Prison Officers cutting off clothes of young offenders
Mark | 28.09.2007 09:35
Prison inspectors have condemned the forced strip-searching of two inmates at a young offenders' institution as "appalling".
Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, said the inmates at HMP Werrington in Stoke-on-Trent had their clothes cut off by prison officers.
Her report followed a surprise inspection at the institution and criticised its overall safety record and anti-bullying policies.
Many of the problems at the 150-inmate centre were caused by a population crisis, she said.
She said "disgruntled" young prisoners from London were forced to move to the centre, leading to disruption.
Strip-searching on arrival was routine, and the institution's record on self-harm "needed improvement", she said.
The report said: "We were... appalled by a video recording of the strip-searching by force of a refractory young person, which included cutting off his clothing despite his protestations that he was willing to comply.
"Whatever the provocation, excessive reaction of this kind is unacceptable. Though it had continued to improve in a number of areas, the weaknesses we identified in safety were serious and required urgent management attention."
Phil Wheatley, Director-General of the Prison Service, defended the use of forced strip-searches. He said: "Generally this is a good report which charts decent progress at an establishment dealing with difficult individuals."
"As to the incident involving the strip-search of the young person, I have seen the video and reviewed the matter in great detail. I am convinced that at no point in the process was he compliant and that the staff involved dealt with the incident correctly in the circumstances, when faced by a difficult and disturbed young man."
So apparently they also video tape the strip searches now
Her report followed a surprise inspection at the institution and criticised its overall safety record and anti-bullying policies.
Many of the problems at the 150-inmate centre were caused by a population crisis, she said.
She said "disgruntled" young prisoners from London were forced to move to the centre, leading to disruption.
Strip-searching on arrival was routine, and the institution's record on self-harm "needed improvement", she said.
The report said: "We were... appalled by a video recording of the strip-searching by force of a refractory young person, which included cutting off his clothing despite his protestations that he was willing to comply.
"Whatever the provocation, excessive reaction of this kind is unacceptable. Though it had continued to improve in a number of areas, the weaknesses we identified in safety were serious and required urgent management attention."
Phil Wheatley, Director-General of the Prison Service, defended the use of forced strip-searches. He said: "Generally this is a good report which charts decent progress at an establishment dealing with difficult individuals."
"As to the incident involving the strip-search of the young person, I have seen the video and reviewed the matter in great detail. I am convinced that at no point in the process was he compliant and that the staff involved dealt with the incident correctly in the circumstances, when faced by a difficult and disturbed young man."
So apparently they also video tape the strip searches now
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Following in the footsteps of Prison America?
28.09.2007 10:40
A talk by Prof Angela Davis, given Sept 18, 2007 at Cornell University. The US imprisons more people than any other nation, more than two million are behind bars now. According to report by the US dept of justice a few years ago, 1 in 37 Americans will find themselves behind bars.
The majority of those prisoners are people of color, especially African American men, even in states where they are a tiny minority of the population, and even though many studies have shown that white people break laws as often or more often than people of color. It is estimated that one in 3 black men will be incarcerated at some time in his life.
That the US legal system is biased against people of color, and the poor, who are disproportionately people of color, is
incontrovertible, and Angela Davis will touch on that in the talk. Then she'll go on beyond to question the institution of prison itself, to pose the idea that imprisonment is bound up with the American conception of democracy in surprising ways, that it plays a role in how freedom is defined in the national psyche. Angela Davis, a former political prisoner herself as well as an internationally known scholar, is one of the foremost activists in the prison abolition movement that questions the very validity and purpose of prison as an institution.
audiophile
Make money the capitalist way
29.09.2007 15:10
Krop