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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Rude Pundit: Louisiana Tries to Kill Death Row Inmates the Natural Way
Here's one you might not have heard about: So, at Angola, the state penitentiary nestled in the muggy taint of south Louisiana, death row inmates are kept in a cell block of tiers that don't have air conditioning or proper ventilation. They were built in 2006, one of the newest parts of Angola. The temperature gets to 90 to 110 degrees inside during the summer. The prisoners must stay in their cells 23 hours a day. Three inmates with health conditions that are exacerbated by heat filed a complaint, saying it violated their rights under the American With Disabilities Act, as well as being cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution. The trial, with the Louisiana Department of Corrections and the wardens as defendants, just wrapped up this week.
During the trial, it was revealed that officials at Angola tried to skew independent monitoring of the heat levels. " P)rison officials installed window awnings and tried blasting the tiers outer walls with water cannons to attempt to lower the indoor temperatures" in direct violation of a court order. The appalled judge said that the prison was either a bunch of stumblefucks or they were deliberately tampering with evidence. Judge Brian Jackson is going to visit the tiers himself on Monday.
Essentially, the state of Louisiana is torturing its prisoners on death row. And the reaction, as you might expect, has been shrugged shoulders and mumbles of how the criminals are getting what they deserve. If you believe that, you are a fucking animal. (Frankly, if you support capital punishment, you're a fucking animal, but let's not get into that argument today.)
Because, see, let's introduce you to Damon Thibodaux. He was released from Angola's death row after 15 years last September when DNA evidence exonerated him. That means that Thibodaux, an innocent man, was forced to endure not only the hell that is Angola, the hell that is imprisonment in isolation, but the searing, visceral, physical hell of years of living in an oven. That's why you don't torture.
By the way, the cost for a person sentenced to death, from incarceration to execution, is in the tens of millions of dollars. The cost to install air conditioning on Angola's death row? Probably around $550,000.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)but I think that convicts should serve their time in humane, safe, clean, conditions, with air conditioning when appropriate. The imprisonment is the punishment, there should be no additional torture.
ashling
(25,771 posts)That said, you are absolutely correct.
atreides1
(16,067 posts)And here I was under the impression that Louisiana was a "Christian" state...little did I realize that it was a "Christian" virtue to torture people!
But then again I'm not up on the current "Christian" virtues that seem to be part of that faith!!!
SnowCritter
(810 posts)Auto-da-fe, anyone?
Hayabusa
(2,135 posts)What's an auto-da-fe?
dtotire
(1,889 posts)It involved burning at the stake.
meegbear
(25,438 posts)Hayabusa
(2,135 posts)Seriously, though, every single prisoner, despite what they've done in their lives of crime, deserve to live comfortable lives while they are serving their time.
Angelonthesidelines
(70 posts)I distinctly remember an awful dirge we sang on the way to Holy Communion.
The chorus went,
Whatosever youuuuuuuuuuuu dooooooooooooooooo
To the least of my bro otherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat you do unto meeeeeeeeeee
The least of us are the best of us, how we treat them is how we treat ourselves(the Christ)
starroute
(12,977 posts)Yes, I know that at least some Christian denominations no longer go in for that eternal torment stuff. But it's something of an intellectual struggle to get it out of the Christian narrative of fall and redemption. And there are still plenty of sects that go in for hellfire and brimstone with all the bells and whistles.
Someone where along the line (one of the early Church Fathers, I think), it was even held that one of the components of heavenly bliss was getting a front row seat to watch the torture of the damned. And in the Middle Age, the Inquisition and the death-by-torture of heretics were justified as just a foretaste of what they would get after death.
So I'm fairly sure that a lot of the people running those prisons believe that it's their God-given duty to make the prisoners suffer as much as possible. Because how could they not act in the image of what they take to be their God?
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)starroute
(12,977 posts)It's the combination of hermetically sealed cellblocks and lack of artificial ventilation that's the real problem.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)2ndAmForComputers
(3,527 posts)Anyone has a problem with that?
Bully Taw
(194 posts)I think our money is better spent on rehabilitating than incarcerating. As a society, we are really all to blame when someone commits a crime. Our society, because of so many inequalities, produces criminals. Criminals don't produce themselves.
Angelonthesidelines
(70 posts)Is the illusion of scarcity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist:_Moving_Forward
When friends ask why America needs so much military, I propose that the sooner humanity quits money, the sooner the military becomes a relic of the past.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)Don't get me wrong, I don't see it as much different than basing your life on the Bible or the Quran, I'm just curious.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)It's a shame.
Fla Dem
(23,590 posts)or for that matter the low wage prision workers that have to work 8 hours a day in the oven.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)The sick fuck of a Warden there puts on an inmate rodeo every year for the guards, staff, and their families and friends.
The inmates get a chance to win $100 in commissary money for winning the rodeo. You're talking inmates who've never so much as been to a petting zoo, or seen a live horse or bull, trying to ride bronco bulls and horses. Getting trampled, gored and otherwise dismembered for entertainment.
One event was bull poker, where 6 inmates sit around a card table and an enraged bull is released. He charges the table, and the last inmate to run from the table wins the event.
TNNurse
(6,926 posts)about cruel and unusual punishment????
Since I do not think they should be on death row anyway, this is really intolerable.
Yes, I am OK with my tax money keeping people in jail for life rather than killing them.
To me killing to say killing is wrong is incredibly stupid. Of course I have thought that people should die for being so evil, but that is one of the reasons we have laws about killing people.....or at least we did.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)That's where we should send the criminal bank fraudsters and war profiteers.
adieu
(1,009 posts)that Anders Breivik, the mass murderer in Norway.
[link:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2013/02/28/2003555883|
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)from an authoritarian: And O'Reilly concludes, "The solution to the epidemic of violent crime in poor black neighborhoods is to actively discourage pregnancies out of marriage, to impose strict discipline in the public schools, including mandatory student uniforms, and to create a zero tolerance policy for gun and drug crimes imposing harsh mandatory prison time on the offenders."
Of course, these punishments are not to be imposed on (fill in the blank) people who just make mistakes.
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)no better than the inmates.
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)thats not torture.
although it's gonna cause tempers to flair. Not very responsible... People who 99.99999999999999 % sure we know they tortured animals and screwed kids deserve a torturous dead. the rest deserve life in solitary.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,357 posts)... isn't this also unsafe working conditions for the guards?