More Prison Abuse! Where is the Outrage
 

Oh I forgot. We are only outraged when it politically suits us or the media tells us to be outraged.

Federal investigators probe tribal prison deaths
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have uncovered abuse, neglect and inhumane conditions in the Native American prison system that could have contributed to some deaths, Interior Department officials said Thursday.
An undisclosed number of deaths are being investigated by the department's Inspector General's Office as part of an investigation into run-down prisons on tribal lands across the nation, said Dave Anderson, Interior's assistant secretary for Indian affairs. He declined to elaborate on the number of deaths being investigated, how the victims were killed or whether they included employees as well as inmates.

Anderson said investigators have found that some juvenile offenders have been forced to share cell blocks with adult inmates in the prison system, which in 2002 held 2,006 inmates in 74 prisons scattered across 55 million acres of Indian lands in the USA. (Related story: Former BIA officials urged prison fixes)

The probe also has found that some guards routinely have been put at risk because of staffing shortages in 30-year-old facilities where some cell doors no longer can be locked.

Several facilities with no running water, heat or working toilets are depicted in a videotape that was prepared by Ed Naranjo, a retired law enforcement official with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The bureau oversees the prisons as part of the Interior Department.

The tape, which also shows areas in which inmates could get access to guns seized in criminal cases, was given to Interior investigators earlier this year.

Decrepit prisons are among a range of problems that have plagued Indian lands for years. Several tribes, particularly those along the largely unpatrolled southwestern border, have faced an onslaught of drug traffickers and immigrant smugglers.

Naranjo, the BIA's former special agent in charge of law enforcement and detention operations in six northwestern states, said he hired a photographer to make the tape last year because BIA officials "ignored" his repeated requests to improve the prisons. A copy of the tape was provided to USA TODAY.

Anderson, who oversees the BIA, said that Naranjo's tape added "a sense of urgency" to efforts to fix the prisons.

The Inspector General's Office said investigators have visited several prison sites and plan many more inspections.

Interior spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said the department recently approved about $6 million in emergency funding to help repair prisons, about six times the $1 million annual maintenance budget for the facilities.

Kreisher also said that Interior officials have asked the Justice Department to provide advice on how to improve the prisons. The Justice Department oversees the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a network of 104 detention centers that hold about 170,000 inmates.

Anderson said a prison on the Mescalaro Reservation in New Mexico was closed two weeks ago because of "public safety concerns."

"There is no reason why these conditions needed to exist," he said.

People die on a daily basis in prisons worldwide...there is only outrage when there is a political agenda to be outraged....And you know, nothing (even death) could be worse than having to wear some women's panties over one's head.

depends which womans panties are being donned on your head. if they are some big old lady's (golden girls) that look like a clipper ship sail on the clothesline well then yes, i chose death.

if they are the (cotton) thong of say,,, anna kournikova, after a hard fought 6 set match, im in. my hands are in my pockets, and im breathing through my nose whilst they are sinched up around my neck.

You'd ordinarilly have to pay good money for that....