UNITED STATES

World Report 2001 Entry

World Report Entry 2000

World Report Entry 1999

World Report Entry 1998

Beyond Reason:
The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation
Twenty-five U.S. states still permit the execution of offenders with mental retardation and should pass laws to ban the practice without delay, Human Rights Watch said in releasing today the first comprehensive human rights-based analysis of such executions.The United States appears to be the only democracy whose laws expressly permit the execution of persons with this severe mental disability. At least thirty-five mentally retarded people have been executed in the United States since 1976. An estimated two to three hundred currently await execution on death row.In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution of persons with mental retardation was not unconstitutional. The court concluded there was no national consensus against such executions because only two states prohibited them. Since then, the number of states that legislatively exempt mentally retarded persons from the death penalty has grown to thirteen, in addition to the federal government. Beyond Reason provides numerous examples of persons who have been sentenced to death despite the profound intellectual limitations they have suffered since birth.
(G1301), 03/01, 50pp, $7.00
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Unfair Advantage:
Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards
Workers' basic rights are routinely violated in the United States because U.S. labor law is so feebly enforced and so filled with loopholes, Human Rights Watch said in this report.  The 217-page report, "Unfair Advantage: Workers'  Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards," was based on field research in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Washington and other states. Human Rights Watch examined workers' rights to organize, to bargain collectively, and to strike under international norms. It found widespread labor rights violations across regions, industries and employment status. The report is being released on the eve of the annual Labor Day holiday in the United States.  The U.S. government has called for "core labor standards," including workers' freedom of association, to be included in the rules of the World Trade Organization and the Free Trade Agreement of theAmericas. But Human Rights Watch charged that the United States itself violates freedom of association standards by failing to protect workers' right to organize.   (2513) 8/00, 220pp., $15.00
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Fingers to the Bone:
United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers
Hundreds of thousands of child farmworkers are laboring under dangerous and grueling conditions in the United States, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today.  HRW found that child farmworkers  often work twelve- and fourteen-hour days, and risk pesticide poisoning, heat illness, injuries and life-long disabilities. The vast majority of child farmworkers are Latino. The laws governing minors working in agriculture are much less stringent than those for other sectors of the economy, Human Rights Watch said, allowing children to work at younger ages, for longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions than children in other jobs. "Fingers to the Bone:United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers," focuses on children aged thirteen to sixteen. Some of these young workers told Human Rights Watch that they work as many as seventy or eighty hours a week. Often, their workdays begin before dawn.
(2491), 6/00, 112pp., ISBN 1-56432- 2491, $10.00
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Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs
The U.S. war on drugs has been waged overwhelmingly against black Americans, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today. This report includes the first state-by-state analysis of the role of race and drugs in prison admissions. All of the 37 states Human Rights Watch studied send black drug offenders to prison at far higher rates than whites. The ten states with the greatest racial disparities are: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, Iowa, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, North Carolina, and West Virginia. In these states, black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 27 to 57 times the rate of white men."Punishment and Prejudice" also documents how drug law enforcement has fueled the exploding U.S. prison population. During the 1990s, more than one hundred thousand people were admitted to prison on drug charges every year. Over 1.5 million prison admissions on drug charges have occurred since 1980. The incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders has propelled the nation's soaring incarceration rate, the highest in the western world. Human Rights Watch calls for changes in drug control strategies to minimize their racially disproportionate impact and to reduce the overincarceration of nonviolent offenders.
(G1202) 5/00, 39pp., $5.00
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US: Out of Sight: Super-Maximum Security Confinement in the US
There are currently more than twenty thousand prisoners in the United States, nearly two percent of the prison population, housed in special super-maximum security facilities or units. Prisoners in these facilities typically spend their waking and sleeping hours locked in small, sometimes windowless, cells sealed with solid steel doors. A few times a week they are let out for showers and solitary exercise in a small, enclosed space. Supermax prisoners have almost no access to educational or recreational activities or other sources of mental stimulation and are usually handcuffed, shackled and escorted by two or three correctional officers every time they leave their cells. Assignment to supermax housing is usually for an indefinite period that may continue for years. Although supermax facilities are ostensibly designed to house incorrigibly violent or dangerous inmates, many of the inmates confined in them do not meet those criteria.  Supermax confinement, no less than any other, is subject to human rights standards contained in treaties signed by the United States and binding on state and federal officials
(G1201) 2/00,  9pp, $3.00
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No Minor Matter:
Children in Maryland's Jails
With frequent references to "juvenile predators," "hardened criminals," and "young thugs," U.S. lawmakers at both the state and federal levels have increasingly abandoned efforts to rehabilitate child offenders through the juvenile court system. Instead, many states have responded to a perceived outbreak in juvenile violent crime by moving more children into the adult criminal system. Between 1992 and 1998, at least forty U.S. states adopted legislation making it easier for children to be tried as adults; a similar measure for youth charged with federal crimes is pending in the U.S. Congress. These measures neither reduce crime nor lead to rehabilitation. But they often do lead to serious abuses when children are held in adult jails, sometimes in appalling conditions of confinement, occasionally sharing cells with adult detainees, and frequently provided inadequate education, medical and mental health care, or age-appropriate recreational opportunities. Human Rights Watch calls upon Maryland to end the practice of detaining children in adult detention facilities, and ensure that conditions of detention for youth comply with federal and state law and international standards.
(2432), 11/99, 169 pp., $15.00
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 U.S.: Red Onion State Prison: Super-Maximum Security Confinement in Virginia
The treatment of inmates at Red Onion State Prison, Virginia's first super-maximum securityfacility, raises serious human rights concerns.1 The Virginia Department of Corrections isresponsible for safely and humanely confining all its inmates, even those deemed to be violent,disruptive or to pose other security risks. Like many corrections departments across the country,Virginia's has endorsed the confinement of purportedly dangerous inmates in extremelyrestrictive, highly controlled facilities. Absent thoughtful leadership and careful policies, thepotential for human rights abuses at such "supermax" facilities is great. At Red Onion,unfortunately, the Virginia Department of Corrections has failed to embrace basic tenets of soundcorrectional practice and laws protecting inmates from abusive, degrading or cruel treatment.
(G1101) 05/99, 24pp., $3.00
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United States -- Detained and Deprived of Rights: Children in the Custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
In this report, Human Rights Watch charges the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with violating the rights of unaccompanied children in its custody. The report finds that roughly one-third of detained children are held in punitive, jail-like detention centers, even though most children in INS custody are being detained for administrative reasons while their case is pending, not as a punishment for criminal behavior. Approximately 5000 unaccompanied children are detained by the INS each year. Human Rights Watch focused its report on a Pennsylvania facility that the INS claims is one of the best in the country. However, the report found that too many children are locked up in prison-like conditions with juveniles accused of murder, rape and drug trafficking, where they are forbidden to speak their native language, instructed not to laugh, and, according to several interviewees, even forced to ask permission to scratch their noses. Human Rights Watch found that some children are strip searched and restrained by handcuffs during transport, and denied basic rights to privacy.
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Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States
The expansion of suffrage to all sectors of the population is one of the United States' most important political triumphs. Once the privilege of wealthy white men, the vote is now a basic right held as well by the poor and working classes, racial minorities, women and young adults. Today, all mentally competent adults have the right to vote with only one exception: convicted criminal offenders. In forty-six states and the District of Columbia, criminal disenfranchisement laws deny the vote to all convicted adults in prison. The racial impact of disenfranchisement laws is particularly egregious. Thirteen percent of African American men -- ;1.4 million -- are disenfranchised, representing just over one-third (36 percent) of the total disenfranchised population.  If current trends continue, the rate of disenfranchisement for black men could reach 40 percent in the states that disenfranchise ex-offenders.
(G1003) 10/98, 27pp., $5.00
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United States -- Nowhere to Hide: Retaliation Against Women in Michigan State Prisons
This report documents how women inmates who have been raped by guards in Michigan prisons are suffering retaliation from their attackers."In Michigan, a woman risks being sexually assaulted if she's imprisoned, and being terrorized by guards if she dares report the assault," said Regan Ralph, executive director of theWomen's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. "If this were happening in another country, no one would hesitate to call it what it is: a terrible abuse of human rights."  Thirty-one women have filed a class action lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections, charging that prison management has failed to prevent sexual assault and abuse by guards and staff. The suit, which is being jointly prosecuted by private lawyers and the U.S. Department of Justice, also charges that women face retaliation when they report rape: everything from verbal abuse, to being placed in solitary confinement, to being raped again. One plaintiff was placed on a permanent visitation ban and has not seen her daughter for nearly two years. She is now on a hunger strike to protest her treatment.
(G1002)09/98, 27 pp., $5.00
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United States -- Locked Away: Immigration Detainees in Jails in the United States
Human Rights Watch charges that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now holding more than half of its detainees in jails where they are subjected to punitive treatment and may be mixed with criminal inmates. With its own detention facilities overwhelmed, the INS is placing its administrative detainees in jails, even though they are not serving criminal sentences. Those detained include asylum seekers, undocumented individuals picked up by the INS on the street or during workplace raids, and individuals with previous convictions who are now awaiting deportation. The 84-page report, Locked Away: Immigration Detainees in Local Jails in the United States, reflects research conducted over an eighteen-month period, including visits to fourteen jails in seven states and interviews with more than 200 INS detainees.
(G1001) 09/98, 84 pp., $7.00
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Shielded from Justice
Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
Police brutality is one of the most serious, enduring and divisive human rights violations in the United States. Unjustified shootings by police, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and unnecessarily rough treatment of detainees occur in cities throughout the country. Despite promises of reform following high-profile incidents, abusive treatment by police officers persists because systems presumably designed to hold officers accountable instead, in practice, often allow them to escape punishment of any kind. In addition to violating U.S. law and police department policies, police brutality violates international human rights treaties by which the U.S. is bound; the failure of U.S. institutions to hold police accountable is also a breach of international human rights standards. This report represents more than two years of research in fourteen U.S.cities - Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland,Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Human Rights Watch urges wide-ranging reforms to address police abuse, including national and local data-collection, with federal aid to police departments conditioned on compliance with reporting requirements and on improvements in oversight and discipline; stronger police and political leadership; adequate funding and political support for civilian review agencies; and special prosecutors in each state to handle criminal prosecutions of police.
(1835) 07/98, 450 pps,ISBN 1-56432-183-5, $20.00
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Cold Storage
Super-Maximum Security Confinement in Indiana
In the United States, correctional authorities are relying increasingly on special super-maximum security facilities to confine disruptive or dangerous prisoners. Prisoners in these facilities spend an average of twenty-three hours a day in small, often windowless cells, facing years of extreme social isolation, enforced idleness, and extraordinarily limited recreational or educational opportunities. Prolonged confinement in these conditions can be devastating psychologically, particularly for the many prisoners who are incarcerated with pre-existing psychiatric illnesses. Human Rights Watch examines in this report two prisons in Indiana that exemplify conditions and practices in super-maximum security facilities around the country. While recognizing legitimate security considerations in the housing of prisoners who break prison rules, Human Rights Watch concludes that security cannot justify conditions that constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Warehousing mentally ill prisoners in super-maximum security facilities is particularly reprehensible: it exacerbates their illness and can inflict such great suffering as to constitute torture under international human rights law. This report is the first comprehensive assessment under international human rights law of super-maximum security facilities in the United States which house prisoners who will someday be released back into society. The report illuminates some of the key issues that correctional authorities confront in confining difficult prisoners.
(1754) 10/97, 92 pp., ISBN 1-56432-175-4, $10.00
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High Country Lockup
Children in Confinement in Colorado
Too many children are being held prisoner in Colorado, and as a result they live in crowded conditions that are sometimes unsafe and frequently devoid of activities that would prepare them to be useful citizens when they are released. One institution is so bad it is operating under a court order. Another, a private institution with children from several states, so appalled officials from Idaho that it withdrew its inmates. These are among the highlights of our examination of juvenile detention in Colorado, a state whose snowcapped mountains and crisp air offers an image that is too often belied by its institutions. Human Rights Watch visited institutions, interviewed children, staff members, judges and others, and reviewed the increasingly punitive legislation governing the courts' treatment of people in "the system" under the age of eighteen. Like many states, it is moving away from programs and toward ever-increasing punishment. It is turning its back on children in its care by sending them to private facilities both in and out of state. It is flooding its institutions with young people without taking into account the fact that the vast majority will return to society. Conditions in Colorado institutions often violate U.S. constitutional standards as well as those found in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty. In this report, we make a series of recommendations regarding the human rights aspects of imprisonment in children's facilities in Colorado.
(219-X) 09/97, 120 pp.,ISBN 1-56432-219-X, $10.00
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In its Own Words: The U.S. Army and Antipersonnel Mines in the Korean and Vietnam Wars
Most of the world is poised to ban antipersonnel landmines, the indiscriminate weapons that kill or maim an estimated 26,000 civilians each year. More than 100 governments have committed to negotiating a comprehensive ban treaty in Oslo, Norway in September, with the intention of signing the treaty in Ottawa, Canada in December. Thus far, however, the United States has said that it will not participate in the negotiations and is not prepared to sign a ban treaty as early as December 1997, despite the fact that in a major policy announcement on May 16, 1996, President Clinton pledged that the U.S. "will seek a worldwide agreement as soon as possible to end the use of all antipersonnel landmines." Because of the desire of some in the U.S. military to hold on to this weapon as long as possible, President Clinton has been seeking a ban not through the fast-track "Ottawa Process" aimed at a ban treaty in December 1997, but through the notoriously slow United Nations Conference on Disarmament, a process expected to take many years, if not decades.
(G903) 7/97, 14 pp., $3.00
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Exposing the Source: U.S. Companies and the Production of Antipersonnel Mines
Despite the Clinton Administration's attempts to lay claim to the mantle of global leadership in the effort to ban antipersonnel landmines, the United States has refused to ban-or even formally suspend-the production of antipersonnel mines. From 1985 through 1996, the U.S. produced more than four million new antipersonnel mines. At the same time that President Clinton was urging the rest of the world to move toward the total elimination of the weapon, the Pentagon was awarding contracts to dozens of U.S. companies to manufacture antipersonnel mines to replace those used in the Persian Gulf War. The U.S. currently has a stockpile of 15 million antipersonnel mines, although three million older mines are scheduled to be destroyed by the end of 1999. In this report, Human Rights Watch-as part of a coordinated national effort to promote a total ban on antipersonnel landmines-identifies forty-seven U.S. companies that have been involved in the manufacture of antipersonnel mines, their components, or delivery systems. That is more than twice the number of companies previously acknowledged by the Department of Defense (DoD). This report is to be the basis for a "stigmatization" campaign by the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) to press all companies that have been involved in antipersonnel mine production in the past to renounce any future activities related to antipersonnel mine production.
(G902) 4/97, 47 pp., $5.00
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SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS
Unaccompanied Children Detained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) violates the rights of hundreds of unaccompanied children each year, some as young as eight, contrary to international law as well as INS regulations. Based on on-site visits and interviews conducted at INS facilities in Los Angeles County and Arizona, our report reveals that children are held in prison-like conditions for several months or longer. The INS detains too many children for too long, fails to inform them of their legal rights, interferes with their efforts to obtain legal representation or to consult in private with their lawyers, and fails to facilitate contact with family members. Moreover, the INS fails to keep statistics on or to make public the actions it takes against thousands of unaccompanied children whom it holds in custody for seventy-two hours or less. Many of these abuses are due to the conflicting roles played by the INS: prosecutorial versus care-giving. Children are arrested, imprisoned, and deported, all by the same agency charged with protecting their rights. We urge the government to end this conflict of interest by assigning the care-giving role to appropriate child welfare agencies while the INS assesses their immigration status.
(2092) 4/97, 128 pp., ISBN 1-56432-209-2, $10.00/£8.95
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CRUEL AND USUAL
Disproportionate Sentences for New York Drug Offenders
In the past decade, the U.S. Congress and many state legislatures have established harsh criminal penalties for a wide range of drug offenses, often using the vehicle of mandatory minimum prison sentences. As a consequence, drug offenders in the United States face sentences that are uniquely severe among constitutional democracies. Supporters insist that severe mandatory sentences guarantee serious drug offenders are put behind bars, offer prosecutors leverage for securing cooperation from drug traffickers, deter prospective offenders, and enhance community safety and well-being. Opponents point to data showing the laws have had little impact on the demand for or the availability of drugs. Instead, they have resulted in the unnecessary confinement of low-level nonviolent offenders (most of whom are poor African-Americans and Hispanics), a staggering growth in prison populations, and a waste of public resources. Judges decry the excessive and unfair sanctions that mandatory sentencing laws can require in individual cases. Missing from the debate over drug sentencing laws, however, has been a critique of their human rights impact.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(B902) 3/97, 39 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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ALL TOO FAMILIAR
Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons
Being a woman prisoner in U.S. state prisons can be a terrifying experience. If you are sexually abused, you cannot escape from your abuser. Grievance or investigatory procedures, where they exist, often do not work, and correctional employees continue to engage in abuse because they believe they can get away with it. Few people outside prison walls know what is going on or care if they do know. Fewer still do anything to address the problem. “All Too Familiar” reflects research into sexual abuse of women in prison conducted from April 1994 to November 1996 in state prisons throughout the U.S. The sexual misconduct documented in “All Too Familiar” takes many forms. Male correctional employees vaginally, anally, and orally rape female prisoners and sexually assault and abuse them. In committing such gross misconduct, male employees not only use actual or threatened force, but also exploit their ability to provide or deny goods and privileges to female prisoners to secure sexual relations from them. In some instances, male officers violate their most basic professional duty and engage in sexual contact with female prisoners absent the use of force or offer of any material exchange. Male officers use mandatory pat-frisks to grope women’s breasts, buttocks, and vaginal areas, view them inappropriately while in a state of undress, and engage in regular verbal degradation of female prisoners that contributes to a custodial environment which is often highly sexualized and excessively hostile. The United States has the dubious distinction of incarcerating the largest known number of prisoners in the world. Since 1980, the number of women entering U.S. prisons has risen by almost 400 percent, roughly double the increase for males. Despite the growing number of women at risk and its obligations under domestic and international law, the U.S. government has largely abdicated its responsibility to guarantee in any meaningful way that the women who are incarcerated in its state prisons are not being sexually abused by those in authority over them.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(1533) 12/96, 360 pp., ISBN 1-56432-153-3, $20.00/£14.95
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RACE AND DRUG LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA
The impact of crime control policies on minorities is among the most important, disturbing and contentious social issues facing the United States. Overwhelming data establish the striking proportion of African-Americans entangled in the criminal justice system—on any given day one in three young black American males is either in prison or jail, on probation or parole. Drug laws and enforcement policies are among the most important causes of this national crisis. As one expert has noted, “Urban black Americans have borne the brunt of the War on Drugs. They have been arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned at increasing rates since the early 1980s, and grossly out of proportion to their numbers in the general population or among drug users.” This report examines drug law enforcement in Georgia in light of CERD and the requirement of non-discrimination, focussing primarily on the years 1990 to 1995. (G804) 7/96, 21 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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MODERN CAPITAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS?
Abuses in the State of Georgia
When Atlanta set out to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, its application stated that “for many,” the city is “the modern capital of human rights.” In this report, one of a series on the U.S., we offer an assessment of how Atlanta, and the state of Georgia, comply with international human rights standards. We found that Atlanta police officers have used excessive force, including unjustified shootings and severe beatings with impunity; Georgia’s death penalty law has led to capital punishment primarily for the poor and for African-Americans; drug laws are enforced disproportionately against black drug offenders; state-run jails are overcrowded and physically deteriorated, and local jail officials have neglected prisoners’ welfare; women in prison suffer sexual harassment and intimidation, and sometimes rape, at the hands of their guards; minors in state confinement face extremely poor custodial conditions, are subjected to cruel restraints and punishment; lesbians and gay men face hostility that ranges from harassment under the state’s anti-“sodomy” law, to openly discriminatory firing of gay employees, to verbal threats and physical attacks; and freedom of expression is undermined by local school boards and state legislators.
(169X) 6/96, 208 pp., ISBN 1-56432-169-X, $15.00/£12.95
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Children in Confinement in Louisiana
After visits to the four institutions that hold children committed by the courts for delinquent activity and interviews with over 60 children confined in the institutions, we concluded that children confined in the long-term secure facilities in Louisiana are regularly physically abused by guards and that there is no effective system for bringing these abuses to the attention of the higher authorities. The conditions for these children are punitive and there is little focus on treatment and assisting them to successfully reintegrate into society. Children are kept in isolation for long periods of time, are improperly restrained by handcuffs and are often hungry. The state of Louisiana has one of the highest rates of incarceration of children in the U.S. The conditions in which these children are confined violate numerous international human rights standards including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of Their Liberty. As a result of this report, in June 1996 the U.S. Department of Justice opened an official investigation into conditions in four institutions in Louisiana.
(1592) 10/95, 152 pp., ISBN 1-56432-159-2, $10.00/£8.95
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U.S. Blinding Laser Weapons
The U.S. has pursued the development of at least 10 different tactical laser weapons that have the potential of blinding individuals. The existence of most of these programs is not known to the American public, Congress, or even throughout the military, and services responsible for laser weapons seem largely unaware of the programs in research and development in other services. The secrecy surrounding these weapons and the apparent lack of oversight raises the question of whether international negotiations about them have proceeded on an ill-informed basis. We call on all countries to ban them and stop their development and deployment now.
(B705) 5/95, 16 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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CROSSING THE LINE
Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico Persist Amid Climate of Impunity
U.S. Border Patrol agents are committing serious human rights violations, including unjustified shootings, rapes and beatings, while enjoying virtual impunity for their actions. In our third investigative report in as many years (see B504 & 0758), we cite continuing violations despite assurances received from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, following the publication of our May 1993 report, that the agency would address one of the worst police abuse problems in the country. Instead, the agency’s efforts have been limited, misguided and ineffective, as evidenced by the alarming number of new shootings and serious beatings we documented during the past year.
(B704) 4/95 37 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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A World Leader in Executing Juveniles
We oppose the imposition of the death penalty on all criminal offenders in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty, and, because an execution is an irrevocable violation of the right to life, miscarriages of justice, when they occur, can never be corrected. We also oppose the imposition of the death penalty on offenders whose crimes were committed when they were below the age of 18. The U.S. is a world leader in such executions — 9 juvenile offenders have been executed in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and executions of juvenile offenders are on the rise — 4 of the 9 were executed during the last 6 months of 1993. In addition, more juvenile offenders sit on death row in the U.S. than anywhere else.
(B702) 3/95, 22 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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DANGEROUS DIALOGUE REVISITED
Threats to Freedom of Expression Continue in Miami’s Cuban Exile Community
In 1992, we released a report (see B407) documenting instances of harassment and intimidation against members of the Miami Cuban exile community who expressed moderate political views regarding the government of Fidel Castro or relations with Cuba. In addition to intimidation by private actors, the report found significant responsibility by the U.S. government at all levels. We have continued to monitor free expression in Miami and have noted some improvements, particularly in the apparent diminution of direct government involvement or complicity in repressive activities. Overall, however, the atmosphere for unpopular political speech remains marked by fear and danger, while government officials maintain a conspicuous silence.
(B614) 11/94, 9 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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BREACH OF TRUST
Physician Participation in
Executions in the United States
Despite an American Medical Association policy prohibiting participation by physicians in capital punishment, doctors continue to be involved in executions all across the United States. Indeed, of the thirty-six states with death penalty laws, all but a few require that a physician be present at executions. This report, undertaken jointly by the American College of Physicians, Human Rights Watch, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Physicians for Human Rights, provides new information — based on a state-by-state survey and extensive interviews — about physician involvement in U.S. executions, as well as legal and ethical analyses of the issues involved. To keep the medical profession out of the death penalty, the report calls for stricter new federal and state regulations.
(1258) 3/94, 88 pp., ISBN 1-56432-125-8, $7.00/£5.95
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Human Rights Violations in the U.S.
A Report on U.S. Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Last year, the United States formally adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), undertaking a commitment to ensure the covenant’s protections for “all individuals within its territory.” As part of its obligation under the ICCPR, the U.S. will for the first time submit a report about its own human rights record to a United Nations committee that will evaluate U.S. compliance with international standards. Measuring the U.S. human rights record is too important to be left to the government alone, so the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch have prepared this report — the first of its kind — covering race and sex discrimination, prisoners’ rights, police brutality, the death penalty, immigration rights, language rights, religious liberty, and freedom of expression. The report finds significant shortcomings in the U.S. record, from the summary repatriation of Haitian boat people to the brutal treatment of prisoners. In these and other cases, the ICCPR may offer greater protection against rights abuses than current interpretation of U.S. law. The ACLU and Human Rights Watch call on the Clinton Administration to take steps to correct these abuses and make it possible to invoke the protections of the covenant in U.S. court cases.
(1223) 1/94, 216 pp., ISBN 1-56432-122-3, $15.00/£12.95
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FRONTIER INJUSTICE
Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico Persist Amid Climate of Impunity
A follow-up on human rights violations along the U.S. border with Mexico, this report concludes that serious abuses by U.S. immigration law enforcement agents continue and that current mechanisms intended to curtail abuses and discipline officers are woefully inadequate.
(B504) 5/93, 46 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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BRUTALITY UNCHECKED
Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico
Examining human rights abuses committed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and its agents during the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the four U.S. states that border Mexico, Americas Watch finds that beatings, rough physical treatment, and racially motivated verbal abuse are routine during arrests. Unjustified shootings, torture, and sexual abuse, also occur. When investigations are done they are perfunctory, and the offending agents escape punishment. Also documented are human rights violations that commonly take place during work place and neighborhood raids, violations that are prevalent in INS detention facilities, and violations in which the INS arrests children.
(0748) 6/92, 88 pp., ISBN 1-56432-074-8, $7.00/£5.95
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Prison Conditions in the United States
The United States imprisons more than a million of its citizens at any given time, a larger number than any other country. After visits to more than twenty institutions in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, including state, INS, and federal prisons as well as jails, Human Rights Watch concludes that the most troubling aspect of the human rights situation in U.S. prisons could be labelled “Marionization.” Thirty-six states have followed the example of the maximum security federal prison in Marion, Illinois, to create super maximum security institutions. The states have been quite creative in designing their own “maxi-maxis” and in making the conditions particularly difficult to bear, at times surpassing the original model. As a result, inmates are essentially sentenced twice: once by the court, to a certain period of imprisonment; and a second time, by the prison administration to confinement in maxi-maxis under extremely harsh conditions and without independent supervision. The increasing use of “prisons within prisons” leads to numerous human rights abuses and frequent violations of the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
(0464) 11/91, 120 pp., ISBN 1-56432-046-4, $10.00/£8.95
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(F307) The Supreme Court & Free Speech: Two Decisions of 1990-91 Term Chip Away at First Amendment Protection, 10/91, 7 pp., $3.00/£1.95
(F306) SLAPPing Down Critics: Harassment Libel Suits & Tort Actions Aim to Chill U.S. Citizen Activists, 9/91, 16 pp., $3.00/£1.95
(F305) Police Brutality in the U.S., 7/91, 16 pp., $3.00/£1.95
(F304) Secret Trials in America?: "Alien Terrorist Removal," 6/91, 7 pp., $3.00/£1.95
(B306) Prison Conditions in Puerto Rico, 5/91, 11 pp., $3.00/£1.95
(F302) Managed News, Stifled Views: U.S. Freedom of Expression & the War: An Update, 10 pp., 2/91
(F301) Freedom of Expression & the War: Press & Speech Restrictions in the Gulf & F.B.I. Activity in U.S. Raise First Amendment Issues, 1/91, 14 pp., $3.00/£1.95

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