prisoners assaulted the officer while he was on duty. Inmates claim...

They are unpleasant topics that many New Yorkers prefer not to look at too closely: prison guard brutality and prisoner's rights. Most people would prefer to imagine a scenario in which a criminal is convicted for his or her crimes and sent away to pay the price. They don't want to imagine that a prisoner might be brutalized in a New York correctional facility. Instead they want to assume that the treatment of prisoners is fair and just. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. It is undeniable that the nation's prison system is less than ideal. On the corrections officers' side of the...