An article written by Susan M. Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College, has uncovered details on a study conducted between 1946 and 1948 in Guatemala, which involved experiments on Guatemalans. Essentially, the Public Health Service (PHS) inoculated people with syphilis.

Seventy percent of women in California’s prisons are non-violent offenders. Why are we shackling them during pregnancy, labor, and delivery?

Written by Dr. Carolyn Suffrin for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Carol Rosenberg, a journalist for the Miami Herald and one of the few journalists who continue to follow operations and proceedings at the Guantanamo Bay prison reports “an emotionally ill detainee still being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was first recommended for release by the Pentagon in 2004.”

Reports reveal that private prison corporations with interests and operations in Arizona stand to benefit and profit greatly as a result of immigration laws like SB1070. And, that isn’t altogether surprising because these same reports are indicating these corporations played a role in influencing the law, which is proof that border politics and the private prison businesses are tied.

The discovery of another “secret prison” in Baghdad is alarming. There are fears that this one is linked to the Interior Ministry and that the campaign against former armed forces members is re-starting.

Justice is the elusive concept of balance. The idea that the damage which a crime inflicts on society it balanced by the fining or incarceration of the person convicted of the crime is one of the ways that we balance the scales. This too often lost on those who feel that incarceration is only for the purpose of punishment and that there should be no rehabilitation component.

This kind of thinking leads to ideas like three strike laws, which allow the sentence of imprisonment for life to be levied on anyone who commits three felonies. This is regardless of the nature of the third felony. It is because of these kinds of laws that we see convicted felons sentenced to life behind bars for the crime of stealing a bicycle.

Today the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling which does not address threes strikes laws, but does address the imposition of life sentences on juveniles. In Graham v. Florida the SCOTUS was asked if it was unconstitutional for states to be able to sentence juvenile offenders to life without the possibility of parole, if their crimes did not involve a homicide.

“I cannot imagine a place where one might stand and have a clearer view of concentrated disadvantage based on race, class, and gender inequality in the country then from inside the walls of women’s prisons.” Beth E. Richie

Written by Tonya Williams for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

If one wants to make a statement that will not get any argument, then saying that the United States faces a whole folio of problems is the one that to choose. The high profile ones are well known, but that does not mean that we don’t have others which should have been hovering in the background waiting for a legislator or president to address. One of these is the huge and growing prison population. In 2008 there were a total of 7.3 million Americans in prison, jail or on parole.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

That means that 1 in every 31 adults in our nation is involved, as a criminal, in the prison system. The trend of locking up more Americans have accelerated over the last three decades.

Currently, Washington State policy still allows shackling of pregnant women in some cases. But advocates are pursuing legislative efforts to ensure a complete prohibition on shackling of pregnant women.

Written by Amie Newman for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

Ashley Ellis weighed just 87 pounds when she reported to the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Vermont to serve a 30-day sentence for “careless and negligent operation of a motor vehicle.” Two days later, she was dead.