US jail practices are racist and an 'affront to human dignity,' UN experts say
US jail practices are racist and an 'affront to human dignity,' UN experts say
U.N. human rights experts have called for major reforms of the U.S. criminal justice system to combat systemic racism, citing testimonies that jailed Black women had been shackled during childbirth while male inmates were forced to work in "plantation-style" conditions.
In a report published on Thursday, three U.N.-appointed experts said they had found practices in U.S. prisons that amounted to "an affront to human dignity" in visits in April and May.
The U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva declined to comment. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said it was committed to ensuring the safety and security of incarcerated individuals as well as employees and the public.
One such practice is restraining and shackling women prisoners during childbirth, the report said.
The experts "heard, first hand, unbearable direct testimonies of pregnant women shackled during labour, who due to the chaining, lost their babies", it said. Asked to give details, a U.N. rights spokesperson referred to "several" cases and confirmed they all involved Black women.
I mean, honestly, this is a rather unfair assessment.
It's not just our jail system. It's pretty much the entire judicial system at every step of the way, from a traffic stop to eventual execution.
84our police/courts/corrections is an industry, unfortunately. Who knew that placing ever more profit motives on arresting, processing, and jailing people would end up leading to bad outcomes.
But, hey, it's just the unwashed the masses, so who cares, I guess.
22Stop and film.
Don't talk to the police.
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True about a lot of U.S. practices, especially those involving people of color.
54I very much don't disagree, but one of the reasons we hear about these issues in the US is that we have a much larger "minority" (meaning not the people in power, even if there is a plurality) population.
In places like South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, there's either a homogenous population where this doesn't make sense as a criticism or it's just not being reported on. There's huge amounts of racism all over the world.
The US and Canada have problems, but there are going to be pains as we identify and try to correct these racial injustices.
Remember: while colonialism and triangle trade slavery were the worst examples of racism, and the West invented that, it did not invent racism.
What it did invent was feeling bad about racism and trying to improve things.
This is not to defend or deflect anything. It's more that I find "consciousness raising" to be effective.
15I disagree. I think the reason why we hear about these stories is because the U.S. is supposed to be the 'land of the free' and the place for 'your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' And then it turns out that no, it's actually a shithole. And then it turns out that it's especially bad for minorities due to whatever specific situation the story is about. So I think you've kind of got it backwards.
17You have an okay point. Liberalism is good at advocating for certain issues, one being against racism and against the police state. I see this as an issue worth watching because the issues in some key prisons have gotten worse and more brazen in very recent years, not better.
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I get a deep sense of satisfaction every time a filthy 01/06 insurrectionist ends up in prison and whines about conditions.
Suck it up, buttercup. You were loving it when you thought it was just "those people".
35What happened on the 1st of June?
3No idea, it's just like people always going on about the 9th of November. Something about plane crashes i think?
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YOU DONT SAY
18The headline says "jail" but the article only refers to cases in prisons. I know the entire criminal justice system is messed up, but did this UN study specifically find both jails and prisons to be severely repressive and racist?
This is an important distinction because jail is where people wait pre-trail, meaning they typically have not yet been found to be guilty of the charges brought against them, while prison is where people who have been charged, found guilty and sentenced to prison will go. Jail is where a cop that decides to arrest someone for dubious reasons will take them, whether that's enforcing an unconstitutional law (such as flag desecration laws which is protected speech under federal caselaw), findings from a blatantly illegal search, or even they arrested the wrong person because they went to the wrong address to execute a warrant, or any number of other reasons
14That is a good distinction to make, but even convicted felons should be treated humanely.
4while prison is where people who have been charged, found guilty and sentenced to prison will go
Not strictly true, jails can also house those convicted of less serious crimes (say, less than 1yr), as well as temporarily awaiting transfer to other facilites.
Looks like the UN only visited jails in person, but interviewed people with a range of experiences. You can read the full report here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/09/systemic-racism-pervades-us-police-and-justice-systems-un-mechanism-racial
2Do other major countries use jails the way we do? 💀
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Unfortunately a lot of americans like it just the way it is. Nothing's going to get better without a lot of time, or a lot of conservatives ending up in the ground
7Hey now, how am I sposed to get my vengence boner stroked if there isn't someone's mugshot in the news for me to sneer at?
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Hi, how is everyone doing today ?
1I had a great fucking day today :3
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This just in: UN calls basketball referees racist due to their overwhelming calls against players of African American descent.
-17Let's say that there are roughly 3 times as many black players as white players. I have no idea what the actual percentages are, but for the sake of argument let's say the NBA is 60% black, 20% Hispanic or Latino, 15% white, and the last 5% is everybody not already mentioned.
If all players are playing roughly equivalently, but 90% of the calls were made against just the white players, would you have a problem with that? What if 95% of the referees are black?
Let's even throw a common racist counter point in there, and say that white players are more likely to commit a foul. Say each individual white player is 100% more likely to foul another player than his black teammates are. That would only account for 30% of the fouls and yet 90% of the calls are still made against white players.
Let's go on to say that white players are penalized so heavily that for anything that could even appear to be a foul, whether it is or not, other players go to the referee and complain about their white teammates actions. Leading to even more calls against white players.
What if just having a white sounding name like Justin or Matt was enough to prevent you from even being considered for the NBA draft?
5this was never gonna convince the racist garbage you responded to because they didn't arrive at their racism through reason. Their 'misunderstanding' of statistics is a post hoc justification for their racism. And any actual scientific analysis that disproves them would just be liberals twisting the simple statistics. As these things always go with fascists.
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