The ACLU also today made public a powerful new Web-based search engine that allows users to comb through and analyze the massive number of documents released as a result of the ACLU's lawsuit. This is the first time this important set of documents has been made easily searchable and available to journalists, scholars and the public.
The report will be filed in May with the U. N. Committee Against Torture for its review of U. S. compliance with the Convention Against Torture.
According to the ACLU report, violations of the torture treaty are not limited to actions by military personnel overseas in the "war on terror," but in fact are all too common here at home. In a stark example of the horrific conditions of confinement that persist in prisons throughout the country, more than 1,000 prisoners were abandoned and left in their cells for days without food, water or ventilation when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005. Abusive conditions of confinement also persist in so-called Supermax prisons: prison rape and sexual assault are daily occurrences, and the use of Tasers and restraint devices have endangered numerous detainees and prisoners held domestically.
"Too often, the 2.2 million men, women and children in our nation's prisons and jails are exposed to disgusting living conditions and grossly inadequate medical and mental health care," said Elizabeth Alexander, Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. "The dangerous use of restraint chairs and electroshock weapons, as well as the failure to protect prisoners from sexual assault, is far too common. It is particularly shocking that federal law makes it difficult to redress many of the human rights violations in the courts."
The report makes numerous recommendations to fix the problem.
- Amending and passing laws to criminalize torture;
- Ensuring that international monitoring bodies have access to all prisoners and detainees in U.S. custody;
- Ending secret detentions and the policy of extraordinary rendition;
- Bringing the conditions under which prisoners and detainees are held into conformity with the treaty;
- Investigating and ending the use of dangerous and cruel restraint methods;
- Investigating prison rape and sexual assault;
- Conducting timely and independent investigations of all allegations of torture and abuse of persons in U.S. custody; and,
- Holding accountable all perpetrators of torture and abuse.
