Dennis Rodman on his trip to DPR (North) Korea –‘This Week' interview

On “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, he keeps saying 200,000 Political Prisoners in Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea.

According to Black Youth Project;

“Lets start with the “prison camps”. According to Stephanopoulos Kim Jong Un has 200,000 people in prison camps. That’s nothing compared to the amount of prisoners in the good ole USA. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2010. 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or on parole. In total, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2009 – about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population…”

Then there is Joseph Arpaio, the meanest Sheriff in the US. He has created a prison camp in Arizona and he brags about it. This excerpt from his web site says it all;

 “With over five decades experience in law enforcement, Arpaio knows what the public wants, “The public is my boss,” he says, “so I serve the public.” He has served them well by establishing several unique programs.

Arpaio has between 7500 - 10,000 inmates in his jail system. In August, 1993, he started the nation’s largest Tent City for convicted inmates. Two thousand convicted men and women serve their sentences in a canvas incarceration compound. It is a remarkable success story that has attracted the attention of government officials, presidential candidates, and media worldwide.

Of equal success and notoriety are his chain gangs, which contribute thousands of dollars of free labor to the community. The male chain gang, and the world’s first-ever female and juvenile chain gangs, clean streets, paint over graffiti, and bury the indigent in the county cemetery.

Also impressive are the Sheriff’s get tough policies. For example, he banned smoking, coffee, movies, pornographic magazines, and unrestricted TV in all jails. He has the cheapest meals in the U.S. too. The average meal costs between 15 and 40 cents, and inmates are fed only twice daily, to cut the labor costs of meal delivery. He even stopped serving them salt and pepper to save tax payers $20,000 a year.”

His treatment of prisoners is clearly meant to humiliate and torture prisoners. And Arpaio’s excuse is the voters like it. If Americans can vote away someone’s human rights, they should not complain about the prisons in DPRK.

-សតិវ អតុ