The United Nations Human Rights Committee back in March 2014 reported 21 violations of human rights by the US:
1. Torture. Those who ordered or carried out torture for the CIA or the military should be brought to justice. So should those who gave it legal cover. The full Senate report on CIA torture should be made public.
2. Racial disparities in the criminal justice system lead to overly high numbers of people of colour in prison. The US should apply the Fair Sentencing Act to those already sentenced. It should reform mandatory minimum sentencing.
3. Racial profiling, particularly of Muslims by the FBI and NYPD. “Stop and frisk” should be done away with.
4. Death penalty is applied disproportionately to Blacks and those without good lawyers, sometimes using untested drugs. The US should move towards a moratorium.
5. Drones. Used in a seemingly endless, ill-defined war with little regard for civilian lives. Little oversight or accountability.
6. Gun violence. Still high, affecting particularly people of colour, women and children. The US should have better background checks, strictly enforce the Lautenberg Amendment and review Stand Your Ground laws, which give shooters too much protection.
7. Police brutality. Overuse of deadly force by certain police forces, particularly against Blacks, and at the Mexican border. Shootings are not well reported, investigated or prosecuted.
8. No comprehensive laws against torture.
9. Poor safeguards for returning refugees.
10. Trafficking and forced labour. Poor protection by labour laws for those working on temporary visas, particularly farm workers and maids. Victims of sex trafficking are often criminalized, even children.
11. Undocumented immigrants have a hard time getting health insurance. They are often imprisoned for long periods and deported over small things without regard for their families.
12. Domestic violence. Still high, especially among people of colour and immigrants. Poor police response.
13. Corporal punishment against children in all settings. Schoolchildren are increasingly criminalized as a form of discipline.
14. Non-consensual psychiatric treatment, particularly with drugs or electroshock over long periods. Should only be used as a last resort.
15. Criminalization of homelessness. The homeless should be helped, not punished.
16. Solitary confinement. Overused. Should not be used on those under 18 or with serious mental illness. Poor prison conditions for death row inmates.
17. Guantanamo. Some prisoners have been held for over ten years without charge. Prisoners should either be let go or be charged with a crime and given a fair trial in the criminal justice system (not by military commissions).
18. NSA surveillance. The US government gathers telephone metadata (who called who, when and for how long) both at home and abroad. It gets user data from US companies (pictured) and wiretaps the Internet.
19. Juveniles can still be sentenced to life in prison for homicide. Those 16 and 17 can be tried and imprisoned as adults.
20. Voting rights denied to DC (for Congress) and to many felons who have served their time. Voter ID laws can lead to de facto disenfranchisement, especially for people of colour.
21. Rights of indigenous people. Lack of control and protection of sacred lands.
Thanks to William for his help with this post.
See also:
- The UN Human Rights Committee report (11 pages, PDF) – reports violations of:
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – implements the civil and political rigths of the Universal Declartions of Human Rights. Signed by the US but ignored.
- racial profiling
- The mass incarceration of Black men
- The incomplete list of unarmed Blacks killed by police
- The incomplete list of children killed by US drones
- domestic violence
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Mount Rushmore
I know that this clearly proves that the USA has no moral authority to tell any country what to do, and many countries are much worse, but
– did the UN report say whether the USA is making progress or getting worse?
– what countries do well on Human rights?
– which countries the USA compares most to.
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GR,
YES
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@George Ryder… Wouldn’t be surprised if this blog was being monitored… Esp with all that has transpired these past little while with these killings of black boys and men… Such a damn shame
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I am quite sure it is being watched. And not just in the USA.
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#8
Do the 8th Amendment or being charter members of the UN count? But the 8th is only for citizens.
#14 – IMO that should say “Should only be used as a last resort or better yet NEVER AT ALL”
#17 – While we’re on the subject I’m not sure if you’ve done an article like this yet but if not at some point you should consider something like “Is indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay internment?”
#19 – What punishment then should underage people who kill others get? IMO each case must be heard individually but it is an adult crime.
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#2 Should criminals not be convicted if they belong to a group with a high crime rate?
#3 Stop and frisk isn’t racial profiling. It deploys officers to areas in proportion to the amount of crime reported by those living there.
#4 White murderers are more likely to get the death penalty. So it’s applied disproportionately to whites.
#12 Police aren’t to blame for domestic violence. They can only respond if called and make an arrest if someone presses charges.
#20 Voter fraud leads to de facto disenfranchisement. The US has among the weakest voter ID laws in the world.
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Jefe, “moral authority” is too clean and noble an expression to use for the U.S. To my mind a “moral authority” has their own house in order, i.e. they have no hypocritcal skeletons in their own closet. If you were using the term “moral suasion”, in context of the U.S., that would make more sense to me.
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@GR,
I am going to take the chance that you are being accidentally obtuse here and not willfully so.
If you are sincere in your question, then it seems that you are wearing the white male lens and your political leaning is small government that values individual freedom over civil rights. IT also tells me that you have little experience living life in different roles in the same society, or in various different societies (eg, other countries, or at least in very different parts of the country).
What do we hope to get from living in a society?
– Order (ie, public order)
– Function (goods and services are produced and supplied and consumed)
– Individual Freedom
– Civil Rights
– maybe other things too
All social systems will have to balance these. Even pure anarchy will provide these to various degrees. But normally it is government which strikes that balance. Ideally we would like to have a win-win social system, but often something is provided at the expense of another.
Government can be at a world level, national level, sub-national (eg, state or province), municipal, all the way down to district, community, neighborhood and residential buildings, or even smaller.
Since government is there to help strike that balance, they play a role in all of it.
If we consider that the right to live in a society free from domestic violence is a civil right, then most definitely government has a specific defined role.
Domestic violence will reveal itself to the police, to schools and hospitals, to social service organizations and agencies and in legal procedures available to handle and manage it. These are all run by government, or at least regulated by them.
So looking at the post
It should be obvious the role that government plays.
In fact, you should be able to go through each and every item on the list and identify government’s role in each.
If you had much contact with people of colour and immigrants, you would know instantly what this is talking about.
And also, I think the level of the question “What role does government play in these items?” should be a standard question in a High School Civics class. Did you not learn this in High School?
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@George Ryder
Most decidedly so.
A felon does not lose all of his civil rights upon conviction.
Only 2 states (Maine and Vermont – leave it to northern New England) allow felons to vote during the entire time of the sentence and thereafter. However, many European countries do not overwhelmingly restrict civil rights associated with universal suffrage while in prison. Almost all completely restore rights in full after release.
The US is far worse.
Some states do not restore rights to universal suffrage even after the sentence is served, after parole or after probation is completed. Florida is a famous case – a state board decides after the released felon applies for it. In Kentucky, only the governor can reinstate it.
What makes the US even worse than this is the “school to prison” system set up to disenfranchise disparately large proportions of blacks and other POC. This system is very strong in states with stricter ex-felon civil rights restrictions and has the disproportional effect of disenfranchising black and other non-white voters. States have always sought ways to get around the Voting Rights Act and this is one way to do it.
Florida is very famous for this. It is also famous for the bungling of the Gore / Bush election. It is always looking for ways to disenfranchise its residents.
You know, I see this discussed on Al Jazeera but on few major US news media outlets.
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As a native of DC and also a former resident during my adulthood, I am also very aware of the disenfranchisement that DC residents have regarding home rule.
Kennedy was the first president that DC residents could vote for.
They could not have an elected mayor until the late 70s.
They still have no representation in Congress. What’s more, the Senate and the House still have paramount authority in its governance. For example, Congress stripped Marion Barry of much of his mayoral authority when he was in office. Senators from Mississippi and House Representatives from Wyoming and Alaska ultimately have more authority over governance in DC than the actual elected leaders.
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@Legion,
I watch the civil rights abuses that China inflicts upon its Uyghur and Tibetan population and its peripheral neighbors, as well as rights to bear children or move around freely, but PLEASE how can the USA dare say anything about that!
Cannot even mention the Native American genocide (and some of the other ones, such as the Chinese ethnic cleansing and Japanese American mass incarceration). But with the current racist police brutality making the world news headlines, places like Russia and China are really having a field day attacking the USA’s moral authority (it doesn’t go away just by not mentioning it).
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@ Jefe
The report notes progress that the US has made since the last report in 2006. The big ones:
1. The US outlawed the execution of children.
2. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that habeas corpus should apply to Guantanamo.
3. In 2009, Obama ordered the end of CIA torture.
4. In 2010, Obama came out in support of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
5. In 2011, Obama established regular review of Guantanamo prisoners who are being held without charge.
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@ George Ryder
It seems you are viewing this too much through a non-Muslim White American male citizen filter. US society has been set up for the benefit of people like you, so most of its human rights abuses are unlikely to directly affect you in a bad way. The NSA spying is the main exception.
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@ Symphonic Zambophones
The CIA torture that went on under Bush was all LEGAL. Or, rather, Bush got two lawyers to write legal opinions that gave it the green light. Bush later made one of them a judge.
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@ Jefe
Good question. The closest thing I could find to a human rights map was this:
http://reliefweb.int/map/world/world-human-rights-risk-index-2014
That is a UN website, but not one run by its Human Rights Committee.
According to that map, the US is better than Russia but worse than most of Western Europe, putting it at the level of Eastern Europe, which sounds about right. Worldwide is is high middle, but among rich Western nations, it is at the bottom end – partly, I think, because it does the West’s dirty work of keeping the world safe for capitalism, partly because of its violent, racist past which is baked into its culture (gun culture, toxic masculinity, etc).
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@ Jefe
Does anyone outside the US actually see the US as a moral authority?
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@ Big Momma
Blacks in the US are way more likely to be arrested for drugs even though Blacks and Whites use drugs at the same rate. Even The Economist admits this. For a given crime, Blacks are given a longer sentence on average than Whites.
This is easily proved to be a racist practice since Whites who are stopped are more likely to be found with drugs or weapons than Blacks. Nearly all Blacks and Latinos who are stopped are found with nothing. It is a form of police harassment.
What is your source?
No one is saying the police cause domestic violence, but they do have a duty to protect life to the degree that they can. Sometimes the police do not come or do much about it, sometimes they arrest the victim.
Anyone with half a brain knows that the Republicans are pushing through these laws not because of some huge voter fraud scandal but because they are losing the demographic battle with their White racist message.
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@ George
People who have served their time in prison should not be further punished. It is not just unfair, it helps to create a criminal class.
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@GR,
In no way did I say that the US government caused or created domestic violence. Please read again. Also look at Abagond’s reply to BM.
Now I think you are starting to be willfully obtuse. If you continue to move in that direction, then I will stop replying to you.
Anyhow, I think your beef should be with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, not me or Abagond.
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^Also, please read the report first before responding.
You sound as if you did not check all the links given in this post.
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George please read the links first, esp. the UN committee report.
I am not trying to be deliberately patronizing. But seriously you misread what people wrote.
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And then Republicans do not want a policy change with Cuba, because “befriending a human rights violating nation like Cuba is a bad idea,” if I understood Marco Rubio correctly.
Bizarre.
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@ Abagond
I agree with you 110 percent that America is creating a criminal class. There are states that continually punish individuals who have paid their debt to society. There are so many felons who CAN’T get a professional license for what they have learned in prison, which is totally unfair. Michelle Alexander talks about this kind of discrimination in her informative book called ‘The New Jim Crow ‘.
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The way I see is that White and Black people see TOO many things differently.
We see race, racism, crime, policing, parenting, education, ethnic attitude and behavior, etc. DIFFERENTLY.
Let’s take everything into account. Most Whites see racism from a non-victim’s perspective and most Blacks see it from a victim’s perspective. Slavery, colonialism and Jim Crow are excellent examples.
Most whites see race from a pseudo-scientist’s perspective and most Blacks see it from a universal perspective. The pseudo-science of race justified the dehumanization of African people and genocide of people of color, like the Tasmanian Aboriginals and many Native Americans.
Most Whites see (and teach) education from a colonialist’s perspective and, of course, most Blacks see education (systemic Western education) from a victim’s perspective. It reminds me of the famous African proverb: “Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
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@Michael Cooper
Very well said.
“African proverb: “Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.””—-Love this.
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@ sharinalr
Thank you.
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I haven’t heard of sex trafficking victims being criminalized. And children? Could you share more about this? (Feeling sick to the stomach.)
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@Abagond,
re:
It looks like it is not a UN website per se, but one that provides information for the UN.
Anyhow, the creators of the map, Maplecroft, are a private UK based consulting firm. I was wondering if their conclusions might be biased. I always feel suspect of any results regarding human rights that puts the UK together with Scandinavia in the “low risk” category for things like human rights and the environment. I can understand why some countries wonder where they get their moral authority also.
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@GR, It is OK not to agree with everything in the report, but at least you can understand a bit more of the reasoning behind the allegations (and how each and every one of them involve the government). But it appears that the ones you do not agree with just happen to be the ones that you feel do not affect you personally.
I personally feel the USA is even worse than the report suggests. For example, the banning of certain books and history studies in the classroom is utterly alarming and suppressive to me, esp. the ones about the history and culture of Americans with non-white non-Anglo heritage.
There are other civil rights abuses that upset me very much about the USA, but admittedly some of them weigh the civil rights of certain groups v. the civil rights of others. It is debatable which triumphs over the other. But some, which are blatantly discriminatory, should be easier to resolve, but they are not.
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“Blacks in the US are way more likely to be arrested for drugs even though Blacks and Whites use drugs at the same rate.”
Speed Violation Survey of the New Jersey Turnpike (2001) showed blacks speed about twice as often as whites. The more often one is stopped the more likely they are to get searched and caught with drugs.
“For a given crime, Blacks are given a longer sentence on average than Whites.”
Blacks have higher rates of recidivism. Courts give longer sentences for a second offense.
“This is easily proved to be a racist practice since Whites who are stopped are more likely to be found with drugs or weapons than Blacks. Nearly all Blacks and Latinos who are stopped are found with nothing.”
It proves no such thing. The purpose of stop and frisk is to target high crime areas and search anyone acting suspiciously or merely loitering. This results in more people stopped who aren’t carrying drugs or weapons. Since most high crime areas are black or latino this boosts the number of blacks and latinos searched and found with nothing. We know the policy works because crime and especially murders decrease where it’s used. Comparing the percentage of people stooped in “stop and frisk” areas to those stopped outside “stop and frisk” areas is invalid.
“What is your source?” that whites are more likely to get the death penalty.
The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites. But the number of blacks and whites on death row is about the same. That means a white murderer is about 8 times more likely to get the death penalty.
Source: Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008. p. 3.
Source: Death Row Population Figures from NAACP-LDF “Death Row USA (January 1, 2009)”
“No one is saying the police cause domestic violence, but they do have a duty to protect life to the degree that they can. Sometimes the police do not come or do much about it, sometimes they arrest the victim. ”
Often the victim refuses to press charges or goes back. You can’t help someone who won’t help themselves. If cops were arresting them anyway or telling them they couldn’t go back people would be complaining about that instead.
“Anyone with half a brain knows that the Republicans are pushing through these laws not because of some huge voter fraud scandal but because they are losing the demographic battle with their White racist message.”
Anyone with half a brain knows that if you don’t require voters to show ID you’re going to have voter fraud.
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Looks like Big Momma is back to derailing the thread.
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One way to prevent voter fraud (& any sort of fraud from non-citizens) is to issue national photo ID cards (with different cards for citizens and non-citizen permanent residents, as well as those on student, work & diplomatic visas) That would eliminate much fraud conducted by non-citizens. Yet the parties that cry voter fraud are the very ones that vigorously oppose National ID cards. That regard it as an invasion of privacy.
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I’d support a national photo ID. I’d even support a national DNA database. It would stop a lot of crime and help prevent mistaken convictions.
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“Virginia to compensate victims of forced sterilizations”
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5d68578493664c9b945dc5e0ecdecff2/virginia-compensate-victims-forced-sterilizations
“Eugenics is the now-discredited movement that sought to improve the genetic composition of humankind by preventing those considered “defective” from reproducing. Virginia’s Sterilization Act became a model for similar legislation passed around the country and the world, including Nazi Germany. Nationwide, 65,000 Americans were sterilized in 33 states, including more than 20,000 in California alone.”
“The Virginia eugenics law was upheld in the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writing for the majority, famously declared: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.””
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“Cuba stands their ground, won’t return Assata Shakur”
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“Free Nicoll: New Yorkers brave the cold to rally for transgender asylum seeker”
http://fusion.net/story/59091/new-yorkers-brave-the-cold-to-rally-for-transgender-asylum-seeker/
“Hernández-Polanco says she fled Guatemala to seek asylum in the U.S. While she waits for a judge to hear her case, she’s being held at the Florence Detention Center in Arizona in a room with more than a dozen men.”
“Hernández-Polanco is being held in a large room filled with bunk beds, where she has to sleep and shower next to men. Her advocates say she’s been sexually assaulted by a male detainee and has been groped multiple times. They also claim a prison guard groped her breast; another guard pulled her hair; and a cook repeatedly referred to her as “the woman with balls.””
“Advocates have documented “violent prejudice” and even murder against transgender people. The LGBT community also lacks support from the police and government, according to the Guatemala Human Rights Commission.”
“Advocates say Hernández-Polanco is a perfect example of what’s wrong with the system. She’s reportedly committed no crimes—she went to a U.S entry point and requested asylum. And until she sees a judge she remains in detention.”
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“This Man Faces Life in Prison for … Rapping”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidloy/brandon-duncan-tiny-doo_b_6606040.html
“The state can’t criminalize protected speech, and it can’t criminalize Mr. Duncan’s music. Thankfully, Mr. Duncan is now free on bail, but he still faces “gang conspiracy” charges, which threaten a potential life sentence. The ACLU has filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the charges immediately.
In criminal cases, however, the process itself is often the punishment, even without a conviction. Mr. Duncan spent eight months in jail when he never should have been arrested in the first place.”
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“Beyond Homan Square: US History Is Steeped in Torture”
http://truth-out.org/news/item/29863-beyond-homan-square-us-history-is-steeped-in-torture
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“Prison Dispatches from the War on Terror: Gitmo Detainee’s Life an “Endless Horror Movie””
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/24/hunger-striking-guantanamo-detainee-life-endless-horror-movie/
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“Girls behind bars tell their stories”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/26/us/cnnphotos-girls-behind-bars/index.html
“The images are unflinching. They convey the ugliness of a young person’s life behind bars. The pictures are replete with the unique loneliness, anger and boredom of a juvenile detention center. But the girls also tell their stories alongside the images.”
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“Out of Debtors’ Prison, With Law as the Key”
” Across America, courts levy fines and fees totaling hundreds or thousands of dollars on misdemeanor offenders, and jail them when they cannot pay.
You don’t go to jail for walking your dog without a leash, making an illegal left turn or burning leaves without a permit, but in many states you will go to jail if you can’t pay the resulting fees and fines. We have a two-tier system: The rich pay fines. The poor go to jail.
In most states, you pay to be arrested, pay for a public defender, and pay for your own probation. In some, you emerge from jail owing room and board or are billed for a jury trial. Fines and fees have become important sources of city income, giving legislators and judges an incentive to assess large sums for minor offenses — and to compel payment by jailing those who don’t pay, no matter what their economic situation.
The injustices are compounded when governments contract with private companies to manage probation, as they do in 13 states, according to Nusrat Choudhury, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. These companies offer their services free to a city — and then charge offenders fees sometimes as large as or larger than their debt, with jail the penalty for nonpayment. In many cases, debt collection is the only service they perform. Human Rights Watch has said that most states that use private probation ”do not currently subject probation companies to any meaningful oversight or regulation at all.”
Debtors’ prison is both senseless and illegal. Jailing defendants often costs far more than they owe, and makes it very difficult for them to pay. Going to jail each time a payment is missed isn’t conducive to holding down a job. And in 1983, the Supreme Court ruled that courts must inquire about a defendant’s ability to pay fines and can jail only those who can pay but won’t. Nonpayment of court fees can be punished by garnishment, but not jail.
Yet defendants don’t know this. They don’t know they can ask for a hearing on their ability to pay, with counsel. Courts routinely fail to suggest a hearing or ask any questions about ability to pay.
“People who had minor interaction with the criminal justice system were sucked further in for no good reason other than to enrich a private company,”
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“How These Former Inmates Are Fighting for Prison Reform”
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/03/inmates_fighting_for_prison_reform.html
“While the United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, it houses more than 25 percent of all the world’s prisoners.”
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