Disturbing video clip here of government agents employing forced nudity against a prisoner.
A couple of points about the video clip:
1. Prisons are places where the government has total control over prisoners. A prisoner may or may not get access to food, water, clothing, medicine, or even a toilet. As a practical matter, the jailors call those shots, at least in the short term, which is long enough from the perspective of the prisoner. Jails are necessary, to be sure, but policymakers should keep such institutions limited. Not every legal infraction needs to be an arrestable offense.
2. Remember this video clip the next time someone says, “Well, if the government steps over the line, there will be accountability because any victim of abuse can file a big lawsuit.” In the absence of the video, how well do you think Hope Steffey’s complaint would hold up in court? I dare say that without the video many attorneys would refuse to take the case if it came down to the word of one woman against seven deputies. Even when lawsuits are filed, the government often argues that it enjoys legal immunity.
3. The men and women who run our jails have very tough tasks to perform. They must regularly process individuals who are drunk, defiant, and sometimes violent. Not everyone can perform such tasks. Thus, constant vigilance is necessary so that discipline does not turn into brutality.
4. The video is also a dramatic reminder about some of the claims we have heard from the Bush administration with respect to the treatment of prisoners. President Bush and his legal advisors want to employ “alternative interrogation techniques” against persons they call “enemy combatants.” One legal memorandum said state agents could employ forced nudity and physical force where the pain induced fell short of that associated with “organ failure” or death. Since Hope Steffey did not experience pain equivalent to organ failure or death, an incident deemed outrageous in Ohio would be lawful abroad, at least according to that memo. I don’t know why certain CIA personnel destroyed their own interrogation videotapes, but it was probably because they did not want the American public to see what they were doing. That is, disclosure would have had legal and political ramifications that certain persons in the government want to forestall.
