Rally highlights U.S. prison abuses

On Aug. 13, Family Members and Friends of People Incarcerated—FMI—held a national demonstration here in Washington, D.C., to protest the imprisonment of more than 2 million people in the United States. Sister rallies took place in Seattle and in Lansing, Mich.

More than 300 lively protesters came out and voiced their grievances.

The demonstrators demanded “community investment and education, not incarceration.” More than 70 organizations, including the Southern Center for Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, endorsed the event.

Speaker after speaker railed against the growth in the U.S. prison population, the racist character of sentencing and the irrational drug policy in the United States.

According to FMI, 55 percent of the federal prison population consists of individuals serving time for a drug law violation. Given the rising prison population, the organizers are calling for the reversal of a 1987 act of Congress that abolished the federal parole system and replaced it with fixed mandatory sentences.

The U.S. incarceration rate is the highest in the world: 701 incarcerations per 100,000 of the population. During George W. Bush’s tenure as governor, Texas led the country in executions, with over 150 state-sponsored killings.

According to Bonnie Kerness of Prison Watch, “The criminal justice system works perfectly—just as slavery did.” This sentiment is confirmed by the racial disparities in sentencing and the deplorable treatment of inmates. People of color are far more likely to receive jail time and the death sentence than whites who commit the same crime.

A recent study commissioned by the University of Georgia indicates that the average sentence for Black defendants is more than twice that for whites. Latin@s experienced a similar disparity in sentencing compared to white convicts.

The inhumane treatment of prisoners inside U.S. jails is well documented. It includes mistreatment of mentally disabled prisoners, failure to provide HIV prevention and treatment options, and sexual violence against female inmates by prison staff.

The Aug. 13 demonstration was an oppor tunity to unite with those who have seen family members and loved ones strip ped of their freedom by a system plagued with racist discrimination and human-rights abuses—atrocities that U.S. prisons carry out in the name of “justice.”