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Prisoners Evacuated from Katrina Report Being Beaten

HeadlineOct 04, 2005

Human Rights Watch is demanding Louisiana officials investigate reports that prisoners evacuated from the Jefferson Parish Prison due to Hurricane Katrina were beaten and mistreated after they were taken to the Jena Correctional Facility. Prisoners have told Human Rights Watch Inmates that correctional officers have beaten, kicked and hit them while they were shackled. They also say that officers sprayed the walls with chemicals and forced inmates to hold their faces against the sprayed walls. When some inmates became ill and vomited, officers wiped their faces and hair in the vomit. Corinne Carey of Human Rights Watch said, “It appears that men who have been through the horrors of Katrina were then subjected to new horrors at the hands of prison officers.”

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