Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

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Amnesty International protests that prison officials in Louisiana require HIV-positive inmates to wear a electro-shock 50,000 volt "stun belt" (capable of causing shat pants, excruciating pain, and death when activated by remote control) no matter their security classification. (Some model prisoners charged with misdemeanors are forced to wear the belt.)

Amnesty rightly calls such use of the belts "discriminatory and unconscionable," and the group has grave concerns about the heath risk posed to any inmates equipped with the belt and to those who are denied medical care if they refuse to wear it: HIV positive inmates are made to sign a release authorizing the fitting of the stun belt; failure to sign the release results in denial of transportation to health facilities for life-sustaining treatment.

Stories like this from America's Deep South remind Dawn that at one point in American history, that whole region of the country wanted to leave the Union; too bad Mr. Lincoln didn't have the good sense to give in gracefully....