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HRW report decries widespread abuse of mentally disabled prisoners in the US.
HRW report decries widespread abuse of mentally disabled prisoners in the US.
"The United States locks up 2.37 million people, the largest reported incarcerated population in the world," the report says, adding "about 12 million people annually cycle through county jails." It says that thirty-one US states still "impose the death penalty" with seven of them carrying out executions in 2014. Also, 27 people had been executed by lethal injection in the US in 2015, the report revealed.
On racial disparities in criminal justice, the report shows that "while whites and African Americans engage in drug offenses at comparable rates, African Americans are arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for drug offenses at much higher rates." Even though African Americans account for "only 13 percent of the US population, they constitute "29 percent of all drug arrests," says the report, adding "black men are incarcerated at six times the rate of white men."
Comment: A reality check. Unfortunately, the US is far down the road to a fascist military-police state accountable to no one. It is gearing to implode and it appears there's very little that can stop it.