Domestic Torture & Prison Conditions

This week the United Nations Committee Against Torture is reviewing U.S. compliance with international standards, both overseas and domestically.  In particular, it is reviewing a special prosecutor’s report from Chicago alleging that one precinct -- Area 2 -- systematically tortured suspects over the course of twenty years.   Area 2 has been covered, over the years, by the Chicago press and the New York Times.  Here’s an excerpt from today's news story from Pacifica Radio and the link.

[F]or nearly two decades beginning in 1971, [Area 2] was the epicenter for what has been described as the systematic torture of dozens of African-American males by Chicago police officers. In total, more than 135 people say they were subjected to abuse including having guns forced into their mouths, bags places over their heads, and electric shocks inflicted to their genitals. Four men have been released from death row after government investigators concluded torture led to their wrongful convictions.  [T]o date, not one Chicago police officer has been charged with any crime . . . .  [A] special prosecutor is now in the fourth year of an investigation.  Just last week, a group of  Chicago police officers won a court ruling to delay the release of the prosecutor’s preliminary report.

On a related note, the report from the Commission on  Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons is due this month. The Commission, co-chaired by former Attorney General Nicholas de B. Katzenbach and the Honorable John J. Gibbons, former Chief Judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, held four national public hearings (one here at Loyola, one at Wash. U., St. Louis) and will be sending its recommendations to Congress.  Here’s the Commission’s website.  It describes its mission as follows:

The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's prisons is a national effort to clarify the nature and extent of violence, sexual abuse, degradation, and other serious safety failures and abuses in prisons and jails throughout the  United States, as well as the consequences for prisoners, corrections officers, and the public at large.