Pubdate: Wed, 26 May 2004 Source: Kansas City Star (MO) Copyright: 2004 The Kansas City Star Contact: http://www.kcstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221 Author: Dolores Owen Related: Prisoner Abuse And The Drug War - What You Can Do http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0291.html Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) AMERICAN PRISONS Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush may be comfortable lying to the world about the fact that the prisoner abuse is not the image of America, but they can't lie to the families of American prisoners in American prisons. These same kinds of things are happening in our prisons. Why does it always take a videotape before anyone believes it is a horror in itself? Remember Brazoria County in Texas, Mr. President? You were the governor when that tape of abuse surfaced in 1997. For a year and a half, letters of abuse had been coming out of that prison by Missouri prisoners and their families, and everyone looked the other way, stating that it had been investigated and there was no proof of any abuses happening. Americans need to wake up. This refusal to see what's going on in our own country is detrimental to all our futures. Dolores Owen Kansas City - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake