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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
United States: Human Rights Watch
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Human Rights Watch: United States
</hdr>
<body>
<p> Human Rights Watch, through its various divisions, increased
its work on U.S. human rights and humanitarian law violations
in 1991. Government actions relating to the war in the Persian
Gulf produced human rights concerns at home and abroad. In
January and February, the Fund for Free Expression criticized
the Defense Department's policies restricting news-media
coverage of the war, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
program of questioning Arab-Americans in the United States. In
November, Middle East Watch reported on violations of the laws
of war by both sides to the Persian Gulf War which had resulted
in needless civilian casualties.
</p>
<p> In July, following the videotaped beating of Rodney King by
officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, Human Rights
Watch released a report criticizing the federal government for
its passivity in responding to the problem of police brutality
in the United States. In November, Human Rights Watch released
a study of prison conditions in the United States, following an
Americas Watch newsletter in May on prison conditions in Puerto
Rico.
</p>
<p> The Fund for Free Expression issued a series of reports on
U.S. free expression issues, including "SLAPP" libel suits used
to intimidate community and public interest organizations,
censorship of the student press, and the erosion of the right
to freedom of expression in decisions of the Supreme Court's
1990-91 term. The Fund also criticized the Bush
Administration's proposal for secret courts to try suspected
alien "terrorists," comparing it with similar provisions in
other countries criticized by the State Department in its annual
human rights report.
</p>
<p> The Fund took part in a national coalition to overturn the
Supreme Court's decision upholding federal regulations that
barred federally funded family planning clinics from counseling
clients on the availability of abortion as an option. Helsinki
Watch and the Fund urged Congress to remove from the
Immigration and Naturalization Services "lookout list" persons
who were listed solely because of their political beliefs.
</p>
<p>Prison Conditions
</p>
<p> In November, after a year-long study entailing visits to
more than twenty institutions in the United States and Puerto
Rico, including federal, state and INS institutions, as well as
jails, Human Rights Watch issued a report entitled Prison
Conditions in the United States. The report raises numerous
concerns about the human rights aspects of incarceration in the
United States and about the difficulties in securing access to
prisons.
</p>
<p> One of the most troubling aspects of the human rights
situation in U.S. prisons is the use of super-maximum-security
facilities (called "maxi-maxis" in prison jargon) to confine
inmates deemed especially dangerous. Conditions in these
facilities are particularly difficult to bear and often fall
below the minimum standards established by the U.N. Standard
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. In addition to
the federal system, currently thirty-six states have such
facilities. Inmates confined to maxi-maxis are essentially
sentenced twice: once by the court, to a certain period of
imprisonment, and the second time by the prison administration,
to confinement in maxi-maxis. This second sentencing is open-ended, limited only by the overall length of an inmate's
sentence, and is meted out without the benefit of counsel.
</p>
<p> Among the violations of the U.N. minimum standards observed
by Human Rights Watch in the course of researching the report
were:
</p>
<p>-- Uninterrupted extended confinement in windowless, badly
ventilated cells, such as in the Q-Wing of the Florida State
Prison at Starke.
</p>
<p>-- Lack of access to educational programs, as in the
elimination in 1991 of all teaching and counseling staff
positions at the prison in Southport, New York.
</p>
<p>-- Denial or sharp reduction of time outdoors, in violation of
the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules which mandate at least one hour a
day of outdoor exercise.
</p>
<p>-- The use of handcuffs as a disciplinary measure, as seen in
the Broward institution for women in Florida.
</p>
<p>-- The use of collective punishment at the Krome INS detention
center in Florida and the Otis Bantum Center on Rikers Island
in New York.
</p>
<p> Human Rights Watch made the following recommendations
regarding the human rights aspects of imprisonment in the
United States:
</p>
<p>-- Maximum-maximum security facilities should be used only
under supervision that is independent from correctional
administration. Even then, they must meet the test of the U.N.
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
</p>
<p>-- In jails, classification and record keeping must be
improved, to avoid situations in which nonviolent offenders are
housed with dangerous and predatory criminals. Limits should be
imposed on the duration of a sentence that may be served in a
jail. In no case should the limit be longer than one year.
</p>
<p>-- Denial of access to reading matter should never be used as
a disciplinary measure.
</p>
<p>-- Steps should be taken to assure work for all inmates capable
of working.
</p>
<p>-- Prison officials should make every effort to confine inmates
as close to their home as possible so as to facilitate the
maintenance of family bonds.
</p>
<p>-- All inmates should have access to telephones.
</p>
<p>-- Prisons should encourage access for inmates' relatives or
friends, since maintaining these bonds gives inmates a better
chance of staying out of trouble upon their release.
</p>
<p>-- The trend in the federal system of granting a diminishing
number of furloughs to inmates of minimum security facilities
should be reversed, and the granting of furloughs to nonviolent
inmates, particularly those serving sentences far from home,
should be liberalized.
</p>
<p>-- In circumstances in which security considerations make it
impossible to provide inmates with privacy, guards of the same
sex should be used.
</p>
<p>-- A review of the cases of Cuban inmates in legal limbo all
over the country should be undertaken immediately. No inmate
should be left in prison without knowing the duration of his or
her sentence.
</p>
<p>-- Incarceration of noncriminal illegal aliens should stop
immediately.
</p>
<p>-- Outside observers should have access to prisons, since
access by outside observers is an important way of preventing
abuses in prisons.
</p>
<p> In May, Americas Watch released a newsletter on prison
conditions in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The paper
found that poor prison conditions stemmed from an overall
abdication of authority by prison administrators, that women
are singled out for contraband searches, and that the transfer
of inmates to prisons in the mainland United States has a
detrimental effect on an inmate's bond with relatives and is
often used as a disciplinary measure. A version of this paper
was presented at a conference on prison conditions in the
Caribbean held in May in Trinidad.
</p>
<p>Police Brutality
</p>
<p> The brutal and unprovoked beating--fortuitously videotaped
by a bystander--by Los Angeles police officers of motorist
Rodney King focused world attention on police practices in the
United States. In the wake of this event, Human Rights Watch
issued a report on an undercovered aspect of the issue--the
passivity of the federal government in combating such abuse.
The report, issued in July, found that "violations of human
rights by local police has become a sort of fault-line in United
States legal-political life, causing occasional political
earthquakes...yet the federal government has never created
effective means of monitoring, much less controlling, abuses."
</p>
<p> Human Rights Watch argued that this "hands-off" approach
treating police brutality as a "local" issue--amounts to