The problem with US prisons goes far beyond basic unpleasantness. Take it from the Department of Justice: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-laws...

"'The Department of Justice conducted a thorough investigation of Alabama’s prisons for men and determined that Alabama violated and is continuing to violate the Constitution because its prisons are riddled with prisoner-on-prisoner and guard-on-prisoner violence. The violations have led to homicides, rapes, and serious injuries.'"

This is not a system that is going to successfully reintegrate people. We owe a basic level of humane treatment even to prisoners, if not for the sake of liberal values than for the pragmatic reason that violent people who are put in an environment which encourages further violence will remain violent people when they are released back into our society.

The same department of justice that continues to prosecute a case against Assange? I'm nonplussed. Boris Becker (UK), Amanda Knox (IT), speak to prison brutality (and those are well known international personages.)

Ukraine: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/08/ukraine-four-...

Mexico: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/mexicos-federal-prisons-a-...

Spain: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77231-8_...

Brazil: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/qa-why-is-prison-v...

And in Paradise (I mean Cuba): https://democraticspaces.com/trending/2022/3/29/prisoners-de...

Etc...

I linked the DOJ and not the Equal Justice Initiative because I thought they would be less likely to be seen as partisan or politically motivated. But here’s EJI on the same issue: https://eji.org/issues/prison-conditions/ and Harvard Political Review making a similar argument to my top post (that US prisons don’t adequately rehabilitate): https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress/

And since you linked Amnesty, here’s their report on solitary confinement at ADX Florence: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/07/usa-prisoners...

I agree that our justice and prison systems need a recalibration to one, focus on violent crime, aggravated sexual crime, property crime, and de-emphasis on personal vice correction while also trying to guide prisoners to a better path.

At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison systems in the world are similar or worse and suspects before they become prisoners have fewer legal rights afforded them.

That said, the catch-and-release as well as the watch-and-do-nothing approach we're seeing in some places are aggravating crime and they are not doing anyone any favors, the criminals or the victims.

> At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison systems in the world are similar or worse

This might be true but I do not think it’s true of most peer countries (Western Europe, Canada, etc). I do believe that US prisons are among the least humane of this group as well as the least effective at rehabilitation. Again, this is not to say that those other systems do not have problems, just that the severity of the worst abuses and the extent of abuse in general is worse here.

Rehabilitation doesn’t work. The modern sociological study of crime and criminals began at the latest in the 70s. They’ve been looking for a reliably working method of rehabilitation for 50 years and have nothing. Prisons works fine as incapacitation, keeping criminals warehoused until they age out of their prime criminal years but rehabilitation doesn’t work.

> Prisoner rehabilitation does not work, says former prisons boss

> Sir Martin Narey says focus should be on treating inmates with decency and dignity

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/29/prisoner-reh...

> So far, prison inmate rehab isn’t working

> California’s prisons are supposed to be rehabilitating inmates, not merely warehousing them, but a new report from the state auditor says it’s not effectively reducing recidivism among those released from the system.

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/02/so-far-prison-inma...

Call it what you like. Treating people with dignity would be a good place to start.

You can do all the rehab you want but if nobody is willing to employ anyone with a big hole in his history, that can't end well.