It's time to close Arizona's Abu Ghraib-like supermax prison units [View All]

By CAROLINE ISAACS



It's time to close Arizona's Abu Ghraib-like supermax prison units

Prisoners locked in their cells 23 to 24 hours a day, alone, in sensory-deprivation conditions
for years on end. Routine strip searches. Roaches. Substandard medical care. Madness.

One prisoner wrote, "There have been a couple of times I've tried to end my life in here,
but they keep reviving me and bringing me back. When I asked why, I was told,
'You're not going to die on us; we're not through punishing you.'"

This is not a description of the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib.
It's a snapshot of life in the Arizona Department of Corrections' Special Management Unit, or SMU.

As the nation moves from the shock of witnessing photos of torture at Abu Ghraib to
calls for the closure of Gitmo, those of us familiar with prisons in the good ol' U.S.A.
can but shake our heads. The horrors in those facilities half a world away are not new,
and they're not reserved for suspected terrorists. They're just another U.S. export.

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