Friday, November 12, 2021

Are the 1/6 insurrectionists generating some Karma at the D.C. jail?



Karma (informal): destiny or fate, following as effect from cause

In a strange article about the jail where some of the 1/6 traitors are being held, Problems at D.C. Jail Were Ignored Until Jan. 6 Defendants Came Along, reports of prisoner abuse, sewage leaks and other nasty things are being reported. State and local jail conditions in the US tend to range from bad to awful. Arguably, the situation is immoral, a national disgrace and definitely not Christian. Something is amiss and has been for a long, long time.


Jail cell at a for-profit facility in Mississippi[1]
(that's human blood on the floor)

The New York Times writes:
For several months, a few dozen men being held without bail in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol have loudly and repeatedly complained about conditions at the District of Columbia jail.

Some, through their lawyers, have raised concerns about threats from guards, standing sewage, and scant food and water. A federal judge recently held top jail officials in contempt after they delayed prompt medical care for a Capitol defendant in their custody. Just last week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, visited the jail and later likened the rioters inside to “prisoners of war,” suggesting that they had been mistreated because of their politics.

None of these allegations of neglect came as a surprise to local Washington officials, many of whom have complained about conditions at the jail for years.

“Recent reports about squalid conditions in the district jails are unfortunately not new,” Karl A. Racine, Washington’s attorney general, said at the hearing. Mr. Racine went on to say that “concerns about conditions at the jail received little attention until they were raised by mostly white defendants accused of perpetrating the Jan. 6 insurrection.”

While the 40 or so Capitol rioters housed at the jail are only a fraction of the roughly 1,400 inmates being held there altogether, their complaints about the place — which began almost immediately — have received outsize publicity. 

In September, as complaints about the jail increased in volume, a onetime campaign aide for former President Donald J. Trump held a rally in Washington in support of the defendants, billing the event as “Justice for J6.” But even though many on the right routinely refer to the rioters in custody as “political prisoners” (and to the section of the jail where they are kept as “the patriot wing”), few people — and almost no top Republican officials — attended the gathering in their honor.

After a report by the marshals was released, complaints by the riot inmates, if anything, got louder. In late October, a “cry for help” by one of the defendants, Nathan DeGrave, was released on Twitter. It referred to the D.C. jail as “Gitmo” and accused jail officials of subjecting the “Jan 6ers” to “psychological and mental abuse.”  
Patrice Sulton, the executive director of the DC Justice Lab, an organization that advocates criminal justice reform, said she was particularly frustrated that it took complaints from the recently arrived Jan. 6 defendants, most of whom are white, to get the authorities to focus on the plight of detainees at the jail, almost all of whom are Black.

“It just doesn’t sit well,” Ms. Sulton said.
Those poor 1/6 anti-patriots, being held as political prisoners and psychologically and mentally abused at the American Gitmo slammer facility in D.C. The horror. The horror. But on the bright side, maybe some Karma will flow from the traitor's complaints, causing D.C. jail conditions to improve somewhat for the Black detainees. Or maybe not. 

The NYT article also points out that officials in D.C., who have been fully aware of the situation for years, are feigning surprise and ignorance about the rotten conditions in their jail facilities. It is sort of like the cockroaches scrambling for cover with the light switch is flipped on. 


What?? Bad conditions in my jail??
Impossible! I'm shocked!


Questions: 
1. Should bad jail conditions be improved or, as the company comments below, prisons are meant to be tough environments, like those shown in the photos?

2. Why might it be that a few 1/6 traitors in the D.C. jail seem to have been able to get some attention drawn to the conditions they are being held in, but for years efforts by others to get attention to this failed? (systemic racism, maybe?)


Footnote: 
1. That facility has been sued over the disgusting conditions there. The company running this hell hole defends itself:
Lawyers for the state and representatives of Management & Training say prisons are meant to be tough environments, and that East Mississippi is no worse than most others.

“We can say — unequivocally — that the facility is safe, secure, clean, and well run,” Issa Arnita, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement released during the trial. “From the warden on down, our staff are trained to treat the men in our care with dignity and respect. Our mission is to help these men make choices in prison and after they’re released that will lead to a new and successful life in society.”
I bet that the East Mississippi hell hole is no worse than most others in that state, maybe in most or all other states too. From the photos that accompanied that article (see below and above), one can safely say that the facility is extremely dangerous, not secure, filthy, and barely run at all. The prisoners there have to make crude weapons to defend themselves from attacks by other prisoners because the guards are nowhere on the scene (coffee and donuts time for the guards!).


East Mississippi correctional facility
(that does not look to be very correctional)


It speaks for itself

No comments:

Post a Comment