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Guest Column: South Carolina’s Detention Center Disaster
Ally Benevento: “The body count continues to climb … (but) few are paying attention.”
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7 comments
Get “Ol’Elick” a mop and have him get busy!
I could not finish reading your article because I do not believe in painting everyone with the same brush, guilt by association or collective punishment so to speak; but I have come to believe that along with the spoken oath to civility, South Carolina lawyers take an oath to hypocrisy. Bluntly, would you have shed so many (sincere or crocodile) tears over the conditions in the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center (“ASGDC”) if your Strom law firm were not representing the family of Lason Butler in its lawsuit against ASGDC? I, a quadrilingual physician, surgeon, and master of public health, was thrown into that ASGDC for 25 days in March-April 2011 SOLELY FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO STAND UP ON A LATER-PROVEN BROKEN KNEE when the supposed “judge” Marion Oneida Hanna entered the courtroom; AND NOT ONE LAWYER OR JUDGE IN THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF SOUTH CAROLINA STOOD UP FOR ME. Not one: Not Clifton Newman, who had presided over the five-day trial in which I defended myself without a lawyer against fabricated “harassment” charges and, thank God, ultimately won; not Alison Renee Lee, who affirmed my appeal from the horrendous bond conditions imposed on me to get out of that ASGDC pending my appeal of the contempt of court (for not being able to stand on painful knees when Marion Oneida Hanna entered the courtroom, remember). Newman and Lee were then 5th Circuit chief administrative judges and each claimed it is the other who should hear my application for bond. Only 7 years later did Judge Gravely have the courage and decency to rule, in post-conviction relief (which, again, I pursued without a lawyer) that Hanna had no right to impose those bond conditions on me. But I was thrown into ASGDC again in 2022 for having done nothing but ALLEGEDLY sent four e-mails OVER A TWO-YEAR PERIOD to Dan Shearouse inquiring why he had taken my appeals from the original contempt-of-court conviction off C-Track. Again, no lawyer or judge would stand up for me. And speaking of hypocrisy, FITSNEWS never inquired of any court why they conceal my cases from the public record. Maybe you, Ms. Benevento, did not take the same hidden oath to hypocrisy; or maybe you did. Your response, if any, to this lengthy but necessary comment will tell. God bless nonetheless.
Thank you Maitresse Benevento for your genuine concern. Perhaps people would care more if you pointed out that, the more crowded the jails and prisons are, THE HIGHER THE CHANCES OF ESCAPE BY THE MOST DANGEROUS DETAINEES/CONVICTS. Those are the ones with nothing more to lose. And most escape attempts, successful or not, involved inside jobs; which proves that Society can produce only a rare number of people willing to work as jail/prison guards who are both strong AND incorruptible. The other thing you may want to point out is that the problem leading to overincarceration is over-criminalization and over-penalization. I give the contrast between Elizabeth Smart and Samantha Josephson, assuming there was a rape intent in the latter case. I ask every parent of a daughter: if she were, God forbid, kidnapped with the intent of rape, would you rather have her returned to you, perhaps impregnated by her kidnapper, BUT ALIVE or would you prefer that her kidnapper kill her to avoid detection? The way to ensure that is to give EVERY CRIME less than homicide much lower penalty than homicidal crimes to reduce the incentive of the criminal to kill the viction to avoid detection. It may be easier to convince people with actual studies and statistics that over-criminalization, over-penalization, and over-incarceration at the end make society LESS, not more “SAFE.” God speed and God bless.
It’s Jail…it is not a country club for the worst of us. Society gave them all the opportunity anyone has to make a good life for themselves and created for themselves good living conditions..the fact they chose to become the worst of the worst of us is in fact their own choice. Should they be treated like rats? no and they are not. Is there over crowding in our jails, you bet, but the money that is needed for repairs is used to feed the worst of the worst of us. Taxpayers are tapped out. There is not responsibility to tax payers to continue to doll out dollars hand over fist to provide immaculate conditions for the worst of the worst of us. They are not forced to make a contribution to society such as road crews or even their own environment…look at the source, and fix it there. Do not complain to society for the conditions they created for our society if they were not there. There hast to be accountability and responsibility and it is not on the tax payers to make that a cushy road for them.
Stop doing crime and you do not do the time…we need to hold prisoners more accountable for their action, on a sure basis they will not get out…period
The prison I was helping restore in Iraq in 2004 was in better shape than this place. Detainees have the expectation that they will make to trail and not die!
Deplorable conditions
Thank you, ally, for what you are doing by looking into the conditions there. It is definitely unacceptable and inhumane.