The Cruel and Unusual Punishment in D.C. Jails that No One Is Talking About.
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution explicitly forbids the cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners. Conceptually drawing upon the civil rights concerns found in the English Bill of Rights (1689), the language reads in the American case: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Unbeknown to many, as the corporate media has been downplaying this news, within a minuscule distance from the American seat of the federal government are approximately 1,500 detained individuals being subjected to prison standards that arguably equate “cruel and unusual punishments.” To make matters far worse, there is a political and ideological underpinning, guiding this selective course of inhuman prisoner treatment in the District of Columbia’s (D.C.) jail.
Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. local government are the responsible entities for the nefarious conditions that are discriminately being applied to the January 6th rioters held in cells within their legal jurisdiction. The mentioned over 1,500 inmates are confined to their cells for 22 hours a day. Of those, around 300 are held in solitary confinement. D.C. authorities categorize this smaller group as being under a “medical stay-in-place” policy. The D.C. Department of Corrections guidelines exclusively formulates this isolation extremity treatment for prisoners that fall under the condition of “sexual predators,” individuals engaged in “assaultive behavior,” “likely to be exploited or victimized by others,” and/or possess any “other documented special need.”
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