The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons
will examine the nature and extent of violence, sexual abuse, degradation, and other serious safety failures and abuses in American prisons and jails. Equally important, the Commission will explore the consequences of unsafe and abusive correctional environments for prisoners, corrections officers, and the families and communities to which they return – whether at the end of each work day, or upon release from a period of incarceration.
The time is right for the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons: on any given day 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and over the course of a year an estimated 13.5 million individuals are confined in prison or jail for some period of time. Another 750,000 men and women spend their days and nights working in correctional facilities. Despite their numbers, they are largely invisible to us. At this moment, the effectiveness and morality of America’s approach to corrections has the attention of policy makers at all levels of government and in both political parties. Now is the right time for a national dialogue about the most serious problems of life behind bars and for constructive recommendations for reform.
See:
Life after lock-up.
I Thought I was Seeing Convicts.
