Repost: (Whoopsy, been slackin' on these)

It's been too long since I reposted from the old blog. I remember just now because I was looking for something I knew I blogged about but it wasn't showing up when I searched--because it was on the old site. So, here's where I left off...(I'm not even sure myself what it is. Let's go look, shall we?)

From August 27, 2005

This was in my ACLU newsletter. Wanted to spread the word:

As the nation marks the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the ACLU’s National Prison Project released “Abandoned & Abused: Orleans Parish Prisoners in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina,” a report that documents the experiences of thousands of men, women and children who were abandoned at Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) in the days after the storm.

The culture of neglect was evident days before Katrina hit, when the sheriff declared that the prisoners would remain “where they belong,” despite the mayor’s decision to declare the city’s first-ever mandatory evacuation. OPP even accepted prisoners, including juveniles as young as 10, from other facilities to ride out the storm.

As the storm waters rose, deputies left their posts wholesale, leaving behind prisoners in locked cells, some standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests. Prisoners went days without food, water and ventilation.

After days of fear and chaos, the prisoners were finally evacuated by order of the state. The report follows the prisoners as they were transferred to jails and prisons around Louisiana, recounting how they were placed outdoors in a yard with inadequate food, medical care, and protection from other prisoners, many of whom were armed with makeshift weapons.

“The prisoners inside the Orleans Parish Prison suffered some of the worst horrors of Hurricane Katrina,” said Eric Balaban, a staff attorney for the National Prison Project. “Because society views prisoners as second-class citizens, their stories have largely gone unnoticed and therefore untold.”

In conjunction with the report’s release, the National Prison Project urged the president to direct the Department of Justice to evaluate OPP’s evacuation plans to determine whether any meaningful improvements have been made in the past year. The ACLU is calling for a full and immediate investigation into abuses at Louisiana correctional facilities during and after the storm.

Full report:

"http://www.aclu.org/prison/conditions/26414pub20060809.html"