What's happening with those poor devils at Camp Xray ???

1 to 5 Star Rating guide for Germany's prisons.
For the discriminating, pampered criminal.

I see what we're doing wrong. We actually want to dissuade people from committing crimes by making prison a place they don't want to be...

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Sofia wrote:

Walter-- since you have first hand info, I am very curious to see how things worked in German prisons.

If one guard is responsible for transporting/controlling ten prisoners--you say he cannot tell them to kneel if he suspects there is about to be a problem? How did you control the population? How did you stop inmate fights? How did guards maintain control?

In Holland, we have one inmate in one cell - no shared cells - less chance of inmate fights (they're talking of changing that for the first time just now). Also less opportunity of inmates co-opting each other, teaching those in for the first time the tricks and the way of life, etc. Only place they could get into a fight is in the shared 'community room' (or whatever the euphemism for that is) - so the only place you need a greater number of guards to prevent such stuff is there. That probably leaves extra guards to make sure you dont have to transport ten prisoners on your own - or perhaps we just employ more guards relative to the number of prisoners.

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Sofia wrote:

1 to 5 Star Rating guide for Germany's prisons.
For the discriminating, pampered criminal.

I see what we're doing wrong. We actually want to dissuade people from committing crimes by making prison a place they don't want to be...

Note that crime rates in Holland and Germany are significantly lower than in the United States.

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Xray is more comfortable than Ft. Stewart, those detainees are lucky they aren't in the US military.

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Sure they are! The Government is putting them up for free at the Crook Hilton. They've even published a Guide Book of prisons with the best amenities--so they can commit their crime in a better locale.

Pathetic. You can pay for it if you want. No way in hell I will. I guess this is another major difference in the US and Europe....

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I dont care much for retaliation - I just want them to keep the crime rate low. Whatever it takes. And specifically keep first-offenders from becoming oft-offenders. There's nothing much to cheer about on those things as it is, fersure - but the US example surely does NOT seem like the one to follow, on either count.

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I've worked in an old style prison, built in "star shape" (it doesn't look like that any more, modernised now a lot).
Inside only livelongs or at least with more than 4 years (plus some dozens of "security guarded = livelong prisoners, who are released but have to stay under custody by court order, a "German speciality").
Usuall two share one room of at least 16 m².
They are inside their rooms at special times - or by disciplinary order (prison directors must have judge qualifications, their deputies as well).

Prisons here are thought to be the place for educating imprisoned for a life without crime - besides, of course, for 'punishing' them.

Interestingly re your link above, the Hamburg prison "Santa Fu" is known to be the worst in Germany - re staff and imprisoned.

LINK to the prison, I worked in. (Well, it doesn't say much, just the pic and lots of general information about our state's law system)

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Hey, there's movement at the station
word has got around
that prisoners at camp Xray
are human

Quote:

Hicks okay, given circumstances: lawyer
By North America correspondent Leigh Sales

The Australian lawyer representing alleged Taliban fighter David Hicks says his client has been treated well by the US military at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Stephen Kenny is the first independent lawyer to visit Guantanamo since the detention facility was established.

He says his client was extremely happy to see him.

"If I remember correctly, I think I said to him, 'g'day mate', and he looked at me and said, 'Steve Kenny', and I went 'yes'," Mr Kenny said.

Mr Kenny has not seen all the evidence against Mr Hicks but believes his client will face a charge related to conspiracy.

He retains serious doubts that his client will receive a fair trial.

"It appears to me that Saddam Hussein is going to be afforded a trial that represents a fairer system of justice than what David Hicks will receive," Mr Kenny said.

Mr Kenny says Guantanamo is a physical and moral black hole but that Mr Hicks has been treated well by staff.

"He's not been ill-treated since his arrival in Guantanamo Bay, if you ignore the isolation, his lack of access to the outside world and his denial of his basic human rights," he said.

Mr Kenny and Pentagon defence lawyer Major Michael Mori met Mr Hicks for up to six hours a day for five days.

Mr Kenny is prevented by the Pentagon from disclosing many details of their discussions but says Mr Hicks is in good mental and physical shape.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1012316.htm

So it is the conspiracy "catch all". The charge you use when you haven't a sustainable charge but are determined to convict. Don't believe me? Read this:

Quote:

Other controversial aspects of conspiracy laws include the modification of the rules of evidence and the potential for a dragnet. A statement of a conspirator in furtherance of the conspiracy is admissible against all conspirators, even if the statement includes damaging references to another conspirator, and often even if it violates the rules against hearsay evidence. The conspiracy can be proved by circumstantial evidence. Any conspirator is guilty of any substantive crime committed by any other conspirator in furtherance of the enterprise.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/co/conspira.html

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Surprised nobody posted this yet:

Quote:

Appeals court: Guantanamo prisoners should have access to lawyers, U.S. court system

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3750672/
The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court ruled Thursday for the first time that prisoners held at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba should have access to lawyers and the American court system.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 decision was a rebuke to the Bush administration. [..]

"We cannot simply accept the government’s position," [Judge Stephen] Reinhardt continued, "that the Executive Branch possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their confinement."

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Related story, breaking simultaneously. Padilla has been arrested and accused; so we know what he's accused of having done, and so does he. But, defined an "enemy combatant", he too has been shifted from one legal context to another with less rights, excluding for example the right to meet with one's lawyer, on the orders of the Administration - and is now ordered back up by the court.

Quote:

Court: U.S. citizen isn't 'enemy combatant'
Appeals court's ruling could shift Jose Padilla's case to civilian courts

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3748660/
MSNBC staff and wire reports

NEW YORK - President Bush does not have power to detain an American citizen seized on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday in a decision that could force a man held in a "dirty bomb" plot to be tried in civilian courts.

In a 2-to-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the detention of Jose Padilla was not authorized by Congress and that Bush could not designate Padilla as an enemy combatant without the authorization. [..]

The court directed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to release Padilla from military custody within 30 days, but said the government was free to transfer him to civilian authorities who can bring criminal charges. [..]

Padilla’s lawyer, Donna Newman, told MSNBC TV that the ruling was "a big victory for the American people" because it upholds the rights of every citizen to confront their accuser in a court of law.

Newman has battled in court to be able to meet with Padilla; she has not done so since he was designated an enemy combatant the month after he was arrested.

Chris Dunn, a staff attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union [said] "It's a repudiation of the Bush administration's attempt to close the federal courts to those accused of terrorism,"

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This was just discussed on "The News Hour." I think both are wonderful decisions in favour of civil rights, but I shudder to contemplate what the USSC will make of them.

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Scrat wrote:

ebrown_p - Ah, I see the problem now: You seem to think that an un-uniformed, armed combatant captured during war has the same rights as an American teen arrested for D&D. I would challenge you to explore this belief, as I believe it is flawed and not supported either by facts or law.

You do not see the problem. Your contentions are so ridiculous I am embarrassed for you.

An armed combatant has rights under the Geneva Convention. An American brat has rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.

Read if you are able http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

The problem we are discussing is the failure of the US regime to allow these prisoners any rights.The regime describes them as criminals who fall outside the scope of the Geneva Convention. Now if that be true we must consider what jurisdiction applies. Let me suggest that your regime's insistence that it has a right to prosecute and punish is a de facto claim that the mysterious crimes are within the jurisdiction of the US.

The claim serves part of the interest of the US regime but there is an unfortunate ill effect. There is a meritorious argument that persons incarcerated under US jurisdiction are entitled to the rights usually afforded to defendants in that jurisdiction. This is most inconvenient to the regime. It means that they too will have to proceed according to law. That was never their attention.

Hence the travesty of justice which has become known as camp xray.

Please do not be offended by my use of the term regime. It is not my usual method of referring to the US adminisration but seems appropriate when referring to its brutish actions.

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nimh wrote:

Surprised nobody posted this yet:

Really? :wink:

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Meanwhile, the court ruling on Jose Padilla's release reminds us that the Bush administration isn't having an honest disagreement about rights with the rest of the world. José Padilla was a US citizen captured on American soil and detained for 18 months without a trial. In his case, it's clear that he was not captured in the battlefield of a war. And since he's a US citizen, it's clear he has the right not to be held in prison without a trial.

If the Bush administration cared about rights and just disagreed what these rights are, you would expect it to behave differently when the rights of the detainee are clear. They didn't act differently. This strikes me as a strong reason to believe they don't give a damn about due process and human rights -- at Guantanamo bay and in mainland USA.

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These are two wonderful decisions, White House statements to the contrary not withstanding (though predictable).

They are wonderful in two ways. First, the reassertion that the state has a moral and legal duty to maintain certain principles of human/civil rights for anyone captured and incarcerated.

Even more importantly, to my mind, is the explicit negation of this administrations' conception of governance, which seems to consider checks as egregious impediments and balances as anti-Americanism run rampant.

The unilateralism it has insisted on in foreign policy, with the attendant disdain for international agreements and standards, has corollaries in domestic policy as well, most objectionable (to my mind) in justice matters, and in the desired relegation of congress to a 'yes, master' cheering section. But one can argue that the same mindset is noted in other matters as well, as in environmental issues.

We will see, here on this board and elsewhere, voices claiming that either of these two judicial findings are but further examples of 'judicial activism', and of the 'liberal' inability to face the 'realities of war'.

I orginally responded to such voices with curiosity - how could anyone be so philosophically and historically dull regarding the designed structure of their own government? But my response has evolved now to no small degree of loathing.

Clearly, some percentage in any population will do exactly the wrong things in a time of confusion or travail. They will circle the wagons, they will shrink themselves so that whoever is in charge looks as big and wise as daddy, and they'll start shooting anything that moves when told to do so - when told that evil lurks all about.

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Thomas wrote:

Meanwhile, the court ruling on Jose Padilla's release reminds us that the Bush administration isn't having an honest disagreement about rights with the rest of the world. José Padilla was a US citizen captured on American soil and detained for 18 months without a trial. In his case, it's clear that he was not captured in the battlefield of a war. And since he's a US citizen, it's clear he has the right not to be held in prison without a trial.

If the Bush administration cared about rights and just disagreed what these rights are, you would expect it to behave differently when the rights of the detainee are clear. They didn't act differently. This strikes me as a strong reason to believe they don't give a damn about due process and human rights -- at Guantanamo bay and in mainland USA.

*Wham* (sound of hammer striking nail and driving it all the way into board with one blow)

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A talk with Donna Newman--Padilla's atty...

She's willing to cite chapter and verse from her legal arguments challenging the government's authority to declare Padilla an enemy soldier even though, in her words, "he never was a member of any military." And she's willing to discuss at length the fact that, as a result of that decision, the government asserts the authority to hold Padilla indefinitely and without charges, even challenging her right to serve as his attorney.

The one thing she will not discuss, however, is the man himself. Who is Jose Padilla, now known as Abdullah al Muhajir? How did this pudgy Catholic kid from Brooklyn, a one-time juvenile delinquent with a hip-hop attitude and a record of street crime, end up in a military jail in South Carolina, a prisoner of war suspected of conspiring with al Qaeda to build a so-called dirty bomb - a crude radioactive weapon - to explode it on the streets of Washington, D.C., or elsewhere?

Newman has no patience with questions about the man himself. "It is" she says flatly, "irrelevant." The story of Jose Padilla, she says, should begin no earlier than his apprehension on May 8 at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. It should focus, she contends, not on his alleged misdeeds as a youth, but on the complex legal issues that arise from his detention now.

"The fact is, in this country there are people who come from a variety of backgrounds and personalities, histories. The point of the matter is it's not what he did before. It's not who he is. It's the fact that he's an American citizen and his rights are being violated."
----------------------
Its also the fact that he's a dirty little criminal, who tried to blow up Americans. Thank God he was too stupid.

This is the hero you want to protect?

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No, sophia, it is you we wish to protect.

Your president is 'a dirty little criminal' - cocaine use. So, what consequences ought to follow from that in how we regard him, in what rights we ought to allow or disallow him?

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That's my take too, blatham. Screw Padilla. Protect me from losing all rights because some creep fabricates a story, some security system decides I look too much like someone else, or an airline decides I fit some particular profile.

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Sofia wrote:

This is the hero you want to protect?

No Sofia. It is checks, balances, and the rule of law I want to protect. If Bush and his clique succeed at perforating these, America's war of independance was faught in vain. I'd hate to see that happen. Obviously, opinions differ, and you are under no obligation to care about the foundation on which America is built. Nevertheless, I find it ironic that it's mostly American flag-wavers who applaud those who erode this foundation, while it's evil-doing foreigners from old Europe who protect them in this thread.

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What's happening with those poor devils at Camp Xray ???

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