Word: prisonment
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...single black mother in Texas who had been wrongfully accused of dealing narcotics after a raid on the housing projects where she lived. She was given two options: a plea bargain, which would release her as a convicted felon in exchange for pleading guilty, or 15-25 years in prison. In the face of a tyrannical district attorney with a racist bent, and a push to convict in order to receive state funds, the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” quickly fell by the wayside.“It was just so emotional?...
Mohammed Shakil, 32, and Waheed Ali, 25, were sentenced to seven years in prison for conspiring to attend a terrorist training camp but were cleared of conspiracy to cause the deadly July 2005 London bombings...
...surveillance tapes of the detention center. The comments of one provincial propaganda official, Wu Hao, who told the Southern Metropolis Daily that "online public opinion ... is best resolved by the laws of the Internet," further heightened suspicion that the investigation was more focused on controlling public opinion than preventing prison deaths. (See pictures of China on the wild side...
...Much of the calls for improved security have focused on the tendency of jailers to rely on "cell bosses," or favored inmates who are selected by prison staff to oversee small groups of prisoners. Several of the deaths have been attributed to beatings at the hands of prisoners acting on orders from other inmates. Because the problems have only been identified at the local level, Chinese media has been given relative freedom to cover abuses, says David Bandurski, a researcher with the China Media Project at Hong Kong University. "These cases of jail deaths are focusing right now on brutal...
...reported deaths rose to 15 by late April, authorities declared the new campaign to crack down on "improper management" and "slack supervision" by police and prosecutors would be extended to five months. Some critics argue that the system needs more fundamental reforms before it can begin to reduce prison deaths, and that the ultimate blame lies with police, not rogue inmates. Because many of the victims have been suspects, not convicts, legal experts suspect the abuses are connected with the Chinese legal system's long-standing reliance on confessions to secure criminal convictions...