Prison abuse should have rung a bell
"[Iraqis] must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent. They must also understand that what took place in Abu Gharib prison does not represent the America that I know."
- George W. Bush in response to the reports of torturing of Iraqi inmates by US troops in Abu Gharib prison.
Bush must have had a rare moment of speaking the truth, when he said he didn't read the papers: An October, 1999 story in the Austin American Statesman detailed how female prisoners there were regularly kept in portable detention cells for hours at a time in summer heat with no water. "In fear of more time in the cages," the article explains, "many women submit sexually to their oppressors and are raped, molested and forced to perform sodomy on their captors.
Mistreatment of prisoners is called routine in US
Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates. In Pennsylvania and some other states, inmates are routinely stripped in front of other inmates before being moved to a new prison or a new unit within their prison.
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