Prisoner Abuse Happens Here Too.

In the 1980s, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began an aggressive policy of detaining certain political refugees and other undocumented aliens. Many of these prisoners are "criminal aliens," immigrants who have already served prison terms and are waiting to be deported. Others are merely seeking asylum, such as the thousands of Haitian "boat people" who were detained en masse during the Reagan years. Overall, about 200,000 people are detained annually. Since September 11, immigration policy has become more stringent still, targeting Arab, Muslim, and South Asian foreign nationals. The prisons themselves are often gruesome. Detainees -- many of whom have committed no crime -- are often subjected to beating, humiliation, sexual assault, isolation, and verbal abuse. [more]