Thank you for this article. The abuse is repeated in the facilities for children all over the country. I use the word "facilities" because the same word is used for:

correctional facilities and "long term care" LTC facilities for disabled (all ages). Children are abused in all kinds of ways. Enforcement of regulations by the administrations of these facilities is lax, to put it mildly. Children with mental disabilities, in correctional facilities or live-in facilities are beaten, not long ago there was allegations of children being smothered while wrapped in blankets for "discipline". Children in NYC, in a foster care "facility" were used as test subjects for adult medications for AIDS within the last dozen years.

It's cheaper to give all children and young adults in facilities of all kinds, a good education than it is to keep them locked up while torturing them.

Sioux Rose

Note, too, the corelation with Abu Graib, and an increasing sadism integrated into control-of-population systems gradually softening the public's remaining walls of conscience.

When we put together the waste for a war for no purpose, the surveillance of citizens, these bogus detention camps off-shore, along with the rise of the prison-industrial complex at home, it's all get tough policies that produce NOTHING of substance, nothing that heals or adds to society. A lot like the parasitic banking community that's been granted impunity from its wrongdoing, and even more funds to maintain the banquet for a few, at the expense of the many.

I wonder how many young people in these programs merely experimented with recreational drugs? That takes us to the equally punitive policies in a land so hypocritical as to chant, "Just say no" when 30% of television ads are indeed FOR drugs, just the kind the MDeity peddles, as pusher of corporate choice.

Condi Rice will return to the Hoover Institute at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA in January 2009. Perhaps the California Dept. of Corrections will hire her to reform their torture program to be more in line with the Federal system...different methods of torture with a PR program that denies torture is taking place.

this is all about a society which has lost control of its economic activity, with the result that it no longer produces its means of existence and thus no longer has need for productive people. but the time of reckoning is at hand, my friends, the time of reckoning is at hand.

In Florida we are looking at the prospect of investigating abuse and deaths of minors kept in "boot camps" and "youth camps". Many are disabled individuals with serious learning deficiencies and the "for profit" privatization of these facilities has done little to change for the better or worse a very bad system that prizes "control" over "reform" of the inmates.

Poet

The 'domination' policies of the Republican party and Judeo-Christian Churches preclude things like Human Rights. It's all about hellfire, damnation, fear and punishmant.

But then our American Government has a long, long history of inflicting and funding Crimes Against Humanity. How can any citizen have anything more to do with our Judeo-Corporate controlled government? To wit:

UN: Gaza blockade a siege in full fury
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:59:03 GMT

A UN special investigator on human rights says Israel's blockade of Gaza Strip is a massive violation of international humanitarian law.

Professor Richard Falk says Israel is allowing in barely enough food to avoid famine and disease, ABC reported.

Falk defined the continuing Gaza blockade as 'a siege in full fury', adding that Israeli regime's collective punishment of Palestinians is tantamount to crime against humanity.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=78075&sectionid=351020202

These Crimes Against Humanity are in full flood with both #43, $44 and Congress.

Part of the problem is that we dehumanize people in this culture constantly. People who are accused of criminal acts are labeled as "sicko"s in the major daily rags in NYC (and this is before they are convicted!). People in prison are "inmates". The government has declared the people in Guantanamo to be "enemy combatants". And as for the Judeo-Christian people on the far right all this talk of forgiveness and such stops as soon as there is mention of a prison or other such facility in their "backyard". We have devolved, in our society, to "us and them", where "us" are considered people and "them" are societies unwanted "monsters". Our society is incredibly dysfunctional. We have moved a long way away from what some of the more progressive founders of this country envisioned.

A better link than the one provided is this: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/25.htm. It contains the rights of the child. The unfortunate thing is that while the US has signed the UNCHR, it has not ratified the Convention for the Rights of the Child. Therefore, the justice system has far more freedom to treat children poorly, not addressing their specific needs when children face incarceration or detention. It is also very obviously not a standard held highly when the US subjects child soldiers to the horrors of Abu Graib or Guantanamo as well as the many sites unknown even to the Red Cross/Red Crescent.

Of course, it could be argued that the US does not even adhere to the International Conventions such as the Declaration of Human Rights that it has ratified, so it may be a moot point.

What is incomprehensible to me is why the major media outlets are not making an absolute STINK about this until something happens. This story needs to be told every night until people are fired, heads roll, and serious and real change is made.

But, when you operate media in a capitalist system, you are just one more business that is interested not in justice or truth, but simply in where the next $$$ are coming from. Running this story every night would hurt their bottom line, wouldn't it?

Sandy
As a nurse and case manager for the mentally ill, I have worked in many facilities around this state, and my best advice for any relative or friend of a person under someone's care , is to visit often. Phone, write, show interest. When working in an institution for MR, I noticed those with family members were off limits to abuse. In nursing homes, someone visiting a patient prevented the neglect. In an apt bldg for the functional mentally challenged person was least taken advantage of ,if he had an interested family member. Prison inmates are much more difficult to advocate for as a family member, but I think what the common thread is; records of family visits are kept on file. Workers notice family members and don't want to be exposed to disciplinary action. It may sound simple, but this has been my experience. My mom passed in 1992, and towards the end as we sat in the ER more and more, she always turned and said to me, " Looks like it's time for me to head to a nursing home." I'm glad she never spent one day in one- she died at home. Nobody treats a loved one better than someone that actually does love them.

The fact is, our welfare "reform"/poverty policies are in direct violation of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights on numerous points, not only in denying basic humanitarian aid to people in need (and, in fact, even blocking that aid when offered by other countries, as we saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina), but in policies that eliminate specific legal rights and protections granted to all non-poor Americans. The response of our otherwise progressive media has been utter indifference; after all, the poor aren't heavy consumers of internet or print progressive media, and US poverty isn't a popular topic today. The response from the legal community (ACLU, etc.) is that while they would love to look into the issue at some point, their funds, personnel and time are limited, and they have other priorities. Our political leaders no longer even acknowledge US poverty; these are not the people who donate to campaigns. We care about hardworkingamericans (it has become one word) only until they lose their jobs/can no longer work.

Americans don't even recognize our treatment of the poor as being in violation of the international human rights agreement. It took our political leadership and the media roughly a quarter-century to dehumanize the poor to the degree that the average citizen would not consider our poor to be entitled to basic those human rights. Given enough time and media attention, we can ensure that the next generation does not recognize human rights violations against other distinct segments of our society, such as prisoners, immigrants, the disabled and the elderly -- anyone who is not in service to the state via paying taxes. We aren't progressing in this area as rapidly as Nazi Germany did, but we are unquestionably going down the same road.

Read the text of Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Next try Article 9: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

Then briefly contemplate what is now undisputed historical facts in the public domain (and largely acknowledged as being official US government policy), concerning the Bush/Cheney regime's practices of military mass arrest sweeps, targeted assassination, rendition, and the CIA's special enhanced interrogation methods used upon hundreds of detainees at Gitmo, Bagram, and elsewhere as tools in waging what is called the global war on terror (GWOT).

The current Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, has never gotten back to the Senate with an answer to the simple question asked at his confirmation hearing about whether waterboarding constituted torture.

Mukasey's predecessor as Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, personally advised President George W. Bush as White House legal counsel in 2002 that denominating people "enemy combatants" was the way to magically pull those evil doers outside the scope of pesky international legal constraints like the Geneva Conventions, the anti-torture laws, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Yet Secretary of State Condi Rice, and everybody else packing their bags up to leave Washington with Bush/Cheney next month, still blithely assert with a straight face that the United States of America does not torture, the United States respects the rule of law, and the United States supports the cause of human freedom across the globe.

Small wonder they hate us. Small wonder nobody believes a word America says any more.

Bill from Saginaw

Every seat on the stock exchange danced for joy when Communism was discredited. They thought the world finally belonged to them--- after all, it was theirs by rights all along.

I hope they remember how to dance.

As the coming tidal wave of poverty brings a real crime wave (not just pot smokers) I hope you big boys don't lose your sense of humor. You couldn't have cared less about human rights as long as profits were growing.

Enemy Combatants and Freedom of Speech
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Some Americans favor the federal government’s post-9/11 assumption of power to arrest Americans and treat them as “enemy combatants” in the “war on terrorism.” It doesn’t matter to them that the Pentagon now has the power to round up Americans, keep them in prison camps indefinitely, torture them, and deny them all the rights and guarantees enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The reason it doesn’t bother them is that they figure it would never happen to them, only to other people.

That attitude brings to mind the famous poem by German Pastor Martin Niemoller that was addressed to German intellectuals who failed to oppose the Nazi extermination of “enemies of the state” by pursuing a strategy of targeting separate groups:

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then ... they came for me ... And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

There is also another important factor relating to a free society that Americans should consider about this post-9/11 power that is now being claimed by the Pentagon and other federal officials. That factor involves the fundamental right of freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Once it seeps into the consciousness of the American people that the federal government now wields the omipotent power to arrest, punish, and detain people indefinitely without trial, a pall of silence will almost certainly fall over the land with respect to criticism of the Pentagon and the rest of the federal government.

Freedom of speech entails the certainty that no matter what you say about the government there is nothing that government officials can do about it. That certainty disappears, however, with the omnipotent power to take people into custody, torture them, and keep them imprisoned without a trial. Even though the power might not be employed, everyone will know that it can be employed at some opportune time in the future, especially in a major crisis.

Thus, the tendency will be to become more circumspect with respect to criticism of the federal government because of the possibilty that in the midst of a big “wartime” crisis, “patriotic” citizens will report to the authorities critical comments about government that people have made in the past. The attitude will tend toward, “Why take a chance? I’m better off just keeping my mouth shut, and so are my spouse and children.”

I personally experienced this phenomenon several years ago while visiting Chile. Chilean military strongman Augusto Pinochet had recently stepped down as president . I attempted to engage ordinary Chileans in political discussion and noticed a tremendous reticence among them to do so. I finally asked one of them why this was so. She explained to me that throughout the Pinochet regime people were very careful about making critical comments about the government.

The reason for that was that everyone was aware of Pinochet’s power to round up people as suspected terrorists, torture them and sexually abuse them, and incarcerate them indefinitely without trial — the same post-9/11 power that the U.S. government now wields over the American people. Even though Pinochet had mostly employed such power during the crisis period following his coup, everyone knew that he could employ it again at any time against any Chilean labeled a terrorist.

Moreover, much like the CIA has been doing since 9/11, Pinochet’s henchmen were traveling the world executing people they considerd to be terrorists, such as former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronni Moffitt.

Thus, even if Pinochet wasn’t still rounding up, torturing and abusing Chileans, and keeping them jailed indefinitely without trial, and sometimes executing them, the Chilean people knew that the power to do such things was always there on a standby basis. That’s why they remained so cautious about conversing about political matters, even several months after Pinochet had left office. The deeply seated mindset of caution and fear among the citizenry did not automatically disappear with Pinochet’s departure from office.

The power to take people people into custody as suspected terrorists, cart them away to some prison camp or dungeon, torture or sexually abuse them, incarcerate them without trial for the rest of their lives, and perhaps even execute them is the most tyrannical power of all. Freedom of speech and other fundamental rights are worthless in the face of such power. As Americans slowly come to that realization, the tendency will be for them to shut their mouths and, even worse, close their minds.

Hornberger’s Blog Archives

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.