I haven't been this outraged in a long time.

[kitchen_kink]

"Kelly-Jo was throwing up. She couldn’t keep her bowels in. Liquid was coming out of her any way it could." Kelly-Jo, Bell adds, asked a guard if she could "please go to a hospital." But the guard replied, according to Bell, "This is the other side of the dope game. Get used to it."

On the morning of July 23, 2003, a mother of two, struggling with a heroin addiction and in the throes of withdrawal, died in a state prison, despite the fact that she'd been convicted of no crime. The circumstances of her death are extremely sketchy, and the reasons she ended up at the maximum security prison even sketicher - she was awaiting arraignment on motor-vehicle charges, and a judge had ordered her sent to the Salem District Court, which she never reached. Instead, she was left screaming for help all night while the guards yelled at her to shut up. In the morning she was dead, having somehow sustained massive head wounds.

Somebody, please, tell me what the hell is going on with this fucking country.

Also, you politically active folk: what would be my best bet for getting involved with 1) prisoners' rights, 2) drug legalization, and/or 3) harm reduction programs?

I am so pissed I could spit.

Comments

[tobi.livejournal.com]

Have you read jedi's journal? That was his cousin.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, how awful.

The prison system in this country is ridiculous. And the fact that we treat drug addicts like criminals instead of sick people is a cataclysmic failure of the legal system and the healthcare system both.

Damn.

[northbard.livejournal.com]

It's not just the US, I'm afraid. I wish I could say it was wondrous here in Canuck-land, but we have the assholes here as well. They support the structure that helps to create addicts, then punish them for succumbing to it.

[longueur.livejournal.com]

Yeah... what is there to do? Money to people who have (societal) weapons to fight with is a start, I think. But then sometimes I wonder if the power of capitalism is too strong to break until its collapse when it runs out of countries to "develop".

KJ

[unknownrockstar.livejournal.com]

I read the article in the phoenix about her tragic case. I was shocked this can happen today in MA. I don't know why I should be in a country with a thief in charge.