November, 16 2010, 01:53pm EDT
![ACLU](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012694/origin.png)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Will Matthews, ACLU, (212) 549-2582 or 2666; media@aclu.org
Booth Gunter, Southern Poverty Law Center, (334) 956-8354; booth.gunter@splcenter.orgÂ
ACLU And Southern Poverty Law Center File Federal Lawsuit Challenging Inhumane Conditions At For-Profit Youth Prison
Youth Incarcerated At Mississippi Facility Subjected To Physical Abuse And Denied Basic Educational And Medical Services
JACKSON, MS
The
American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and
Jackson civil rights attorney Robert B. McDuff today filed a federal
class-action lawsuit against the for-profit operators of the Walnut
Grove Youth Correctional Facility (WGYCF), charging that the children
there are forced to live in barbaric and unconstitutional conditions and
are subjected to excessive uses of force by prison staff. The lawsuit
was filed on behalf of all the teenagers and young men in the facility.
Among the named defendants in the
lawsuit are the Walnut Grove Correctional Authority and the Geo Group,
Inc., which is the second-largest private prison company in the country.
The facility houses youth between the ages of 13 and 22 who have been
tried and convicted as adults, more than two-thirds of whom are
incarcerated for non-violent offenses.
"Lawmakers deciding to send children
as young as 13 into the adult criminal justice system is a symptom of
our nation's addiction to mass incarceration," said Margaret Winter,
Associate Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. "Studies show
that young people diverted into the adult criminal justice system are
far more likely to re-offend than those treated as juveniles. And it
ratchets up the likelihood of bad outcomes when the law commits kids to
prisons run by profit-driven corporations that skimp on basic
supervision and services to squeeze out more profit, leading to the
kinds of suicides, rapes and beatings that are commonplace at WGYCF."
The lawsuit describes a facility
known for its culture of violence and corruption. Some prison staff
exploit youth by selling drugs inside the facility or by entering into
sexual relationships with them. Staff members savagely beat young
prisoners who are handcuffed and defenseless, or spray them with
chemicals when they are locked in their cells.
WGYCF, which opened in 2001, was
constructed with over $41 million of taxpayer money. Since then, the
Mississippi legislature has tripled the size of the facility, leading to
significantly increased profits for Geo Group.
"The Mississippi legislature
established WGYCF with the hope that the young men housed there would be
provided a second chance," said Sheila Bedi, Deputy Legal Director of
SPLC. "Unfortunately, private prison companies prioritized their profits
over the well being of Mississippi's youth. As a result, the young men
imprisoned in this facility endure unspeakable abuses at a tremendous
cost to Mississippi's taxpayers."
According to the lawsuit, one young
man was tied to his bunk for over 24 hours, brutally raped and sexually
assaulted after prison staff failed to heed his pleas for protection.
Other youth have suffered multiple stabbings and beatings, including one
youth who will live with permanent brain damage as a result of an
attack in which prison staff were entirely complicit.
Michael McIntosh, the father of a
young man who was incarcerated at the facility and a founder of Friends
and Family of Youth Incarcerated at Walnut Grove, a coalition of
individuals who advocate for the youth at WGYCF, said, "Because of the
abuse my son suffered at WGYCF, he will live with permanent brain damage
for the rest of his life."
A copy of the lawsuit is available online at: www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights-racial-justice/cb-et-al-v-walnut-grove-correctional-authority-et-al-complaint
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
New AFL-CIO Guide Shows How Trump Agenda Would Be 'Catastrophic' for Workers
"A second Trump term would put everything we've fought for—good jobs, fair wages, healthcare, retirement security, worker safety—on the chopping block," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler.
Jul 19, 2024
The U.S.' largest labor union federation on Thursday launched a comprehensive new online guide detailing how Project 2025—the far-right initiative to boost the power of the presidency and purge the federal civil service—would threaten worker rights and well-being under a second administration of former Republican President Donald Trump.
"We are deeply concerned about pro-corporate policies that would drive up costs, put people out of work, endanger people's lives, and make it harder for working people to get ahead," the AFL-CIO—which endorsed Biden last year—said in a statement. "For unions, this agenda would make it tougher for members to win gains in our next contracts and stack the deck in favor of CEOs."
Trump has recently tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and appeal to working-class voters by announcing Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate and inviting International Brotherhood of Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien's to speak at this week's Republican National Convention—but progressives and labor advocates are calling "bullshit."
The AFL-CIO guide highlights how Project 2025 would "be catastrophic for working people," including by:
- Banning unions for public service workers (page 82);
- Firing civil service workers and replacing them with Trump anti-union loyalists (page 80);
- Letting bosses eliminate unions mid-contract (page 603);
- Letting companies stop paying overtime (page 592) and allowing states to opt out of federal overtime and minimum wage laws (page 605);
- Eliminating child labor protections (page 595); and
- Urging Congress to pass Sen. JD Vance's bill to let employers create their own sham company-run unions (page 599).
"In his first term as president, Donald Trump was a disaster for workers and our unions, governing exclusively for the wealthy and well-connected," AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said in a statement Thursday.
"The Trump Project 2025 Agenda lays out his plan to turbocharge his anti-worker policies, eliminate or control unions, and eviscerate labor laws and workers' contracts," she continued. "A second Trump term would put everything we've fought for—good jobs, fair wages, healthcare, retirement security, worker safety—on the chopping block.
"This new online tool is an essential part of our massive voter education campaign to reach every union household with critical information about the stakes of this election," Shuler added. "Union voters could be the difference-makers in this election, and the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions have a plan to mobilize tens of thousands of grassroots activists across every community to get the message out and vote."
"Union voters could be the difference-makers in this election."
While Trump has dubiously attempted to distance himself from the far-right Project 2025 by claiming he knows "nothing" about it or "who is behind it," at least 140 people who worked in his administration helped draft the initiative's policy document, according to a CNN review.
Furthermore, Trump's campaign has
acknowledged that Agenda 47, "the only official comprehensive and detailed look at what President Trump will do if he returns to the White House," aligns well with Project 2025. According to a survey published last week by the progressive messaging firm Navigator Research, a majority of Americans believe that Project 2025 represents what Trump stands for.
During his rambling Republican National Convention speech accepting the GOP nomination Thursday night, Trump—during whose tenure the offshoring of U.S. jobs increased—said United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain should lose his job for letting automakers build factories in countries including Mexico.
"The United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen, and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump, because we're going to bring back car manufacturing and we're going to bring it back fast," Trump said.
UAW—which
endorsed Biden in January—hit back on social media, calling Trump a "scab and a billionaire."
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8 More Democrats in Congress Urge Biden to Step Aside
"It is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders," four congressmen said in a joint statement. "We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy."
Jul 19, 2024
Seven Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one senator on Friday added their voices to growing calls for President Joe Biden to step aside as the party's candidate to face former Republican President Donald Trump in the November election.
"Our country faces an existential threat this November," Congressman Sean Casten (D-Ill.) wrote in a Chicago Tribune opinion piece. "In the conversations I've had with the folks it is my privilege to represent, there is tremendous fear about this moment. People wonder whether our nation—and indeed, our world—can survive another Trump administration."
"If the upcoming election is a referendum on past performance, future promises, and character, I have every confidence Biden would win," Casten continued. "But politics, like life, isn't fair. And as long as this election is instead litigated over which candidate is more likely to be held accountable for public gaffes and 'senior moments,' I believe that Biden is not only going to lose but is also uniquely incapable of shifting that conversation."
"It is with a heavy heart and much personal reflection that I am therefore calling on Biden to pass the torch to a new generation," he added. "To manage an exit with all the dignity and decency that has guided his half-century of public service. To cement his legacy as the president who saved our democracy in 2020 and handed it off to trusted hands in 2024 who could carry his legacy forward."
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) on Friday explained his new call for Biden to step aside in a series of posts on X, while Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) released a lengthy statement, which was dated for Thursday.
Four other House Democrats—Reps. Jesús G. "Chuy" GarcÃa (Ill.), Jared Huffman (Calif.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Marc Veasey (Texas)—issued a joint statement urging 81-year-old Biden to withdraw from the presidential contest.
"Mr. President, with great admiration for you personally, sincere respect for your decades of public service and patriotic leadership, and deep appreciation for everything we have accomplished together during your presidency, it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders," they said. "We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy, protect our alliances and the rules-based international order, and continue building on the strong foundation you have established over the past few years."
"We must face the reality that widespread public concerns about your age and fitness are jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign. These perceptions may not be fair, but they have hardened in the aftermath of last month's debate and are now unlikely to change," they warned. "We believe the most responsible and patriotic thing you can do in this moment is to step aside as our nominee while continuing to lead our party from the White House."
Since the debate, Biden has faced public and reported private pressure to "pass the torch" from a growing number of Democratic lawmakers, public figures, and organizers. Many of the members of Congress have been white "moderates," while leading progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have stuck with the president.
"Democrats have a deep and talented bench of younger leaders, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who you have lifted up, empowered, and prepared for this moment."
Notably, GarcÃa, Huffman, and Pocan are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. GarcÃa is also part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus—whose political arm formally endorsed Biden on Friday morning. Veasey is the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus to openly urge the president to step aside.
"Democrats have a deep and talented bench of younger leaders, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who you have lifted up, empowered, and prepared for this moment," the four congressmen said. Polling released Friday by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Harris would do a good job as president.
"Passing the torch would fundamentally change the trajectory of the campaign. It would reinvigorate the race and infuse Democrats with enthusiasm and momentum heading into our convention next month," they concluded. "Mr. President, you have always been our country and our values first. We call on you to do it once again, so that we can come together and save the country we love."
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) similarly argued in a Friday statement urging Biden to exit the race that "by passing the torch, he would secure his legacy as one of our nation's greatest leaders and allow us to unite behind a candidate who can best defeat Donald Trump and safeguard the future of our democracy."
After surviving an assassination attempt last weekend, Trump this week announced Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate and formally accepted the GOP nomination in a long, rambly speech at the Republican National Conventional in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Democratic National Convention is planned for August 19-22 in Chicago, Illinois, but the party is planning a "virtual roll call" among delegates to nominate Biden—who is currently isolating in Delaware due to a Covid-19 infection—before the event. Biden said Friday that he plans to be back on the campaign trail next week.
Heinrich is the third Senate Democrat to push Biden to withdraw, following Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.) on Thursday and Sen. Peter Welch (Vt.) last week. They are joined by over 20 other House members and various other current and former officials.
There is also the newly launched Pass the Torch campaign and fresh calls from the Step Aside Joe campaign sponsored by RootsAction.org, which started urging Biden to not seek reelection long before last month's disastrous debate.
"Twenty months ago, just after the 2022 midterm elections, we launched a campaign for Joe Biden to voluntarily be a one-term president, and the Step Aside Joe campaign has continued to urge that realism prevail over wishful thinking," the initiative said in a statement Friday. "As our country has faced the extremist Republican threat, we have persisted in pointing out that the Democratic Party needs a much stronger standard-bearer than Biden, someone capable of articulating a popular vision that could galvanize a solid electoral majority."
"It's sad, in fact tragic, that the party leadership has waited until just the last few days to publicly acknowledge what has long been apparent: Biden is unable to speak effectively or act decisively to counter the MAGA movement," the campaign added. "It shouldn't have taken a thoroughly disastrous debate performance to set off alarm bells. Long overdue, Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 race can open up vital possibilities that his candidacy has foreclosed."
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'Ticking Time Bomb': International Alarm as Poliovirus Found in Gaza Sewage
"Detecting the virus that causes polio in wastewater heralds a real health disaster," Gaza's health ministry said.
Jul 19, 2024
Poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples at six locations in the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization said on Friday, following announcements from both the Israel and Gaza health ministries.
Vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 was found in samples taken on June 23 from sites in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Public health authorities expressed grave concerns about the findings, which, though no cases have yet been discovered, raise the possibility of an outbreak of polio, a highly infectious disease that often causes paralysis and can be fatal.
"Detecting the virus that causes polio in wastewater heralds a real health disaster and exposes thousands of residents to the risk of contracting polio," Gaza's health ministry said in a statement.
Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician, toldAl Jazeera the presence of the poliovirus was a "ticking time bomb," especially given the lack of ability to isolate and care for people who contract the disease.
Haj-Hassan warned that it would be “catastrophic" if the disease spread among healthcare workers, given that the medical system has already been "annihilated by direct targeting, by abductions of healthcare workers, by [the] killing of healthcare workers."
Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst, called news of the presence poliovirus "absolutely shocking, stunning, [and] unthinkable" in a series of social media posts.
"The health crisis in Gaza has been catastrophic from the start," Scheindlin wrote, seemingly addressing Israelis. "If you're incapable of realizing that civilians should never have been in this situation, maybe the prospect of anyone getting polio, river to sea, where we are 'one epidemiological family,' will get through."
Yes, it's happened. Polio detected in #Gaza sewage. IDF wants all soliders vaccinated/boosted. Live btwn river & sea and scared? you should be. Know what wd work well? Stopping the war, immediate rehab of Gaza's health system & all civilian infrastructure 1/7 🧵
— Dahlia Scheindlin (@dahliasc) July 18, 2024
Conditions in Gaza have been ripe for an outbreak of infectious disease—the "perfect environment" for transmission, as WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier called it, citing "decimation of the health system, lack of security, access obstruction, constant population displacement, shortages of medical supplies, poor quality of water and weakened sanitation."
In late June, The Associated Pressreported on the nightmarish situation in Deir al-Balah, one of the areas where the poliovirus has since been discovered:
Children in sandals trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza's crowded tent camps for displaced families. People relieve themselves in burlap-covered pits, with nowhere nearby to wash their hands.
Polio, which can spread through contact with the stool of an infected person, has been eliminated from much of the world following the development of a vaccine in the early 1950s and a campaign by U.N. agencies that began in 1980. Still, it hasn't been eradicated globally, and there's been a resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years.
Gaza has been polio-free for 25 years and 95% of the population was vaccinated against the disease as of 2022, according to the WHO, though Haj-Hassan, the pediatrician, said that many Gazans, including newborns, have gone without vaccines or boosters for the last nine months.
The WHO said that it's working with other U.N. agencies and health authorities in Gaza to assess how much the poliovirus has spread and determine what measures may be needed, including a "prompt" vaccination campaign.
Combatting any infectious diseases will present challenges for Gaza's public healthcare system, which has been embattled and largely destroyed by Israeli forces. Only 16 out of the enclave's 36 hospitals are even partially functional, and only 45 of the 105 primary health care facilities are operational, according to the WHO.
The lack of medical care is part of a broader public health disaster, people on the ground in Gaza say.
"We're talking about a very grim medical reality," said Tareq Abu Azzoum, an Al Jazeera journalist reporting from Deir al-Balah, which faces severe overcrowding due to the roughly 700,000 displaced Gazans who have fled there.
Abu Azzoum cited Israeli military tactics as a reason for the dire conditions, arguing that the problems stem from attacks on "water wells, sanitation, and water waste treatment" and the blocking of "essential hygiene supplies."
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