Michigan: Mentally ill inmate dies after five days of abuse

On Monday, a federal judge in Kalamazoo ordered an immediate and complete ban on the use of such restraints, called four-point or “top of the bed” restraints, in three Jackson prisons in the Michigan Department of Corrections. Judge Richard Alan Enslen called Souders’s death “predictable and preventable.” He ruled against the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility officials, determining that “the defendant’s practice constitutes torture and violates the Eighth Amendment,” which prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment against prisoners.

The outrageous circumstances of the case are a condemnation of the US prison system, as well as the political establishment as a whole, whose increasing brutality, indifference, and disregard for human rights have contributed to a breakdown of Constitutional protections that determine the treatment of prisoners. The facts surrounding Souders’s death reveal the profound erosion of protections protected by the Bill of Rights.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/nov2006/mich-n17.shtml