Reply #6: The photographs probably influence our perceptions [View All]

In the United States, many of us make the assumption that our legal system is almost perfect or that it is too lenient, allowing too many bad guys to escape justice. Many Americans also tend to believe that most inmates are prison because they committed horrible violent crimes (and ignore the fact that many are in prison for nonviolent drug-related crimes). We also tend not to believe defendants or prison inmates when they claim that they were framed by the police or were mistreated in prison. We assume they are lying and trying to get out of prison.


However, it is impossible to deny what happened at Abu Ghraib in Iraq (even though some Republican senators have tried) because we have all seen the pictures. The fact that many of the men is these pictures are naked probably contributes greatly to the shock value.

The fact that some of the individuals who were accused of torture in Iraq were prison guards in the U.S. will hopefully cause some Americans to question what happens in American prisons. As you probably know, Amnesty International monitors and reports on the treatment of prisoners in U.S. prisons.