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133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition
December 10-14, 2005
Philadelphia, PA
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Back to Annual Meeting Page
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133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA |
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3084.0: Monday, December 12, 2005: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM | |||
Oral | |||
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| The proper treatment of prisoners is well codified in international law and the conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war. From Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to our nation’s supermax prisons, detention facilities for women or southern State plantation prisons, the US violates well recognized human rights codes. Inhumane treatment and torture represent a continuum of ill treatments that damage the prisoners, degrade the custodial staff, and harm communities from which prisoners come and to which they return. Torture of prisoners of war puts our soldiers in jeopardy of retaliation and adversely influences international public opinion. The treatment of women prisoners in the US is particularly backward and ignores the special needs of women and their relationship to their children. Racial discrimination disproportionately sends more people of color behind bars often to conditions little different from the plantation days of slavery. A human rights approach to US prisoners is required to institute humane treatment of the incarcerated population, and bring relief to prisoners, their loved ones and their communities. | |||
| Learning Objectives: During this session we will develop an appreciation of the continuum of abuses suffered by US prisoners at the hands of penal authorities. Our understanding of the terms inhumane treatment and torture will be clarified using current examples from US war zones and off shore detention facilities. The treatment on women prisoners is particularly troubled in the US. We will use two specific human rights campaigns to explore the ways in which the human rights of women prisoners are being violated in the US. The conditions of redress will be described and the tools used for redress will be investigated, including class action law suits, public campaigns and media outreach. Racism is at the core of the trouble in US policies and practices of criminal prosecution and detention. The connections between slavery and the modern prison industrial complex are striking. The southern States’ plantation prisons are one of the best examples of this connection, and will be explained in detail. | |||
| Corey Weinstein, MD | |||
| Dying to Live: The fight to survive inside Alabama's Department of Corrections Vanessa Filley | |||
| Men’s hands off women prisoners Corey Weinstein, MD | |||
| Abu Ghraib is a window to US abuse of prisoners Bonnie Kerness | |||
| See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information. | |||
| Organized by: | APHA-International Human Rights Committee | ||
| Endorsed by: | Peace Caucus | ||
| CE Credits: | CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing | ||
The 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition (December 10-14, 2005) of APHA