Prisons "Shock" Therapy Is "Torture"

Prisoners in New York have the option of going through a brutal boot camp program to shave time off their sentence. John Iadarola and Keri Blakinger break it down on The Damage Report. Follow The Damage Report on Facebook:   / thedamagereporttyt   Help build the Home of the Progressives http://tyt.com/JOIN Subscribe to The Damage Report YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/thedamagerepo... Follow The Damage Report on Twitter:   / thedamagereport   Read more here: https://theappeal.org/new-york-prison... "Prisoners can shave time off their sentences by participating in shock incarceration programs. More than a dozen former shock prisoners say that comes at a steep cost. They were called crackheads and bad parents. They were forced to wear cones on their heads with humiliating signs. They shoveled snow with spoons, and stood stoically as drill instructors forced them to fill their pockets with wet food from the mess hall when they couldn’t eat it all. Sometimes they were hit or were sexually abused. Afterward, they were sent home from prison, ostensibly cured and no longer a threat to society. In New York’s shock incarceration programs, prisoners with three years or less left on their sentences can spend six months doing drills, learning military discipline and taking substance abuse classes in a strict “therapeutic community” environment in exchange for an early shot at freedom. Such programs are largely unknown to the public. But people in county jails and drug courts, and in prison reception centers and on the streets, are well acquainted with them. The decades-old programs in the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) are some of the last in the country. The “tough love” programs claim a lower recidivism rate, and they have long been a darling of the tough-on-crime upstate Republican lawmakers who court corrections officer union support and tout the possibility of cost savings from early releases." #TheDamageReport #JohnIadarola #TheYoungTurks