Prisoner Abuse Ain’t Over

This week Human Rights Watch, in conjunction with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, is again calling attention to the treatment of prisoners in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. This isn't an update on the Orleans Parish Prison, where prisoners were left locked in their cells without food or water for days. This is a new story about the Jena Correctional Facility.

Interviews conducted on Tuesday by the two organizations revealed widespread claims of abuse against pretrial detainees who had been evacuated to Jena from Jefferson Parish Prison because of Hurricane Katrina. Every detainee but one of the 23 interviewed reported that he had been hit or kicked by the prison staff.

The claims are credible and serious enough to warrant an independent and comprehensive federal investigation to determine whether the human and civil rights of the detainees have been violated.

The detainees said that correctional officers at Jena slapped, punched, beat and kicked detainees and sprayed them unnecessarily and repeatedly with pepper spray. The detainees, primarily African-Americans, also described degrading treatment and racist language by the Louisiana state correctional officers, who were primarily white. . . .

Detainees evacuated to Jena because of Hurricane Katrina had no contact with the outside for the first two weeks they were there. They were not allowed to use the telephone until recently. After two weeks, they were given writing materials to send letters to their families, who had no idea where they were, if they were safe or whether they had survived the storm. But detainees reported that the correctional officers read their letters and refused to mail those that contained complaints about their treatment at Jena. One detainee said an officer ripped up his letter in front of him. None of the detainees have seen their attorneys.

There is much more. Also read the NY Times coverage.