A lawsuit over a Virginia prison inmate's death has raised broader questions about conditions at the lockup and newly obtained records are providing further insights.

The Virginia State Police investigator seemed puzzled about what the inmate was describing: “unbearable” conditions at a prison so cold that toilet water would freeze over and inmates were repeatedly treated for hypothermia.

“How do you get hypothermia in a prison?” the investigator asked. “You shouldn’t.”

The exchange, captured on video obtained by The Associated Press, took place during an investigation into the death of Charles Givens, a developmentally disabled inmate at the Marion Correctional Treatment Center, who records show was among those repeatedly hospitalized for hypothermia.

After a special grand jury considered the case but opted not to bring criminal charges, Givens’ sister sued in federal court, alleging her brother was subjected to routine mistreatment, including “cold-water torture,” before he was fatally beaten in 2022.

The lawsuit has raised broader questions about conditions at the southwest Virginia prison, which the grand jury described as “inhumane and deplorable.”

  • Coreidan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    6 months ago

    I’m disparaging Americans by suggesting they have a vengeance mentality.

    Wrong. Americans are sitting on their asses. There is no vengeance or vengeance mentality. If that’s truly what you think you need to go outside and touch grass. Go mingle with your community because your mind is warped. Lemmy and reddit is a terrible representation of the American or greater mentality in the world.

    Looking at your comment history it’s clear you spend entirely way too much time on lemmy. It’s no wonder your perspective is so warped.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      22·
      6 months ago

      I am far from the only one who sees America’s vengeance culture. Here are some others who see it, including academics:

      The call for vengeance is rooted in the nation’s very founding, in the way English settlers treated the native people and each other. Over the last four centuries, it has repeatedly been expressed as violence acted upon the most defenseless people, scapegoats of social tyranny. Vengeance is the Achilles heel of what it means to an American, negating the hope that inspires each generation and continues to draw immigrants.

      The most gruesome recent examples of social vengeance were the state murders of Troy Anthony Davis in Georgia and Lawrence Russell Brewer in Texas. For many supporters of the death penalty, these killings illustrate the blindness of justice: death was inflicted fairly on an obviously wrongly-convicted black man and an unrepentant racist white man. For anyone who believes in a humane sense of justice, one that has a moral or ethical (as opposed to a vindictive or punitive) lesson at its heart, these acts illustrate how barbarity is accepted as a normal part of American life.

      …

      From the return of the death penalty to the wars on terror and in Iraq, Americans demand retribution and moral certainty; they assert the “rights of victims” and make pronouncements against “evil.” Yet for Aladjem this dangerously authoritarian turn has its origins in the tradition of liberal justice itself - in theories of punishment that justify inflicting pain and in the punitive practices that result. Exploring vengeance as the defining problem of our time, Aladjem returns to the theories of Locke, Hegel and Mill. He engages the ancient Greeks, Nietzsche, Paine and Foucault to challenge liberal assumptions about punishment. He interrogates American law, capital punishment and images of justice in the media.

      …

      In this season of gratitude and goodwill, we’re greeted with headlines reporting revenge travel, revenge dressing, revenge impeachments and revenge of presidential proportions in the 2024 campaign of Donald Trump. But are Americans avengers?

      The answer was simple once. Yes, we dreamed of revenge, cheered it at theaters and sports arenas, secretly wished it upon bosses and double-crossers. We prayed revenge would right family slights and false friends. Yet we respected the line between fantasy and action. Our society demanded it. Vengeance was considered uncivilized, unethical, an act of ugly self-destruction. We denied the need to get even.

      In recent years though, we’ve seen a surge in vindictive behavior. Judges, journalists, politicians and their families have been targeted with violent reprisals. Online encounters trend spiteful, with TikTok and Bumble fighting the spread of revenge porn. Corporate culture plays like a mud-pit production of “Measure for Measure,” starring Elon Musk. And congressional midterms are a grudge match, the next round scheduled for January, according to the headlines: “The GOP captures the House — and is ready for revenge.”

      https://scholar.harvard.edu/terryaladjem/publications/culture-vengeance-and-fate-american-democracy

      https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/27/lets-get-american-revenge-00074960

      https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-afghanistan-revenge/

      https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1003&context=book_chapters

      https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/american-vengeance/

      So are you sure it’s not you who has the warped perspective? Considering you’re suggesting people commit murder to effect change?

      • Coreidan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        6 months ago

        I don’t see how any of this represents the greater American public. Plus it’s just more garbage from the main stream media.

        You live in an echo chamber. This is why you need to go out and touch grass and actually meet your community.

        You link a couple of articles about psychos being psychos.

        Are you saying we need to convince mentally ill people to stop being mentally ill?

        Again you clearly don’t see how much of a strangle hold corporations have on everything including the “news”. The people you’re voting for don’t represent you. They are there to collect big bucks from corporate lobbying.

        All of these politicians are filthy rich. Ask yourself why when their salary is less than 100k a year.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          22·
          6 months ago

          Harvard is the mainstream media? The University of Michigan is the mainstream media?

          Again you clearly don’t see how much of a strangle hold corporations have on everything including the “news”. The people you’re voting for don’t represent you. They are there to collect big bucks from corporate lobbying.

          All of these politicians are filthy rich. Ask yourself why when their salary is less than 100k a year.

          Again, why are you not getting out the guillotine if you’re complaining about this? Because you said that makes someone a hypocrite if they complain about America but don’t get out the guillotine.

          • Coreidan@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            6 months ago

            LOL Harvard is all rich people. They represent rich people. Who do you think owns the 24 hour news cycle? Rich people. Who do you think is buying politicans? Rich people. Wake up and get off Fox News. If you want to sling shit at anyone it’s corporations.

              • Coreidan@lemmy.worldEnglish
                13·
                6 months ago

                Because you said that makes someone a hypocrite if they complain about America but don’t get out the guillotine.

                Actually I never said this. So either you have reading problems or you’re now trying to use straw man arguments to win a moronic position.

                The reason I don’t pull the guillotines out is the same reason you don’t. But I am not going to sit here and circle jerk myself into thinking that voting is going to change anything when we have 50 years of evidence that it doesn’t.

                I called you a hypocrite because you’re calling out Americans when you’re sitting on your ass. I am not the one calling anyone out except you.

                I can tell you’re bad at reading comprehension.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  21·
                  6 months ago

                  The reason I don’t pull the guillotines out is the same reason you don’t. But I am not going to sit here and circle jerk myself into thinking that voting is going to change anything when we have 50 years of evidence that it doesn’t.

                  …and we’re back to ‘do nothing and change nothing.’