USA: dogs used to terrorize prisoners

From CrimProf Blog in the USA:

The U.S. Lets the Dogs Out on Domestic Prisoners

From reuters.com/talkleft.com: Dogs are allowed to terrify and even bite unruly prisoners who refuse to leave their cells in five U.S. states, a human rights group report recently stated, comparing the policy to abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

If prisoners refuse to leave their cells when ordered in Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota and Utah, officers may bring a dog to the cell “to terrify the prisoner into compliance,” the 20-page report said.

If an inmate still refuses, the dog is allowed to bite.

As the prisoner struggles to fend it off, officers restrain and then remove the prisoner from the cell, the report said.

“In some prisons … the institutional culture permits cell extractions simply to show inmates ‘who’s in charge’ or to retaliate against defiant inmates, even if there is no real emergency,” the report said.

Britain: Blair’s Secretary Blunkett wanted shoot to kill in prisons.

Britain: deaths in custody.

Australian prisons with Abu Ghraib style hoods: here.

Related articles

• Caged in the USA: Torture in America’s many prisons (indybay.org)