US capitalism at home, more in prison and tortured.

The governor of New York state recently set up a task force to look into its juvenile prison system. It was headed by Jeremy Travis, President of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This came three months after a federal investigation found that excessive force was routinely used at four prisons in the state, resulting in injuries as severe as broken bones and shattered teeth. Now according to the new report the problems found by the federal investigation at the four prisons are endemic to the entire system which imprisons about 900 young people at 28 locations. There is no reason to think that the conditions in New York State are not replicated across the nation.

The US has a higher proportion of its population in prison than any other country in the world. This "land of the free" holds the world record for imprisoning its own citizens. And we get more and reports such this one from New York that the conditions in the prisons are ferociously repressive. We need to be blunt. What we are talking about here in the New York juvenile system, broken bones and shattered teeth, this is torture.

In fact the US prison population is subject to torture on a systemic fashion. The land of the free is the land with the highest proportion of its population in prison and the conditions in these prisons amount to torture. The New York Times report says that: "New York's prison system of juvenile prisons is broken, with young people battling mental illness or addiction held alongside violent offenders in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education." The same commentator in the New York Times reported that the problems are so bad that the state agency responsible for overseeing the prisons has asked New York's family court judges not to send any more youth to them unless they are a significant risk to public safety.

US imperialism is stomping around the world claiming to be bringing democracy and human rights. This is lying propaganda. It is stomping around the world to try and seize and control the world's resources and maintain its power against its rivals and to keep its eye on and help keep down the working class both at home and internationally. In its own country it has more of its population imprisoned than in any other country, the conditions they are held in is torture, none of us should be fooled. If US capitalism was a humane system which could solve peoples problems it would be solving them in its own backyard rather than imprisoning over 2 million of its own citizens in conditions of torture.

Sean