Tx. Prison Abuse Case Linked to Abu Ghraib

Aug. 26, 2004 -- Human rights abuses similar to those revealed in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal have occurred regularly in U.S. prisons, but they have sparked far less attention and outrage, critics say.

A week after the Iraqi prison scandal broke in April, President Bush sat for an interview with the Arab-language Alhurra, a U.S.-financed satellite television network .

"The people in Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent," the president said in the interview. "They must also understand that what took place in that prison does not represent America that I know. The America I know is a compassionate country that believes in freedom. The America I know cares about every individual."

But Alan Elsner says the America he knows is not as compassionate as it should be, and does not care about every individual.

Elsner is the author of Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons, a book that takes a critical view of the human rights situation in the U.S. penal system. He says he "was not that surprised" when he first heard allegations that U.S. soldiers had abused Iraqi detainees, "especially when it became clear that two of the correctional officers who were involved in Abu Ghraib actually had been prison guards in the United States."

Elsner is referring to Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, who recently announced he plans to plead guilty to some charges, and Spc. Charles Graner Jr. Both men are military police with the 372nd Military Police Company, an Army Reserve unit based in Maryland.

Frederick worked at the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Va., for more than five years before going to Iraq. Graner began work at the State Correctional Institute at Greene, Pa., in 1996, and is still considered an employee there, receiving a $500 per month stipend on top of his military salary.

Others from the U.S. penal system were involved in Iraqi prisons. In May, ABC News reported that four of the six former state prison commissioners chosen by the Bush administration to help set up prisons in Iraq had left their previous posts after allegations of neglect, brutality and prisoner deaths.