The Daily Background

According to Human Rights Watch, Connecticut, Iowa, Delaware, Utah and South Dakota prisons allow the use of dogs to terrify prisoners and even assault them. Reuters reports:

“At Abu Ghraib, it was not intended for them to bite the prisoner. Here we’re using dogs to terrify. If the intimidation by the dog doesn’t work, then the dog goes in and bites,” said Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch director of U.S. programs.

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” a guard’s command in those states, “the dog is allowed to bite” the prisoner, according to HRW.

The report also concluded that “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.”

This practice is obviously outrageous and should be banned immediately. Allowing dogs to bite prisoners is not only calculated and intended to capitalize on terror, but quite clearly cruel and inhumane treatment. This is simply inappropriate. The American “correctional” system has never been a model for the rest of the world, but I would be interested to learn how long this type of activity has been going on.

Filed under: Human Rights, Z-TDB Blog