Prosecutors don’t get promoted by offering shorter sentences Like many Americans, I follow criminal justice developments closely. The arrest and coming prosecution of Sean Combs, also known as P. Diddy, among other things, will likely remain in the headlines for months, and perhaps years, and promises to be fascinating. Prosecutions...

The summer of 2013 was my first summer in prison after being incarcerated for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program. When summer arrived in Loretto, Pennsylvania, I had already made a handful of friends, most of whom came from the prison’s “Italian” population. One warm day in the...

When this Whistleblower Exposed the Crimes of Obama’s Golf Partner and 12th Largest Campaign Contributor, the U.S. Justice Department Did the Honorable Thing—It Jailed the Whistleblower and Let Obama’s Golf Partner Walk Away Free Bradley Birkenfeld is a former Swiss banker who helped the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recoup billions of...

From the date of being arrested (March 4, 1979) in one of the most racist counties in California (Riverside), and enduring one of what would be called by many, “a circus trial” on December 12, 1979, I was brought to the sixth floor of North Block, better known as...

Anthony Gay is severely mentally ill. And like many Americans who suffer from severe mental illness and who commit a crime, he was placed in solitary confinement after his conviction, rather than in a mental hospital where he could have received treatment for his schizophrenia. Isolated in a six-by-ten foot...

Fits into dubious history of medical coercion and experimentation on vulnerable populations in the U.S. Two Democratic members of the Massachusetts state legislature have proposed a bill that would give state prisoners between 60 and 365 days off their sentences if they donate a kidney, bone marrow, skin, or “other...

“El Bloqueo” (The Blockade) is what Cubans call it. It is a 60-year-old abomination. It is the U.S. embargo against Cuba.  Imposed by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1962, the embargo has and continues to be an utter failure in its objective, that is, trying to fuel a counter-revolution...

U.S. school kids, hospital patients, and prison inmates share food poisoning, while food liquidators boast they turn “trash into treasure.” Operating in the shadows is easy in the United States secondary food market, as few question what happens to food that exceeds its expiration date in leading supermarket chains...

A Miami Prisoner is Among Those Who Believe That U.S. Prison Authorities Are Trying to Kill Them While U.S. leaders denounce Russia and China, and other official enemies for alleged human rights violations daily, they are silent about the massive human rights abuses that occur routinely in the U.S. prison...

Racism is still the driving force behind U.S. political imprisonment Political imprisonment in the United States exists primarily as a tool of racist repression. It is aimed disproportionately at people of color, as well as others engaged in anti-racist struggle. Whether in the fight against racism at home or against...