UK Column News – 16th November 2016

H/t reader I.G.:

“Mention of Bedford prison specifically is made around the 40m section”


UK Column News – 16th November 2016:

Brian Gerrish and Mike Robinson are joined by Alex Thomson from Eastern Approaches and David Ellis from Strategic Defence Initiatives for today’s news update, including:
START    NATO merger of military and policing roles?
10:50      Protests in Belgium
15:00      The end of the Royal Navy
20:40      EU Foreign Affairs Council – EU Military integration agreed
26:25      Largest expansion of BBC World Service since 1940s
37:00      State of UKs prisons
45:00      Guardian pushing for more child trafficking
48:40      More on the Purple Revolution in the USA

WTF Headline Of The Day: GOP Senator Says “US Is Under-Incarcerated,” Should Lock Up More People

WTF Headline Of The Day: GOP Senator Says “US Is Under-Incarcerated,” Should Lock Up More People:

There are 2.3 million Americans in prison or jail. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its prisoners. One in three black men can expect to spend time in prison. There are 2.7 million minors with an incarcerated parent. The imprisonment rate has grown by more than 400 percent since 1970, and that increased incarceration has had a very limited effect on crime over the past two and a half decades. So… with that in mind, here is a little more crazy to end the week from Senator Tom Cotton…

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Texas Prison Riot: 2,800 Inmates To Be Moved From Now ‘Uninhabitable’ Facility

Texas prison riot: 2,800 inmates to be moved from now ‘uninhabitable’ facility (RT, Feb 22, 2015):

After 2,000 inmates, mostly immigrants, took over a Texas prison in a riot over poor medical services, federal authorities have decided to relocate all the detainees from the now “uninhabitable” correctional facility.

The riot at the Willacy County Correctional Center erupted on Friday afternoon, when prisoners refused to eat breakfast or report for work to protest medical services at the facility.

The prison was practically run over by the inmates, who continue to hold down the fort. It still remains unclear what medical service issues had upset the inmates. Only around 800 to 900 inmates have refused to riot in a facility that holds some 2,900 people, most of whom are immigrants with criminal record.

Read moreTexas Prison Riot: 2,800 Inmates To Be Moved From Now ‘Uninhabitable’ Facility

America’s Prison Population Over The Past 100 Years (Chart Of The Day)

America’s Prison Population Over The Past 100 Years

Chart of the Day – America’s Prison Population Over the Past 100 Years (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Feb 12, 2015): 

There are 2.3 million Americans in prison or jail. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its prisoners. One in three black men can expect to spend time in prison. There are 2.7 million minors with an incarcerated parent. The imprisonment rate has grown by more than 400 percent since 1970.

Recent research suggests that incarceration has lost its potency. A report released this week from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law finds that increased incarceration has had a very limited effect on crime over the past two and a half decades.

– From today’s Five-Thrity-Eight article: The Imprisoner’s Dilemma

The sickening and absurd rate of incarceration in these United States has been a frequent topic of conversation here at Liberty Blitzkrieg over the years (links at the end). In our national insanity, the U.S. has only 5% of the worlds population, yet 25% of its prisoners. Many of these people have no business being locked in a cage to begin with, and are wasting their lives away for committing “victimless crimes,” i.e. for no good reason.

While the immorality of locking up so many of our fellow citizens for non-crimes should be readily apparent, today’s article from Five-Thirty-Eight offers evidence that America’s incarceration rate has become so saturated that it has absolutely no meaningful impact in lowering crimes rates anyway. The time for prison reform and the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences is long overdue.

From Five-Thirty-Eight:

Read moreAmerica’s Prison Population Over The Past 100 Years (Chart Of The Day)

Prisons At Breaking Point, Says UK Chief Inspector

Prisons at breaking point, says UK Chief Inspector (RT, July 11, 2014):

British prisons have seen a “significant” and worrying deterioration, the chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales has said.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Nick Hardwick urged the government to take action, telling the programme that he saw prisoners living in “deplorable conditions” in some jails.

Read morePrisons At Breaking Point, Says UK Chief Inspector

?Nebraska Releases HUNDREDS Of Inmates By Mistake, Now Wants Them Back

?Nebraska releases hundreds of inmates by mistake, now wants them back (RT, June 28, 2014):

Authorities in Nebraska have mistakenly freed hundreds of prisoners over several years due to correction officials miscalculating their sentences. Law enforcement is now looking to put dozens of them behind bars again.

All in all, 306 inmates were freed erroneously, a situation first exposed by local media outlet Omaha World-Herald. 257 of them won’t be pursued, on condition that they don’t commit any offenses – because they would have completed their sentences by now. Three others died since they were let go, and five have successfully completed their parole.

Read more?Nebraska Releases HUNDREDS Of Inmates By Mistake, Now Wants Them Back

U.S. Prisoners Will Purchase An Estimated $750 MILLION In Clear Electronics

Prison Inmates Offer Captive Market For Gadget Makers (NBC News, June 22, 2014):

The catalog of corrections-approved electronics also spans big brands such as Sony and Casio with items like headphones, radios, and 15-inch flat-screen TVs, all modified to be “prison safe” –- that is, “see through” and sealed with “security screws,” according to the website for Union Supply Direct, one of the few players in this little-known market. That company is based in Rancho Dominguez, California.

Then there is Keefe Group, which has offices in 10 cities and dubs itself “the nation’s leading supplier” of prison-ready products and electronics, including televisions, typewriters, CD players, portable radios, fans, and clocks.

Read moreU.S. Prisoners Will Purchase An Estimated $750 MILLION In Clear Electronics

Hell Hole: The Shocking Secret World Inside The Walls Of Brazil’s Prisons (Video)

Inhuman, medieval conditions are the norm in Brazilian prisons where inmates have few rights. In a country where police would rather shoot a suspect than lock him up prison conditions speak to the larger issues at play.


Added: Apr 28, 2014

Hell Hole: The shocking secret world inside the walls of Brazil’s prisons

This shocking report on the inhuman, medieval conditions experienced by Brazilian prisoners defies belief. How can such an economically stable country perpetrate such blatant human rights abuses?

“We want out! The water is yellow! It’s making us sick!”. The prisoners of the Central Prison of Porto Alegre scream out of iron-barred windows. Inside, it’s a veritable museum of horrors: crumbling stone cells designed for 8 men are crammed with 40: mattresses line the floors, corridors, and even the rancid toilets, and men are literally left to rot to death. “The situation is chaotic”, says Prison Inspector Gilmar Bortolotto. He shows us the guns, mobile phones, drugs, and other weapons that are smuggled in inside the body, or by visitors or crooked staff. He explains that prison gangs impose their own rules here: “they charge [other prisoners] to sleep, to shower, for food. It’s basically a laboratory for more criminal problems”. Building new prisons, to separate repeat offenders from first timers, and the most dangerous criminals from the minor offenders, is the only way forward. Yet attributing the lack of funding for prison reforms to “the will of the people”, Gilmar seems doubtful this will ever happen. A quote from Mandela eloquently expresses his deep sense of shame: “you don’t know a country until you know that country’s prisons.”

SBS Dateline – Ref. 4811

For downloads and more information visit: http://www.journeyman.tv/?lid=60435&a…

FBI Launches Investigation Into A Private Prison So Violent It Is Called ‘Gladiator School’

gladiator

FBI Launches Investigation into a Private Prison So Violent it is Called “Gladiator School” (Liberty Blitzkrieg, March 9, 2014):

In what is one of the most disturbing private prison stories you’ll ever hear, a facility in Idaho run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in under investigation by the FBI due to claims it was so violent inmates called it “Gladiator School.” So how does a prison transform into such a place? Apparently, CCA was so eager to cut costs that it chose to understaff the facility and hand over control to prison gangs.

I’ve covered private prisons on many occasions in the past, including this CCA facility in particular. I think private prisons are one of the worst ideas possible in a democratic society. I suggest you read some of my prior articles:

A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry

Idaho Dumps Private Prison Company Due to “Violence, Understaffing and Over-billing”

America in 2013: Florida Football Stadium Named After a Private Prison Company

America in 2013: For-Profit Prisons Get Favorable Tax Breaks

Now from the AP:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The FBI has launched an investigation of the Corrections Corporation of America over the company’s running of an Idaho prison with a reputation so violent that inmates dubbed it “Gladiator School.”

Read moreFBI Launches Investigation Into A Private Prison So Violent It Is Called ‘Gladiator School’

Half Of U.S. Prison Sex Crimes Involve Staff Toward Inmates (Reuters)

Half of U.S. prison sex crimes involve staff toward inmates: fed study (Reuters, Jan 24, 2014):

Nearly 9,000 incidents of sexual victimization against inmates in U.S. prisons and jails were reported in 2011, with roughly half of them involving corrections staff, according to a report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The number of incidents showed a “significant increase” over about 8,400 incidents reported in 2010 and 7,855 reported in 2009, it said. The year 2011 was the most recent cited in the bureau study, published on Thursday.

Read moreHalf Of U.S. Prison Sex Crimes Involve Staff Toward Inmates (Reuters)

A Deep Look Into The Shady World Of The Private Prison Industry

Related article:

The More Americans They Put Behind Bars The More Money They Make

Corrections Corporation of America Used in Drug Sweeps of Public School Students:

“To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the ‘schools-to-prison pipeline’ I’ve ever seen,”

The Gulag Ameripelago: US Incarceration Surpasses Russia’s

Prison Labor Booms In US As Low-Cost Inmates Bring Billions (Video)


A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry (Liberty Blitzkrieg Sep 23, 2013):

Private prisons are antithetical to a free people. Of all the functions a civilized society should relegate to the public sector, it’s abundantly clear incarceration should be at the very top of the list. Jailing individuals is a public cost that a society takes on in order to ensure there are consequences to breaking certain rules that have been deemed dangerous to the happiness and quality of life within a given population. However, the end goal of any civilized culture must be to try to keep these cost as low possible. This should  be achieved by having as few people as possible incarcerated, which is most optimally achieved by reducing incidents of criminality within the population. Given incarceration is an undesirable (albeit necessary) part of any society, the idea is certainly not to incentivize increased incarceration by making it extremely profitable. This is a perverse incentive, and one that is strongly encouraged by the private prison industry to the detriment of society.

Read moreA Deep Look Into The Shady World Of The Private Prison Industry

America Has A Broken, Corrupt And Immoral Criminal Justice System

A Broken, Corrupt and Immoral Criminal Justice System (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Aug 15, 2013):

You know that the rule of law has essentially vanished when the Attorney General himself feels compelled to state: “America’s legal system, we must face the reality that, as it stands, our system is in too many respects broken.” That is precisely what Eric Holder stated earlier this week, while seemingly taking no responsibility for that fact despite being the top lawyer in the nation. Guess he was too busy protecting his banker masters from prosecution to notice.

In any event, the broken criminal justice system really took center stage earlier this year when the federal prosector Carmen Ortiz drove child prodigy Aaron Swartz to his death by piling on overzealous charges in an attempt to advance her career. Instead she drove a gentle genius to an untimely death. Kudos Ortiz.

In light of Holder’s comment, Bloomberg columnist Clive Crook wrote an excellent article outlining some of the main attributes of out increasingly Kafkaesque legal system. Here are some key excerpts:

Read moreAmerica Has A Broken, Corrupt And Immoral Criminal Justice System

AND NOW: Cyprus Jailing People For Debt!!!

H/t reader M.G.:

“Adding to this mess, here is a story from Cyprus. They are jailing people for debt. Didn’t the 19th century teach these clowns anything? How can people pay if they are in jail?
Here is the link. Insane.”

You can’t make this stuff up!


Rise in debtors adds to prison overcrowding (Cyprus Mail, July 23, 2013):

THE ALREADY over-full Nicosia Central Prisons is becoming even more crowded as the financial crisis worsens and more people are being jailed for non-payment of fines and other debts.

Prison Governor Giorgos Tryfonides told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that efforts were being made to help such convicts pay off their debts in instalments.

“We are trying our best to make plans for payment of debt so an arrangement can be made with the attorney-general to postpone any punishment as long as the instalment is accepted by the plaintiff,” he said.

Due to the crisis, the number of people facing jail for financial reasons is on the rise compared to other years, Tryfonides said, adding on certain days up to five people might be imprisoned for similar offences.

Read moreAND NOW: Cyprus Jailing People For Debt!!!

Gangs Ruled Prison As For-Profit Model Put Blood on Floor

Gangs Ruled Prison as For-Profit Model Put Blood on Floor (Bloomberg, July 12, 2013):

In the four privately run prisons holding Mississippi (BEESMS) inmates last year, the assault rate was three times higher on average than in state-run lockups. None was as violent as the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility.

The for-profit detention center, surrounded by razor wire and near the forests and farms of central Mississippi, had 27 assaults per 100 offenders last year, more than any other prison in the state, according to an April court filing. Staff shortages, mismanagement and lax oversight had long turned it into a cauldron of violence, where female employees had sex with inmates, pitted them against each other, gave them weapons and joined their gangs, according to court records, interviews and a U.S. Justice Department report.

“It was like a jungle,” said Craig Kincaid, 24, a former inmate. “It was an awful place to go when you’re trying to get your life together.”

Read moreGangs Ruled Prison As For-Profit Model Put Blood on Floor

Notes From The Underground: Illegal CIA Torture Program Whistleblower John Kiriakou’s Letter From Prison

Notes from the Underground: John Kiriakou’s Letter from Prison (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 31, 2013):

Greetings from the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania.  I arrived here on February 28, 2013 to serve a 30-month sentence for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.  At least that’s what the government wants people to believe.  In truth this is my punishment for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal torture program and for telling the public that torture was official U.S. government policy.  But that’s a different story.  The purpose of this letter is to tell you about prison life.

The prison population is much like you might expect.  Loretto has 1,369 prisoners (I never call myself an “inmate.”  I’m a prisoner).  About 50% are black, 30% are Hispanic, and 20% are white.  Of the white prisoners, most are pedophiles with personal stories that would make you sick to your stomach.  The rest of the white prisoners are here for drugs, except for a dozen or so who ran ponzi schemes.

-John Kiriakou

What follows is a rather brief, but incredibly interesting letter from John Kiriakou, the only person to be jailed in a torture related case in the U.S. Of course, he wasn’t involved in torture, he blew the whistle on it.  For that offense he has been caged, while those actually involved in allowing torture roam free.  I first highlighted John’s plight last year before he was jailed in my piece:  Have You Heard of John Kiriakou? I suggest reading that post before getting into the letter below.  Enjoy.

John Kiriakou Letter From Loretto 1

The More Americans They Put Behind Bars The More Money They Make

Private Prisons: The More Americans They Put Behind Bars The More Money They Make (Economic Collapse, March 11, 2013):

How would you describe an industry that wants to put more Americans in prison and keep them there longer so that it can make more money?  In America today, approximately 130,000 people are locked up in private prisons that are being run by for-profit companies, and that number is growing very rapidly.  Overall, the U.S. has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has 5 percent of the total global population.  The United States has the highest incarceration rate on the entire globe by far, and no nation in the history of the world has ever locked up more of its own citizens than we have.  Are we really such a cesspool of filth and decay that we need to lock up so many of our own people?  Or are there some other factors at work?  Could part of the problem be that we have allowed companies to lock up men and women in cages for profit?  The two largest private prison companies combined to bring in close to $3,000,000,000 in revenue in 2010, and the largest private prison companies have spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past decade.  Putting Americans behind bars has become very big business, and those companies have been given a perverse incentive to push for even more Americans to be locked up.  It is a system that is absolutely teeming with corruption, and it is going to get a lot worse unless someone does something about it.

Read moreThe More Americans They Put Behind Bars The More Money They Make

The Gulag Ameripelago: US Incarceration Surpasses Russia’s

The Gulag Ameripelago: US Incarceration Surpasses Russia’s (ZeroHedge, Dec 13, 2012):

Remember when Americans used to mock Russia (f/k/a the USSR) for being one big Gulag prison colony? Those were the good days. One thing is sure: they no longer “hate us for our freedom.” On the other hand, if instead of prison, one were to write in “minimum security, free room and board, out early for good behavior” (especially if the world’s most famous hedge fund will fund all your cash needs for the rest of your life on the ‘other side’ just as we predicted three weeks ago), then they would certainly hate us for our benefits.

Prison Labor Booms In US As Low-Cost Inmates Bring Billions (Video)


YouTube Added: 09.12.2012

Description:

US breeds a Chinese-style inmate labor scheme on its own soil. Both state and some of the biggest private companies are now enjoying the fruits of a cheap and readily available work force, with tens of millions of dollars spent by private prisons to keep their jails full.

Six Million People Under Correctional Supervision In the US — More Than Were In Stalin’s Gulags

“Six million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S.—more than were in Stalin’s gulags.”

– A Critic at Large The Caging of America Why do we lock up so many people? (The New Yorker, Jan. 30, 2012):

For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

Read moreSix Million People Under Correctional Supervision In the US — More Than Were In Stalin’s Gulags

Beyond Guantánamo, A Web Of Prisons For Terrorism Inmates


The federal prison in Florence, Colo., has long held terrorists. The justice system has absorbed a surge of terrorism cases since 2001 without the international criticism that Guantánamo Bay has attracted.

Beyond Guantánamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates (New York Times, Dec. 10, 2011)

WASHINGTON — It is the other Guantánamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate.

An aggressive prosecution strategy, aimed at prevention as much as punishment, has sent away scores of people. They serve long sentences, often in restrictive, Muslim-majority units, under intensive monitoring by prison officers. Their world is spare.

Among them is Ismail Royer, serving 20 years for helping friends go to an extremist training camp in Pakistan. In a letter from the highest-security prison in the United States, Mr. Royer describes his remarkable neighbors at twice-a-week outdoor exercise sessions, each prisoner alone in his own wire cage under the Colorado sky. “That’s really the only interaction I have with other inmates,” he wrote from the federal Supermax, 100 miles south of Denver.

There is Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, Mr. Royer wrote. Terry Nichols, who conspired to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building. Ahmed Ressam, the would-be “millennium bomber,” who plotted to attack Los Angeles International Airport. And Eric Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

In recent weeks, Congress has reignited an old debate, with some arguing that only military justice is appropriate for terrorist suspects. But military tribunals have proved excruciatingly slow and imprisonment at Guantánamo hugely costly — $800,000 per inmate a year, compared with $25,000 in federal prison.

Read moreBeyond Guantánamo, A Web Of Prisons For Terrorism Inmates

‘RoboCop’ Guards To Patrol South Korean Prisons

Robot guards with sensors to detect abnormal behaviour will soon begin patrolling South Korean prisons to ease the burden on their human counterparts, researchers said on Thursday.


Prison guard robot: Three robots will be tested at a correctional facility in the southeastern city of Pohang next March when development is completed Photo: EPA

‘RoboCop’ guards to patrol South Korean prisons (Telegraph, Nov. 24, 2011):

A group of scientists has developed the robot warders under a one billion won (£546,000) project organised by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

The robots – 1.5 metres (five feet) high and running on four wheels – will mostly be used at night.

They can connect prisoners with officers through a remote conversation function, according to a statement from the Asian Forum for Corrections (AFC), a South Korea-based group of researchers in criminality and prison policies.

Read more‘RoboCop’ Guards To Patrol South Korean Prisons

AND NOW … Daily Mail: ‘Safest Place For Black Men Is In Prison, Says Report That Found They Are Half As Likely To Die While Behind Bars’

Safest place for black men is in prison, says report that found they are half as likely to die while behind bars (Daily Mail,  July 31, 2011):

Black men are half as likely to die at any given time if they’re in prison than if they aren’t, suggests a new report.

A study looking at inmates in North Carolina found that black prisoners seemed to be especially protected against alcohol and drug-related deaths, as well as lethal accidents and certain chronic diseases.

But that pattern didn’t hold for white men, who on the whole were slightly more likely to die in prison than outside, according to findings published in Annals of Epidemiology.

Researchers say it’s not the first time a study has found lower death rates among certain groups of inmates – particularly disadvantaged people, who might get protection against violent injuries and murder.

Read moreAND NOW … Daily Mail: ‘Safest Place For Black Men Is In Prison, Says Report That Found They Are Half As Likely To Die While Behind Bars’