US Justice on Trial ("uncivilized)

http://counterpunch.com/ridley01062011.html


Why Cameron Should Tell Obama to Get Stuffed



America’s international standing as a fair and just country does not match its superpower status as the world's greatest democracy.

When it comes to basic human rights it is there in the gutter alongside some of the world's most toxic, tinpot dictatorships and authoritarian regimes.

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Having stepped inside US prisons – both military and civilian – I can tell you there is nothing civilized about the penal institutions in the United States.

Four days of filming inside Guantanamo and half a day at one of California’s largest young offenders prisons provided me with enough material to reach this conclusion, bearing in mind as a journalist I was just shown “the good bits”!

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I wondered how the US could really describe itself as a civilized, mature democracy.

And if you doubt my judgment here are a few statistics to play with in a prison system where 70 per cent of the inmates are non-whites.

* The US has a higher percentage of its citizenry in prison than any other country in history.

* 25 percent of the world’s prison population - around 2.3 million – are caged in America.

* More than a quarter of US inmates are black males between the ages of 20 and 39 and over the course of a lifetime, 28 percent of all black American men will have spent some time behind bars in what can only be described as a racist-driven judicial system.

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previously I have called our prison slavery system a triad but actually it is a quad.

cops/judges/prisons/Barons reaping in the money.