Routine Beatings of Inmates in Alabama Prisons Go Ignored, U.S. Says

One prisoner who died had intracranial bleeding, nose and eye socket fractures and six teeth knocked out. Corrections officers who had brutalized him said he fell from a bunk bed.

Another inmate defecated on himself after a guard struck him 19 times with a baton, even though he was handcuffed.

And then there was a prisoner who begged for a corrections officer to kill him after he was also beaten with a baton while handcuffed.

Those atrocities were detailed in a 28-page report on the Alabama prison system that was released on Thursday by the Justice Department, which said that corrections officers frequently used excessive force. The cycle of violence infringes on prisoners’ constitutional right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, the report said.