Report on Prison Abuse in US Jails to hit Congress by Mitch E. Perry
06/07/06
After a year of studying the problem of abuse and violence in U.S. Prisons, a Commission is poised to present its findings and recommendations to Congress tomorrow.
The report, called Confronting Confinement, details the impact of violence in prisons on public safety and public health, and how correctional facilities nationwide can become safer and more effective.
Members of the reviewing Committee, called the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, held 4 public meetings throughout the country last year, including 1 in Tampa.
Alex Busansky is the Executive Director of the Commission on Safety and Abuse (roll tape#1 o.q.� the street again�)
With a recidivism rate of 60%, and a national re-incarceration rate of 50%, Busanksy said the Commissioners asked as they approached their year long investigation: -how can we do things differently in our prisons?
As far as cleaning up the abuses by guards and others inside American prisons, Commission member Nick Katzenback, a former U.S. Attorney General, said it should be a test of the country’s moral character to want to clean up the problems inside prisons (roll tape#2 o.q.�another human being�)
But Katzenbach did say that one of most egregious things he learned while working on this commission was what happens with mentally ill prisoners (roll tape#3 o.q.�as anything but mentally ill�)
There are 30 recommendations in the final report.
Tim Ryan, runs the correctional department in Orange County, Florida He says that making sure that prisoners are ready to adapt to the civilian world is something that he has become more focused on in the past few years (roll tape#4 o.q.�positive as well�)
Pat Nolan is President of Prison Fellowship's Justice Fellowship and a member of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, and a former Republican leader in the California State Assembly who served 25 months in a federal prison on a racketeering charge said that every study shows that the most successful indicator of a safe and successful re-integration into society comes with those who have family members to return to. (roll tape#1 o.q.�families lives�)
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the report on Thursday afternoon..The report will be released on the Commission’s s website in the morning…That’s at prisoncommission.org
