Feds Sue Mississippi Over Alleged Abuse

[Judi Lynn]

Feds Sue Mississippi Over Alleged Abuse

Thursday December 18, 2003 5:31 PM


By JONATHAN D. SALANT

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department filed a civil rights lawsuit Thursday against the state of Mississippi, alleging abuse of juvenile offenders at two state-run facilities. Some youths were tied to poles or forced to eat their own vomit, prosecutors said.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said negotiations between federal and state officials failed to address the problems identified in a year-long federal investigation of the Oakley Training School in Raymond and the Columbia Training School in Columbia.

Oakley houses about 325 boys and Columbia houses about 200 boys and girls. Most are non-violent offenders.

Among the abuses uncovered: suicidal girls were stripped and placed in solitary confinement in a dark cell with only a drain for a toilet, boys were forced to run with mattresses strapped to their backs, girls who threw up while running in the heat were forced to eat their vomit, and youths were tied to poles or hog-tied. (snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3522527,00.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Holy shit!

Here are additional links to the investigation. I am currently searching this to see if this group is connected in any way to the SCARED STRAIGHT group:

Many instances of abuse here..apparently this story has been around a while:
http://www.parentsunitedtogether.com/page78.html

Girls are punished in the military field by being forced to run with automobile tires around their bodies or carrying logs.

Girls reported being forced to eat their own vomit if they threw-up while exercising in the hot sun.

Unconstitutional abusive disciplinary practices such as hog-tying, pole-shackling, improper use and overuse of restraints and isolation, staff assaulting youth, and OC/pepper spray abuse.

Youth who are re-committed are taken to one of the isolation rooms in the intake area and punched and slapped by staff as punishment for being re-committed.


http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0307/28/ma03.html


The report said pepper spray was used for punishment when young people showed suicidal behavior or did not exercise or perform military drills. It said one girl was sprayed after she complained of the heat and had trouble keeping up with a group during exercise on a parade field.

It said boys were sometimes punished by being forced to run around tables for hours with mattresses on their backs.

"Girls are punished in the military field by being forced to run with automobile tires around their bodies or carrying logs," the report said. "Girls reported being forced to eat their own vomit if they throw up from exercising in the hot sun."

The report said there was no rehabilitative value to the exercises, many of which were "cruel and demeaning."

Justice Department workers also found unsanitary kitchen conditions at Oakley, including mouse droppings and cockroaches.

http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/topic/19708.html

Somebody please tell me what distinguishes Saddam's treatment of prisoners with this...why aren't we bombing Mississippi for freedom loving people? (no offense to Miss. DU'ers)

[Judi Lynn]

3. You have to wonder how long they've REALLY known about it?

Why now? What's different now, than in 1996, when they ALSO knew about it in Mississippi? I noted some of the information in the collection you posted goes back to 1996, NSMA.

For one thing, NOW Mississippi has a DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR! I don't think for a moment the same Attorney General John Ashcroft, who's hot to rewrite the Constitution concerning individual human rights gives a hang, do you? Right now, it's politically advantageous to the Republican party to pinpoint, suddenly, some atrocities going on in Mississippi which are known to extend backwards for years.

These things do need to be stopped immediately, absolutely. I have to wonder why John Ashcroft didn't bust a move BEFORE NOW!

[Melodybe]

4. Um, our Gov. Is Haley Barbour and Bush himself came to campaign for him

So he is most definitely a Repub. I am so disgusted by him that I could vomit. He is a racist asshole. One of my old Professors has a photocopy of his Ole Miss frat picture. He was an Alpha Sigma Sigma (an ASS, he he actually an AZZ but it is still funny) in the blurb underneath the picture, I shit you not, it has a part saying that the frat wants to "preserve the dignity of the white race!" He beat out incumbent Democrat Ronnie Musgrove.

Your arguments on the backasswardness of Mississippi are correct though, but I find myself reminding people not from MS, that just because we have plenty of completely stupid folks here, there are plenty of us that are very intelligent and totally liberal. The definition of pragmatism is going up with hippie/activist parents in rural Mississippi.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. True..I feel for you all..I actually love your state (cept for Repubs)

BTW, was this story ever big out there? I still suspect that somehow SCARED STRAIGHT is involved in this...either staffing, training or otherwise, but found NO direct connection.

[Melodybe]

8. Unfortunately this is the first I have heard of it

but I don't watch too much local news. I only pay attention to the local news if a tornado is about to hit my house, sad but true.

This is disgusting but not really that surprizing. If you go to jail you DON"T want to go to jail here! Everyone that I know that has gone to jail comes back completely fucked up.

[AndyTiedye]

14. If That Many People You Know Have Gone To Jail

that sounds fucked up too.

[Melodybe]

16. I know about 7 people that have gone to jail.

None were people that I would say are my bestest buddies, but they are friends of my siblings or siblings of my friends or just people I knew from high school. However all of them went jail for having too much pot. Now they are all hooked on something worse or have real mental problems, the system is broken.

[jmcgowanjm]

21. Got that right n/t

[Judi Lynn]

6. Sorry, I forgot your last election, Melodybe

Or maybe I WANTED to forget it!

Since he just got in, Haley Barbour wouldn't be someone they could blame any of this on, of course!

With the _Bush administration in charge, you ALWAYS have to suspect the timing of any move they make, as in, it always seems to have an ulterior purpose.

Haley Barbour was implicated in taking contributions for the Republican Party from the Chinese, wasn't he? I believe I read this, but OF COURSE there was no real uproar about it, since the ones who raise hell, politically, were all on his team.

[seasat]

7. No doubt about this statement.

Melodybe Wrote:

So he is most definitely a Repub. I am so disgusted by him that I could vomit. He is a racist asshole.

I was visiting inlaws in MS over Thanksgiving. One is a rabid racist. While others supported Musgrove, she refused to vote for him because he apparently kissed a black candidate. Her words were, "I ain't voting for that n***** loving son of a bitch." Unfortunately, there is a lot of that attitude in the South. I grew up in South GA and while working in the local mall, a saleswoman at our store and I used to have great fun walking hand in hand around the mall like we were couple. She is black and I am white and it really boiled the blood of some of the racists there. I remember race riots at my junior high school in the early seventies during integration. The Repub claim that racism has been conquered is a lie. We've made great progress but to cleanse us of these underlying attitudes will take several generations and idiots like Barbour will do nothing but set us back.

[Melodybe]

9. His publicity signs were all up and down EVERY highway and road

They said and I quote, "Keep our flag, change the Gov." In case you didn't already know that our flag has the rebel stars and bars in the right corner. Black people were fucking pissed and so was I. I often wish that I could blame the e-voting for his victory but we use sharpie markers and paper ballots. I think you're right, JudiLyn, about the campaign contributions, I have a vague memory of a Musgrove commercial about it.

I feel for you seasat, luckily, I don't associate with the side of my family that says things like that.

[seasat]

10. She's just my wife's brother's spouse.

Her family is a bunch of hard right Repubs. The rest of my wife's family is pretty cool. My father-in-law and wife's sister's family are Democrats and not full of it like her. They don't realize that attitudes like that are what hold back the progress in MS. My personal opinion on racisism is that it allows weak people to blame other for their problems so they don't have to deal with their own personal weaknesses. You here statements like "The n****** took my job through that afirmative action quota thing." Translation: "I'm too sorry to improve myself despite having every economic and personal advantage so I'll blame someone else instead of the real culprit, myself." The Repub's southern strategy is still at work on these folks.

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. Barbour doesn't take office until January

Musgrove is still governor until then.

http://www.governor.state.ms.us/

[Melodybe]

17. Damn really! Sorry JudiLyn, I am tramatized by the election and a dumbass

[Judi Lynn]

18. It's easy to grasp being horrified and thunderstruck by the election!

I'll never understand why he has been allowed to stay in American politics, considering how dirty he is:

(snip) It's "Howdy" Barbour Time

Tuesday, July 22nd, 1997 -- I can't remember the town in Mississippi from where Haley Barbour hails, it's something like Wazoo, or Kazoo -- or maybe Bozo.

But don't be fooled into thinking Barbour is a Yahoo.

As the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigation turns its guns on the Republican National Committee (RNC), this week promises to be more entertaining than the past two.

The star witness? Haley Barbour, the errant former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who is going to have a very tough time explaining his "think tank" -- National Policy Forum -- which appears to be more of a "laundry" for illegal foreign campaign contributions that the RNC could not take itself for fear of prosecution.

Democrats feel it's one thing to take money from people without adequately understanding the source, but quite another to actually set up a formal mechanism -- in this case, the National Policy Forum -- in order to change the character of the political donation.

Here was Barbour's plan, a plan he carried out according to several sources:

Barbour organized the National Policy Forum as a "non-profit educational corporation." On its face it appeared to be divorced from the RNC itself, but internal memos, including the resignation of a dissident top RNC official, point to the fact that one of the prime, if not the only reason, the National Policy Forum was established was to launder foreign contributions. (snip/...)

http://www.americanpolitics.com/072297HowdyBarbour.html

[jmcgowanjm]

19. Body Armor Cover Components-Yazoo City

Place of Performance

Federal Correctional Institution, UNICOR Federal Prison Industries, FCI Yazoo City, 2225 Hailey Barbour parkway, Yazoo City, MS 39194

Sounds right. Building prisons a growth industry
in the south.

Jay Atkinson, 27, of Yazoo City, said he has known Barbour his entire life. Atkinson, the owner of a used car business, said tort reform is one of the most important issues to him.

[Heddi]

2. I can't believe this is just getting news

I heard about this on NPR...three, four weeks ago.....???

[tlcandie]

11. HOLES.... anyone?

If they weren't in trouble before...they will be now! Absolutely disgusting.. :puke:

[MasonJar]

13. Now there is the pot calling the kettle black.

[loudnclear]

15. How much worse could Saddam have been?

When will they hold the US responsible for "crimes against humanity?"

[jmcgowanjm]

20. Arkansas' Alexander noted for suicides/ LA not any better, I bet

Everthing you need to know about MS./MS Delta.

Aggressive young state senator Charles Pickering became
chair in 1978, bringing in Yazoo City resident Haley
Barbour as executive director. Pickering (now a federal
judge whose son is our congressman) garnered 48%
of vote for attorney general, and was succeeded by
Greenville businessman Mike Retzer. Retzer's term
saw Cochran's election as Senator, and party growth
due to Reagan's popularity. In the 1980s, two white
women served as chairman of the state party--Ebbie
Spivey and Evelyn McPhail. Both reached out to convert Democrats, recruited good people as candidates, and
blasted the national Democrats as "liberals." McPhail
became Co-Chair of RNC under Mississippian
Haley Barbour.

http://www2.msstate.edu/~kauai/classes/southern/notes.html