Lack of heat? Forced nudity? Physical abuse? Excessive force? Lack of supervision? Cover-up and rampant obfuscation of wrongdoing? No, this is not a summary of the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal. Its a description of what passes for mental health treatment at the South Carolina Department of Corrections 10 years after the fact.

In my opinion, what The Greenville News coverage describes is not treatment in any sense but the institutional victimization of sick, debilitated and largely helpless prisoners who are being tortured in our name. And, as such, South Carolinians, of whatever religious and political persuasions, should be ashamed.

We are accountable, as are Gov. Nikki Haley, the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and any citizen of the state who is tempted to believe that these prisoners are only getting what they deserve. What they deserve is justice, as well as a measure of human dignity, while serving their sentences. Torture deprives them, and us, of both.

Andrew L. Irwin


Read or Share this story: