Correction officers rarely are convicted for the mistreatment of prisoners, but California and New York have bucked the trend. Last month, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department grudgingly agreed to the need for systemwide changes, but only after the convictions of seven officers for obstructing a grand jury investigation into a decades-old culture of severe abuse in county jails. The agreement provided for no more charges and included no admission of wrongdoing. In New York last month, a Rikers Island correction officer was convicted — the first in more than a decade — of civil rights abuses rampant in the city’s main jail complex.
The decisions reveal a hidden truth: Abuse of the incarcerated is not episodic; it is endemic. Until we recognize that abuse exists everywhere, nothing significant will change in legal punishment.
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