Greg de Villiers would have been aware that toxicologists in Kristin's circle considered fentanyl to be a difficult drug to detect, at least on the part of a victim, he was said to have been at a party where this had been discussed, and the L.A. County toxicologist, Dan Anderson, and authored a paper titled Death by Fentanyl. While the defence lawyers for Kristin Rossum were unable to prove that de Villiers had acquired a quantity of phentanyl, and administered it to himself, nobody ever tried to prove that he didn't. He is described as having been "a top biotech executive" and he would, more likely than not, have had contacts in the laboratory equipment and drugs supply industry who might have been willing to get him some.

Unfortunately, the defence were unable to prove their suspicion that Greg de Villiers had drunken a large dose of fentanyl from a glass found at his bedside because it was never tested for traces of the drug. The police had initially assumed the death was a suicide and had not treated it as a murder scene until it was too late to capture vital evidence. Again, the presumption of innocence might have been applied, but it was not.

In the absence of hard evidence to show that de Villiers drank fentanyl of his own accord, and in the face of prosecution claims - supported by expert testimony - that there was a suspicious needle wound on his arm, the jury seem to have been convinced that - circumstantially - Kristin Rossum injected her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl.

Not enough seems to have been done by the state investigators to rule out this scenario, and Kristin Rossum's team lacked the authority and resources to explore it in full. This often happens to accused persons who have to contend with a state team that is seeking to gain a conviction, come what may, and is prepared to either overlook or even to deliberately exclude possible clues.

Given the extent of electronic surveillance in all supermarkets and convenience stores it should have been a simple matter for the state to determine whether the tape showed a red or yellow rose in her hand when she was at the checkout. Although the recording would be in mono it should still have been forensically practical to detect the difference in hue between the shade of a red rose and that of a yellow one.

This was not pursued and, of course, such an investigation was beyond the capacity of the Rossum defence team. The state always enjoys this sort of advantage in any test of 'justice'.

The prosecution did not seek out this information for two reasons: (a) Such information is not officially supposed to be available, although it is an open secret that the central governments of many nations, including the U.S.A., have routinely recorded all phone conversations for decades, and certainly well before 911 and the War on Terror. (b) Their case against Kristin Rossum could have been seriously undermined and the death of Greg de Villiers might have had to be treated as a suicide; which is the way the police initially saw it.

Ordinary citizens such as Kristin Rossum who come under suspicion of criminal acts face a daunting task to clear themselves. They invariably have limited financial resources and, more significantly, they lack the authority and resources needed to fully seek out evidence that could prove their innocence. Ranged against the accused are the enormous financial, legal and investigative resources of the state. Because the so-called justice systems of the USA and Australia are so adversarial, deriving as they do from feudal times and English law, the prosecution are always 'out to get' the accused.

Both police officers and prosecution lawyers can advance their careers, pay, and status by securing convictions, especially in high profile cases like the 'American Beauty' murder. These guys simply didn't want Rossum to be found 'not guilty'.

Trial by jury simply isn't a 'fair' system in which a balanced view is taken of all the facts and a just decision is reached. The whole process by which people are convicted and sent to prison is seriously flawed, and the authorities and others who live from it know this only too well.

The star prosecutor in Kristin Rossum's case was thereafter promoted to Judge. Similarly, various advancements followed the prosecution, in Australia, of Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her baby Azaria Chantel Chamberlain, in 1980. The cases, though in different countries and 20 years apart, also have other similarities.

In both trials the evidence was predominantly circumstantial, there were no actual witnesses to the deaths and, in the Chamberlain case baby Azaria's body was never found. Both Kristin Rossum and Lindy Chamberlain were convicted on the basis of conjecture, media hype, and expert testimony. In Lindy's case she told of a dingo (a native wild dog descended from a species originating in Thailand) entering the Chamberlain's tent in the Ayres Rock Camping Ground on August 17, 1980 and carrying 9-week-old Azaria off in its mouth. Kristin's version of the events surrounding the death of her husband have already been outlined above. Both women strenuously denied any guilt but both went to prison.

Lindy Chamberlain spent 3 years in Darwin jail and gave birth to another daughter there. Luckily for her she was not required to wear leg irons during labour, as she would have been in California where Kristin Rossum is now incarcerated. Chamberlain was released following the revelation that the 'fetal bloodstains' found under the dashboard of the family car and which had played a major part in the conviction of her and her husband, were nothing but red undercoat - just common old paint. A forensic scientist in the employ of the Northern Territory government had seemingly 'mistaken' paint, which is an inorganic compound, with fetal blood, which is an organic substance.

In reviewing the 1988 film, Evil Angels, about the Chamberlain case, Robert Ebert of the Chicago-Sun Times warned of the danger of allowing accused people to be convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence. He also noted that, if the death penalty had applied in Australia, a wrongful conviction could have resulted in Lindy Chamberlain's execution.

As the Chamberlain case showed, expert evidence can be just as dangerous as circumstantial evidence. Since the development of DNA testing numerous convictions have been appealed and overturned on the basis of misleading or untrue evidence given under oath by expert witnesses. Nobody knows how many innocent men and women have gone to their deaths as convicted murderers or are still serving time in 'punishing' prison conditions because of the unchallenging acceptance by juries of 'expert' evidence.

The adversarial nature of the justice system and, ingrained 'convict for your career's sake' attitudes within the law enforcement, legal, judicial and forensic cliques that investigate and prosecute suspected wrongdoers, have often combined to deny accused people a fair hearing and to send them to imprisonment, institutionalised and unjustified 'punishment' or even death.

The expert testimony in the Rossum trial said that de Villiers had been dead for most of the day on November 6, 2000 and that he was already comatose by the time she claimed to have spoken to him on the phone. The expert evidence also indicated that Greg de Villiers died from a massive injection of fentanyl that was administered roughly, as would occur if there had been a struggle. The expert evidence said that de Villiers death was the due to large amounts of fentanyl detected in his body. The expert evidence in the Chamberlain case said that red automotive undercoat was fetal blood. Who knows what the truth really is?

Well, for one thing, somebody already knows or can readily determine whether Rossum made the lunchtime phone call that might well have cleared her of murder. They just aren't saying because to bring such evidence to light might not only overturn a 'highly successful' prosecution and conviction, it would reveal to the US populace the extent to which their everyday communications are being monitored by the Feds. Unfortunately for Kristin Rossum, even if her version of events is true, nobody will ever admit that there is a record of her conversation with Greg. It will not be deemed to be 'in the national interest' for authorities to admit that judicially authorised wire-tapping is an anachronistic farce, and that due to the wonders of modern communications technology all phone conversations can be, and already are, monitored 24/7.

It was also difficult for Rossum's legal team to authenticate the expert evidence that was tendered in court. It is not clear whether they were able to verify the conclusions about the time of death, or whether there really was a large amount of fentanyl in de Villier's body. Kristin Rossum herself would have been able to determine the concentrations of the poison, she is a summa cum laude graduate in chemistry from San Diego State University and a trained toxicologist. But as the accused person it was not possible for her to do any such analysis, it had to be independent.

Her supervisor and lover at the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office could also have determined whether the amounts of fentanyl in the body were suggestive of a frenzied attack and intravenous injection of a massive amount of the drug, sufficient to kill de Villiers very quickly, or whether there were substantially lower amounts of fentanyl in the body; more consistent with his having drunk a smaller quantity from the glass found at his bedside, and then expired more slowly and in the manner that Rossum described at her trial. But no such analysis by Rossum's lover - or apparently anyone else on her side - was permitted. He was ordered to stay right away from the investigation that eventually jailed her.

Despite the above commentary Kristin Rossum does bear a degree of guilt in relation to the break-up of her marriage and the death of Greg de Villiers. She is clearly guilty of adultery. She is also guilty of causing her 'clinging' husband great distress in the manner of her proposed separation and divorce. The right thing to have done, if her marriage was so intolerable to her, was to have divorced Greg before she took another lover. The way de Villiers was confronted with absolute betrayal and rejection could, very possibly, have caused him to end his own life. Kristin Rossum was also guilty of substance abuse and possibly of the theft of drugs from her place of employment. Nevertheless, many women have done very similar things; they're not commendable actions but they aren't really hanging offences either.

The issue here is not whether Kristin Rossum is a 'good' or a 'bad' person. All of us are a bit of each. Although there are many reasons to doubt it, suppose, for the sake of the argument, that Rossum really is a murderess and that she is the scheming, self-centred, spoilt and over privileged brat she has been portrayed as in the media and at least one book written about her trial. Should she be in prison for the remainder of her natural life; without the possibility of parole? Should she be further punished within a prison that functions to exploit and torment its inmates beyond all the bounds of human decency, morality and human rights? The important issues involve questions of whether she should have been incarcerated as she has been, and whether she should be additionally punished by way of harsh treatment and, more than probably, sexual abuse.

Not only does the following argument find the answers to these questions to be a resounding NO, it raises the further question: if Rossum, assuming that she really is a husband poisoner, should not be confined and so treated, then what about the other 7,000 women serving time in the twin prisons complex at Chowchilla? What about all the rest, all over the US, and those in Australian jails for that matter?

How many women really need to be kept away from society because they pose a clear risk to it? The answer is damn few. It is quite probable that there are less than 100 women in the Chowchilla prisons complex where Rossum has been incarcerated that really should be kept off the streets. Even it there are three or four times as many women in the latter category, they should not be incarcerated in places like Chowchilla or treated as sub-humans, to be abused and tormented by a cruel system. As far as the rest of the women in the twin jails are concerned, the correct response is obvious: Let the girls GO!

The Awful Realities Of Chowchilla
In December, 2002, Kristin Rossum was sentenced to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. She is now incarcerated in the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) Chowchilla, in a complex that holds more convicted women than any other jail on planet earth. The judge had earlier denied a number of defence motions for a new trial and, at the short sentencing hearing, he ordered Rossum to pay a $10,000 fine. The de Villiers family have also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her.

In California, Rossum's conviction for murder made her eligible for the death penalty, as is also the case in many other states of the US. The prosecution chose, however, to seek a life prison term. They would, undoubtedly, have been aware that such a sentence would involve far greater and more protracted punishment than would a quick, lethal injection. Sadly, Kristin Rossum is presently discovering the nature of the unrelenting punishment that awaited her in Chowchilla. From many accounts, that place is not far short of HELL.

A probation officer's report of an interview with Rossum following her conviction, and just prior to her sentencing, indicates that she had at least two misconceptions at that point. Firstly, she told the probation officer that: "I still can't believe the jury convicted me." It wasn't the jury that was responsible, it was the investigation and prosecution teams full of career-focussed people. The jury, as noted above, would seem to have been unsure of their ground in the face of purely circumstantial evidence. It was, more than likely, expert evidence that convinced them that there were some 'hard' facts involved and that these could convict Rossum.

Secondly, although she expected to be sent to prison, at least until she and her family could win a retrial, Kristin Rossum does not seem to have expected a life sentence. She certainly showed by her remarks that, like most people on the outside, she had no conception of what the place she would be incarcerated in was really like. She told the probation officer that if she were sent to jail she hoped to take advantage of the educational opportunities available. When she was eventually exonerated, as she expected she must surely be, she planned to attend graduate school and earn a doctorate in analytical chemistry. She also expressed a wish to have a family. None of these expectations would prove to be realistic.

She was about to be put in the care of a system that would mistreat and punish her for the rest of her days.

The following excerpts are from various sources judged to be reliable. Not only first-hand accounts by inmates but also quite public scandals, investigations, and rebuttals surrounding Chowchilla, that give some idea of the conditions that Kristin Rossum is presently enduring. As you read them ask yourself whether, if your daughter, sister, or wife were experiencing the same things; how you would feel about it.

Yes, that's the way Kristin's parents, Constance and Ralph Rossum, are feeling too. Because what their daughter is now facing, no matter what she might have done to 'deserve' it, is emphatically NOT civilization! It's plain SADISTIC!

• From the California Department of Corrections web site:

  "The primary mission of the Central California Women's Facility is to process and incarcerate California's female offenders in a secure, safe, disciplined and ethical institutional setting"

  Rossum's family should no doubt be comforted to know that she's in a safe and ethical institution.

• The educational opportunities in Chowchilla are listed on the same CDC web site

  "Vocational: Auto body repair and refinishing, computer technology, cosmetology, electronics, graphic arts, landscaping, mill and cabinet, office services, painting, silk screening, small engine repair, upholstery, welding.

  Academic: Adult Basic Education, High School / GED, Pre-Release, English as a Second Language, Literacy Program."

  Not much there for a person like Kristin. Since she's a lifer she probably won't be eligible anyway. the state does not waste money on the health or education of inmates who have no prospect of rejoining the outside community.

• There's plenty of work at Chowchilla though. The Californian Prison Industry Authority is the euphemistic name for the slave labour system operating there. But it all sounds pretty good on the official web site.

  "Develop and operate manufacturing, agricultural, and service enterprises that provide work opportunities for inmates "

  "Create and maintain working conditions within enterprises, as much like those which prevail in private industry as possible, to assure inmates assigned therein the opportunity to work productively, to earn funds, and to acquire or improve effective work habits or occupational skills."

  (This stuff has to have been written by external consultants to the CDC who have never been near any of the prisons it operates.)

• The PIA work at Chowchilla is listed as:

  "Dental laboratory, fabric products, farming, garment making, silk screening."

  there is also a small manufacturing operation that is described as:

  "Joint Venture Electronics: A public-private partnership which employs approximately 45 inmates in an electronics manufacturing program. The inmates are paid a prevailing wage. Deductions are made for room and board, crime victim compensation, prisoner family support and mandatory savings for release."

• On many aspects of life inside Chowchilla, prison activists, human rights organisations, and various journalists, medical practitioners, religious bodies, and inmates tell quite different stories from the official CDC line.

  "Women in California state prisons make only pennies an hour. ... In California state prisons women earn as little as 5 cents per hour."

  "In California state prisons women are forced to pay inflated prices for basic hygiene products. Indigent female inmates (those with less than five dollars in their prison account) are provided a total of five sanitary pads per month. The rest of California's female prison population must purchase sanitary pads from the prison commissary that sells such items at two to three times the market rate. ... Such practices combined with the repressive pay scale create an environment where women will barter sex or other acts in order to acquire their most basic needs."

• "The administration has demonstrated an attitude of 'mass punishment.' For example; in November 1996 the inmates of CCWF were no longer allowed to purchase of possess a cigarette lighter due to an alleged lawsuit. Our lighters were confiscated and possibly sold to the women's prison across the street, Valley State Prison for Women. ... The second recent incident of this type of behaviour, mass punishment, was the discontinuance of foods and personal hygiene items in packages. The administration alleges this is due to the introduction of narcotics. CCWF has expensive equipment to specifically detect narcotics that now sits, unused, collecting dust."

  "For those who can't afford to purchase their hygiene supplies: soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, etc., at the sky high prices on CCWF canteen, these packages were their only means to take care of themselves. The hygiene items supplied by the state, only for the indigent, are, at best, inadequate.

  Some require alternative diets due to medical restrictions like ulcers, gallstones, liver problems, sickle cell anaemia, etc. It they can't afford to purchase foods on canteen, they either simply do not eat or are forced to eat foods that will further aggravate their illness, only to be told by medical staff that they shouldn't have eaten that food."

• "CCWF's response to all the deaths has been to blame the women: to spread lies and disinformation that women prisoners died because they ingested illegal drugs or misused their prescription medicine. Thousands of cells were torn apart by guards in January [2003] and many women had their life-saving prescription medicine confiscated. Toxicology reports and the CDC's own medical investigation by outside doctors have disproved the theory that scapegoats the dead women. But the punishment still continues. Women requesting medical care after lockdown may now have their cellmates subjected to the most brutal forms of repression and humiliation."

  It is clear from a large amount of stories, reports and other material of this type that the CCWF prison system, and the wider CDC and justice systems of California, punish not only inmates but also their families, who are unable to support them from outside. Kristin Rossum's parents will be punished in this way for as long as they live. Yet they did not commit any felony. The argument that they have to suffer with Kristin because of the suffering that Greg's death caused to the de Villiers family is aptly rebutted by one of the posters in the following image of a demonstration outside CCWF.

• Constance and Ralph Rossum will be punished by more than their inability to send their daughter packets of supplies and medicines. There are numerous restrictions, and many other factors, that will make it hard for them to converse with or visit their daughter.

  "In the California prison system, visitation is a privilege not a right. Prisoners on death row and prisoners in California serving life sentences without parole cannot receive unsupervised family visits."

  "All potential visitors to California's prisons must submit a visiting questionnaire that requires the individual to state personal information, including full arrest record and criminal history. Verification time can be lengthy, and if any piece of information proves to be incorrect, access can be denied for up to 6 months."

  "The exorbitant cost of the current phone system for California state prisons places another enormous financial burden on inmate's families. MCI charges California prisoners $3.00 just to connect collect calls from the prison, in addition to high collect call fees. Calls made by prisoners accrue high surcharges and charge the maximum per-minute rates. Prisoners are not permitted to use discount numbers like 1-800-COLLECT. ... Telephone companies are offering higher and higher commissions for states in order to get contracts. In some states these commissions have gone as high as 60% of the profits earned by the state prison telephone system."

  Kristin Rossum's parents are not poor, but they will have to bear the communication and transport costs involved with contacting their daughter for the rest of their lives - if Kristin survives for so long.

• Travel to the Chowchilla prison to see their daughter will always be a distressing experience for Constance and Ralph Rossum. Their fears about her physical safety and state of mind will be accentuated by their contact with the institution that incarcerates her. In one sense they will want to see their daughter, in another they will probably come to dread the surroundings. Such thoughts will be in their minds every time they make a journey to Chowchilla.

  The first of the following excerpts describes the approach to Chowchilla as recorded by Anne De Groot M.D. who went there to find out why so many prisoners were dying in such "safe and ethical" surroundings, well before their time. The second is from a comment on the WWW about Kristin Rossum's incarceration there.

  1. "We travelled through towns called Gilroy and Bano, across great flat plains where wild birds splash in sloughs left by spring rains, where fields extend to the distant mountains, and where life goes so slowly that children will lie in the highway at night to gaze at the stars. Somewhere in the distance Yosemite, where bears and wildcats prowl the cliffs and streams - that same wild freedom is here in the high plains: boundless, limitless, horizonless freedom of the fields and hills beyond the California coast.

  Yet, just beyond Bano, is another kind of expanse. An expanse of silver gleaming razor wire fence, glinting in the sun. An expanse of concrete block housing, windows like slits. Row upon row of concrete block, and watchtowers. Watchtowers high above the glinting fences, rising like silos, like missiles, like sentinels. Locks, gates, a metal detector, double sliding doors, and we are in. I walk with two escorts. Laughing, we compare notes: snow versus sun, wind versus hail and slush. I am from far away, they are curious to see me here. I can see their teeth behind their smiles, and wonder: friend or foe? I ask - how many women are here? they say: 3400, perhaps 4000 at the prison across the road.

  This is not boundless, limitless freedom, there is no stargazing here. How many women? as many as would people a small town. As many as would be mothers to almost 10,000 children - those children are out there somewhere, motherless. As many as would be daughters and sisters to 10,000 more. An expanse of women, incarcerated. An expanse of lives, arrested. Are these towers, fences, razor wire enclosures for them? what have they done, what have they done? How did they come to be here? did they come from those boundless plains, or from the cities on the coast? did they see the wild birds in the sloughs, on their last drive in?"

  2. "Female inmates have already taken a long hard look at this little blonde princess and have already calculated what they will be introducing her to soon after her arrival at camp chowchilla! Some females have certain desires in mind that will definitely be fulfilled in the late hours of the night that will be forever unavoidable for Miss Rossum. Other ladies will wait their turn as they wait for Miss Rossum's defiance to wear down before they force their midnight 'antics' on the newest celebrity on the block.

  Meanwhile, mommy and daddy are busy planning their exhausting drive to a place where the California Department of Corrections has placed a prison as far away from normal humanity as possible. A place that will become gravely familiar to a set of parents that will hold back tears as well as vomit when they see the guard towers and barbed wire for the very first time. They will see the many miles of constintine wire and cement walls as they arrive in the parking lot for the very first time. Soon they will have to face the fact that the only way their little child beauty queen will leave this cement hell hole is when she is placed in a coffin and loaded into the back of some state hired cremation van or mortuary vehicle. ..."

  The reality that comes through these descriptions is that it is not only Kristin Rossum who has been condemned to suffer, it is also her family. The 'Eye for an Eye' principle is not only barbaric, it is simply unrealistic. There is no way to 'balance' one wrong with another. Greg de Villier's family are also suffering as a result of his death, but punishing the Rossum family does not make things any better for the de Villiers - it simply extends the suffering and punishment surrounding Greg's death. The placard at the demonstration outside the gates of the CCWF is right: AN EYE FOR AN EYE LEAVES US ALL BLIND.

  It is the justice system, and its emphasis on 'eye for an eye' punishment, that is terribly wrong. The resultant impacts of Kristin Rossum's family, due to her incarceration in Chowchilla, are simply not outcomes that could ever form part of a civilized society.

  It will not be harsh treatment and sexual abuse in Chowchilla that will torment Kristin Rossum the most, it will be the knowledge that her parents and her family are also suffering on the outside. Since her sentence is for life there is no prospect of a diminishment in the grief of her parents. It will be with them always and it will be heightened for them, and for their daughter, every single time they make the journey to the prison.

  The families of the women in Chowchilla and other jails have not committed any crime, yet they are being made to suffer, in some cases for the rest of their lives. This situation can't be defended on any grounds either legal or otherwise; this situation contains the seeds of massive class actions by families of incarcerated persons, against the federal and state prison systems that unreasonably torment and punish both felons and their families.

• There are many grounds for prosecution of the prison and justice systems with regard to Chowchilla and other jails. Besides those already mentioned there are serious examples of medical neglect and failure to observe a duty of care to protect inmates from sexual abuse by guards or other inmates.

  "Since December 2001, Delores ("Dee") Garcia, a woman prisoner living with chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, sleep apnoea, hepatitis C and arthritis, has been speaking out against physical abuse, medical neglect and staff callousness in the so-called Skilled Nursing Facility at the Central California Women's Facility. This SNF is the only 'licensed' medical facility for women prisoners and staff there exhibit some of the worst attitudes and actions towards seriously ill and dying women prisoners.

  For her courage and determination, Dee has been threatened and locked down by SNF staff, Over the past two months, CCWF has been playing a dangerous game of diesel therapy with Dee. In May, Dee was abruptly moved from the SNF at the Central California Women's Facility, the only prison able to treat her chronic diseases, to Valley State Prison For Women, which has only a part-time staffed unlicensed infirmary. After a month of advocacy by Californian Prison Focus, Justice Now and Legal Services for Prisoners and Children, Dee was returned to CCWF only to be threatened again by staff. She was told point-blank, if you continue to file grievances against staff (called 602s) and speak to advocates, you will be punished and sent back to Valley State Prison. Dee immediately filed a grievance against staff and on July 12, she was sent back to Valley State Prison. Medical staff at VSPW admit that they cannot adequately treat Dee's illnesses at that prison. She requires a special diet, 24-hour oxygen and a special machine for sleep apnoea. ..."

• Anne De Groot M.D., who wrote the earlier description of the approach to Chowchilla, described her medical examination of one woman in CCWF:

  "In the medical centre two doctors come to greet me. Old, unshaven, padding in their sneakers, shirts open at the neck. Come out of retirement to tend the women. How do they see their role? do they ask how the women come here?

  Patti is lying in bed. Every available surface in her room is covered in pictures: wolves, eagles, feathers, dream catchers, proud faces of native American women. She is frail -barely there. The doctor comes with me. He has not seen her in some weeks - last I looked he says, she was walking. I look at her: she is not walking now.

  I ask her to sit, wondering why she lies so crocked in the bed. With her left hand, she takes off the covers, revealing a wasted frame. Barely 80 pounds, she weighed 130 when she was well. She takes her left hand and lifts her right arm over her body. By pulling hard and leaning, she can shift her torso over. Next she reaches for her legs, pulling on the cloth of her shorts to lift her knees one by one off the bed, using them as a counterbalance to pull her torso up. Then she rolls over on her elbows, grimacing in pain. She rolls over until she is in a prayer position, leaning on the bed with her elbows. I am afraid to help her, knowing that would injure her pride in some way. I am afraid she will fall - but she surprises me by her sheer force of will. Just when I am sure she will slip to the floor, she reaches back for the wheelchair and swings her body into it, using her legs as a pivot.

  This woman has one good arm, and three useless limbs. She has end stage AIDS, much beyond end stage. She has a T cell count of 7, she weighs less than 60 percent of her ideal body weight. She has less than a few months left to live. Yet she is denied compassionate release? It would be more accurate to say that she is denied compassion. Where is compassion for her condition? Who comes to bathe her? no one. Who helps her dress, eat, who helps her move from wheelchair to bed to toilet? no one. the last time the doctor saw her, he said she could walk. How many weeks ago? How long has she gone without medical examination while living in the infirmary? Do we know why she has only one good limb out of 4? is the condition reversible? Most likely not - but could something have been done before it was too late? Most certainly.

  This is about more than compassion. this is about locking women up and throwing away the key. How many others are there, in this great warehouse for women in Chowchilla, who are getting less than standard medical care, who are living in limbo, serving time, when they should be home with their families and children? This is about denial - about wanting to forget who sits behind those prison walls, out in the fields and sloughs of central California."

  Dr De Groot subsequently wrote an open letter to prison doctors regarding women prisoners with HIV. It said, in part:

  "These are thoughts about a trip I took on a beautiful Spring day with Judy Greenspan to Chowchilla. I wrote it on the airplane home. The part about Patti was in a letter to her Parole board. She was released, as you know, after the last parole hearing this Spring. That fact doesn't change the bare truth about her condition when I saw her, and the poor standard of medical care given to HIV infected women who are incarcerated in California. I couldn't believe what I found, and I couldn't get over the contrast between life inside and outside prison walls. ..."

• "Seven inmates at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla have sued prison medical staff members, alleging malpractice, negligence and unprofessional conduct.
  The lawsuits, received this week in Madera County Superior Court, demand the firing of Dr A[..]M[..],the prison's chief physician and surgeon. The inmates also seek more oversight of California's prison employees, especially medical staff."

  Report by Lisa Alerman-Padilla in The Fresno Bee, December 20, 2003.

  "Kinser, a San Jose native, began suffering extreme weight loss, tremors and pain in and around her pelvis and bladder nearly two years ago. Though she was diagnosed with a possible bladder mass, Kinser said, M[..]cancelled two referrals to a surgeon and an oncologist.

  She said M[..] told her she was suffering from a mental disorder and was imagining symptoms despite a history of multiple carcinomas, or cancerous growths, including bladder cancer that required chemotherapy in 1995. M[..] did not return the Bee's phone calls."

  "The Chowchilla prison, which opened in October 1990, houses more than 3,000 female inmates and employs more than 900 workers. Russ Heimerich, spokesman for California Department of Corrections, said the agency is frequently sued for medical neglect by inmates, but almost always prevails in court." [The justice and corrections system is a club, you see.]

• An earlier lawsuit to the one reported above included "case after case of shockingly deficient treatment" yet nothing had been done by the time Michelle Kinser and her fellow inmates filed suit late in 2003. The callous treatment and lack of compassion surrounding CCWF continues to this day.

  "A seizure patient at CCWF who is paralysed on her left side has never been given occupational or physical therapy."

  "A woman at CCWF who suffered burns over 54% of her body gradually lost mobility because she was denied the special bandages which would prevent her burned skin from tightening."

  "A woman at CCWF unsuccessfully begged staff for months to allow her to see a doctor, and was finally diagnosed with cancer. Though in enormous pain, she received almost no pain medication. Because of swelling in her legs, she could barely walk, yet she was required to walk to the dining hall if she wanted to eat. She died approximately nine months after the diagnosis."

• "I'm a woman with HIV. Since I've been here in prison, I've gotten abused, mistreated and emotionally and mentally stressed out. My t-cells dropped a great deal. The MTAs (Medical Technical Assistants) don't have a clue how to treat any medical problems, never mind serious, chronic illnesses.

  One day, my friend walked me to the MTA after I had a bad epileptic seizure in the dayroom. The MTAs told my friend, "she can't come in here, let her finish her seizure outside." It was 107 degrees outside. I then went into another seizure. When they finally brought me in, the MTAs told the doctor that I was faking it.

  That's only one incident of many. I never get my medication on time. They started me on triple combination therapy, including a protease inhibitor, and never told me about the side effects of any of the drugs, including Crixivan. "Just take it." they said. "Now if you're late taking that medication, its extremely detrimental. ..."

  If we are ill with some serious infection like boils, the MTAs give us bandaids and tell us to go to work anyway. In the heat, when it's 90 degrees or above, they give 'heat cards' to women on psychotropic medications. But if you have epileptic seizures or heart problems, then you are out of luck!

  Two weeks ago, I witnessed a young lady pass away in my unit, possibly of food poisoning. She was also ill with the HIV virus. She had been trying to go to sick call for weeks. One day, I heard one of the corrections officers tell her, "If you can walk to the bathroom you can walk to the MTA." They just refused to help her or even call for a wheelchair."

  "I'm a very angry woman, though not for myself so much. I'm paroling next year. But what about the other thousands of women left behind in this institution? My heart goes out to the other HIV+ women in here. I want to help and I am going to. This abuse has to stop! No one asked to come in here to die. We just want to do our time and make it out alive. Lately, that doesn't seem likely.

  We do not want to die in here alone. Pray for us, please, say a special prayer for the lifers. Thank you."

  All these instances of abuse and malpractice surrounding the care of women incarcerated at Chowchilla are public knowledge and, in some cases, have been the subject of legal proceedings. All these terrible things were known but not admitted to by the prosecution and incarceration 'machines' of California at the time of Kristin Rossum's sentencing.

  Yet the Judge sent her to Chowchilla for life, in the full knowledge that due to the conditions there it might well be a short existence for her.

  Kristin was known to have had a substance abuse problem. It was also well known and well documented that not only did CCFW have no program to treat addicts, but there was and continues to be a problem with inmates there using dirty, stolen, hypodermic needles to shoot heroin into their veins. If he didn't know that Kristin would be in considerable danger of regressing to drug addiction and using HIV infected needles in CCWF, the judge was completely out of touch with the system he was consigning her to. Or alternatively, he choose to send her to her fate and pass the accountability on to the prison system.

  However, it is clear to any thinking person that the responsibility for the degree of punishment inflicted on convicted felons rests primarily with the judiciary. It is not only the judge in the Rossum case that bears that duty of care, it is all of them.

  Every one of the 7,000 women incarcerated at Chowchilla was sent there by a judge, there is no getting away from that, nor the fact that the judiciary broadly consider that the purpose of prisons is to punish rather than rehabilitate wrong doers. But the punishment is supposed to be a loss of freedom, not abuse and neglect of the proportions now facing all those women. Judges simply cannot avoid blame for the situation and the fact that punishment in Chowchilla is at inhuman levels, and has been for more than a decade.

  When a California judge sends a women to prison he is not just denying her liberty, he is placing her in grave danger of assault and criminal neglect. Leave aside the CDC's propaganda web site; Chowchilla is a HELL HOLE!

Prisons Are A Medieval Concept
One of the most corrosive notions in our present day culture is that the Rule of Law is a civilized and 'just' approach to wrongdoing. As the above material indicates, the United States is deeply mired in this delusion, and its justice and prison systems are becoming more unfair and unequal by the day. The disregard of human rights is also increasing.

In these circumstances the incoming Secretary of State will have no basis for promoting democracy and the Rule of Law as benefits that the Coalition of the Willing brings to invaded lands like Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact is that the previous systems of justice in those countries, although often barbaric, tended to adversely impact a smaller proportion of their populations than the US Rule of Law does for Americans - particularly non-white, working class Americans.

What Will Happen to Kristin?
There are at least three possible answers to the question of what will become of not only Kristin but the many unjustly dealt with and wrongly convicted Americans in Federal and State prisons.

1. The US Administration will decide to clean up its act so that it can rightly claim to be an exemplar of justice and democracy. In such circumstances people like Kristin will be afforded retrials and while such procedures are pending those who don't pose a great threat on the streets will be released under home detention arrangements.

2. The US Administration will decide to jail even more of its citizens and increase the global competitiveness of US corporations through prison labour contracts. Nobody will be released, and certainly not a convicted murderess serving a 'life with no possibility of parole' sentence.

3. Technological and other forces will create conditions in which an increasing number of cities and regions will simply secede from the federation and the power and taxation base of central and state governments will diminish to a point at which they will be glad to close their prisons.

Although most people who have not devoted a lot of thought and research to the matter will consider the third scenario to be the least probable it is actually the most likely hope for Kristin. As new technology creates a 2nd Renaissance and economic abundance American society will change. As a more dispersed and spiritual polity develops Americans are likely to recognise the obscenity of prisons like the CCWF and VSWP complex at Chowchilla, and favour their closure. Such changes are not decades away, technological, economic and related developments make them inevitable within the next eight years. Hang in there Kristin

It is strange how the human species, supposedly the most conscious of all creatures, is the only one that sees fit to exact punishment on its members for their sins. None of the other animals presume to play the role of God, and exact retribution on their own kind for their wrongdoings. But then, of course, the other animals don't have the concept of the Rule of Law and a punishment profession, otherwise known as the judiciary.

A Re-Emergence of Tribal Justice?
Whether America, of Australia for that matter, will decide to discard the current Rule of Law and adopt principles from tribal justice remains to be seen. But there are sound reasons to do so. Not the least of these is the emphasis that the best forms of tribal justice typically place on the rectification of wrongs done to victims rather than the punishment of the perpetrators of crimes. Long-lived tribal cultures, such as those found among Australian aboriginals, are also more inclined to mercy than are current Western justice systems that derive from the European Dark Ages.

As the world changes there will be an opportunity to revert to earlier concepts and systems of justice. It will be our choice, but we will be foolish if we do not consider such options because they are associated with 'primitive' cultures that lacked telephones, TVs, and WMDs.

The neo-tribal cultures that will emerge during the 2nd Renaissance will not be backward or Stone Age. They will possess knowledge and technology far in advance of even today's 'modern' examples. But they will also have a greater understanding and appreciation of the purpose and meaning of life. Those insights were lost during the Dark Ages, but are now being rediscovered by science.

The diagram shows the alternative approaches to justice that Americans, Australians, and many other peoples, will have as they decide to abandon the failing industrial-capitalist civilization and set up new societies within free cities and regions. The lower blocks on the diagram are relevant to the Kristin Rossum example. If she really is a murderess the Rule of Law would focus (as it has) on looking back at the crime and blaming her. On the other hand a justice system based on tribal principles would be most concerned with helping to alleviate the grief of Greg de Villiers' family, and it would also extend mercy to the perpetrator of the crime, helping her reach her own atonement in her own way. Two very different ways of thinking are involved and many people will conclude that the tribal model is superior to the medieval justice approach. The latter is entirely backward-looking and centred on retribution rather than atonement and spiritual growth. It has no place in a 21st century civilization.

The Credentials of Pure Tribalism
The prize-winning author, Daniel Quinn, has identified the tribe as the natural unit of social organisation for humans. Just as the hive is for bees, the flock is for birds, the herd is for reindeer, and the school is for fish: the tribe is for us humans. Both Daniel Quinn and I mean traditional tribes - pure tribal cultures that have demonstrated their longevity. In the case of the Australian aboriginal peoples the record of success of traditional tribalism goes back for tens of thousands of years. We are not talking of street gangs or modern day native groups living at the lower strata of westernised societies. Those are not true tribes. On the other hand, Daniel Quinn cites the example of the small travelling circus of a long standing culture that is very close to traditional tribalism.

But wait, you say, weren't the native tribes of Australia and America lacking in technology and armaments? Yes they were, but until the arrival of Europeans there was no need for such things as weapons of mass destruction. The WMDs are a Western concept, and it is the sad reality that whenever Western science discovers new knowledge it is immediately weaponised by nation states. The Feds have consistently turned new knowledge into WMDs before it is harnessed for beneficial uses. In some cases new knowledge has been withheld "in the national interest" and never allowed to benefit humankind. Aboriginal people simply did not think like that, and this could be the key reason that they survived for many thousands of years. The way they thought protected them from themselves.

The Australian aborigines were, prior to European settlement, people who lived in conditions of managed abundance. For sixty thousand years, far longer than the fleeting histories of socialism, communism and capitalism, aboriginal tribes existed in harmony with the land. No major wars were fought. Although there were skirmishes between tribes these were seldom serious or prolonged. The aboriginal people did not experience famine because they did not exceed the population levels that could sustain a hunter-gatherer existence. They had no government except their local tribal councils, and they paid no taxes. In order to survive, the aboriginal people of Australia had only to work the equivalent of three days per week, the rest of their time was for their leisure and storytelling.

The concept of suicide was unknown to these original inhabitants of the Australian continent. They also enjoyed one advantage over modern Australians and Americans; tribal people had lifelong support and cradle to grave security within their tribe. In a technological sense tribal Australians were backward, but in terms of community and social support structures they were an advanced culture.

The New Tribal Phenomenon
There are a growing number of advocates of new-tribalism, but its nature is widely misunderstood. While few people seriously believe that new tribalism involves going back to living in caves, many think that it is associated with restraint, low economic growth and reduced living standards. Quinn himself, in his book Beyond Civilization, gives the impression that sustainable growth implies that not everyone can aspire to the lifestyles of the top Taker societies of the US and Europe. However, Quinn also points out that people who leave our Taker civilization behind, do so in the expectation of gaining something more valuable than the way of life they give up. As he puts it, "People never run off to join the circus to give up something. They run off to the circus to get something."

Besides the unconditional support that membership of a tribe implies, Quinn suggests that people who are prepared to live in a sustainable way, as Leavers, can expect to gain "security, hope, light-heartedness, and freedom from anxiety, fear and guilt." This is quite a shopping list. Given the mess that the outgoing civilization is in, such gains will be attractive to many people who are currently enduring feelings of hopelessness regarding their retirement years and the future of their children.

Still, many in the New Tribalism movement, including Daniel Quinn, appear to overlook the impacts of the scientific discoveries and enlightenment associated with a second renaissance. Far from there being unavoidable choices between new tribal lifestyles, continued affluence and rising living standards, it is becoming practical to have all these outcomes at once. As more and more people come to realise this it will become practical to from the first free cities and regions, and establish the basis of a higher level civilization that does not have any prisons nor any punishment professionals.

Some Practicalities Of Emptying The Prisons
Given the importance that prisons and punishment have in maintaining control of increasingly restless populations, the task of achieving the release of the people in the jails and the closure of those institutions, seems daunting. But it is not only vital to those on the inside, like Kristin, but also to all of us on the outside.

As a prerequisite to the formation of a new civilization we must find ways to get not only women and children out of the jails, but the guys as well. Unless we do this the 'justice and punishment' arrogance, that goes back to medieval times and the protection of property held by the nobility, will poison our attempts to found a spiritual society in which goodness prevails over all other traits.

The principles to use to find those ways are detailed in the 2nd Renaissance freesite. In essence the key points are:

• Talk to each other: Us-2-Us.

• Act like the ants.

• Use the Internet / Freenet and PPDs to communicate.

• Focus on what we can control, not on changing what governments and corporations control.

• Remain non-violent.

• Apply reverse surveillance - if we can't hide they can't hide.

• Think as sovereign individuals, not some state's subservient citizens.

• Highlight the failures of the outgoing civilization, including the rule of law.

• Don't ever give up, don't ever compromise. The power to change things right now exists right now.

If some of these points are unfamiliar refer to the larger and more comprehensive 2nd Renaissance freesite.

You don't think it's possible to have a society without jails? Well, tribal societies such as the Alawa of Australia did so for more than forty-thousand years. So too did many other ancient societies. Not only have no fortifications been found at the site of the megalithic city of Caral, there are no signs of any prisons either. A society that seems to have lived in peace for a thousand years probably didn't need jails.

It is very unlikely that the Federal and various State governments will close the prisons and release all the inmates. Even if there were to be a huge change of heart and popular support for such reforms. Making new laws, year after year, and punishing wrongdoers, is an innate strategy for maintaining control of society, within the status quo of 20th century industrial capitalism.

The prospect of prison is a deterrent to rebellion, and the Feds will want that insurance as the controlled economy and the old order continue to decay and weaken. But, when significant numbers of the more highly skilled technicians and scientists decide to abandon the present day society, rather than rebel against it, governments will find that their 'justice' system and their prisons are not a deterrent to secession. It is likely, therefore, that secessions and the establishment of free cities will need to precede the emptying of the prisons.

The need to make the change to free cities is therefore urgent. People are suffering and dying in the prisons every damn day.

Secessions will reshape the economics of the prison system. Once the Feds and State governments no longer have the tax revenues that they had when they built and filled their jails, they will be more inclined to allow the release of female, and later male, felons. It might be necessary to 'recompense' the old governments for their 'trouble' in arranging the releases, on a reasonable per head basis. But it should not be necessary to have a great debate or struggle about it.

Where will the women released from the Chowchilla prisons, and from all the other jails, go? Room must be made for them within the neo-tribal cultures of the various free cities that we establish. Their families must be able to join them as well. Many of these women will need care as well as encouragement to rehabilitate and integrate into a new society. A high proportion are non-white, and many carry drug addictions. Ibogaine, the prohibited anti-addictive substance, can help in the latter case. Compassion and genuine elimination of racial attitudes from the white populace of the free cities can heal the hurt that women of colour have suffered at the hands of the old society and its 'justice' and 'correctional' institutions.

Once the women are settled men must also be rescued from the prisons. Because of the supportive culture of that is sure to characterise free cities, very few former prisoners should need to be kept off the streets. The new communities should accept those small numbers of men and women that do need be contained in some manner, but they should treat them well, and never confine them in inhuman ways. These ideas aren't idealistic, they are the very core of a society that operates according to the principles of high spiritual consciousness, and mercy. And that is the promise for humanity in the 21st century.

Will ex-offenders make decent citizens worthy of the benefits of free cities? They will if the colonisation of Australia by the British is any indication. Most of the initial populace of the various colonies that were set up some two hundred years ago were, in fact, convicts. Once they were released it did not take them long to assimilate and make significant contributions to the building of the nation.

Winning Freedom Faster
Although the foreign policies of the nations that make up the Coalition of the Willing are operating to gradually drive decent people in those countries away from their governments, the prisons issue can be much more potent. Dialogue on the streets, in the cafes, and on the Internet, will have more impact if it is about the prison abuses and injustices at home than if it is about abuses 'over there,' - to people we don't know, and whom the parrot people say are terrorists who 'deserve it.'

The citizens of the 'homeland' know, without even having to think about it, that the women incarcerated in the jails, down the road or somewhat further away, are not terrorists. They're predominantly mothers, and many families on the outside are suffering both the emotional stress of separation from a loved one and the economic loss of a breadwinner. Ordinary people understand these facts, and they will be receptive to any groups that offer to take the women from the prisons, look after them, assimilate and rehabilitate them, and keep them from further wrongdoing.

That should be the thrust of arguments to gain the closure of places like Chowchilla and the unconditional release of its inmates. The closest any of these girls have ever come to committing war crimes is to manufacture flags for the US military to fly in Afghanistan and Iraq. By comparison with the 'liberators' who have sprayed the countryside with DU ammunition, while bringing the rule of law and greenback-democracy to the long-suffering inhabitants over there, the women in Chowchilla are saints.

The Challenge For Condi
As she takes over the function and responsibilities of Secretary of State of the United States of America, Condoleezza Rice faces a credibility crisis in the world beyond the Homeland. The invasion of Iraq has clearly been a failure and cost the lives of many wonderful young Americans - for no real purpose. The earlier invasion of Afghanistan has left the country still plagued by rival warlords and their battles. But now the once beautiful land is heavily polluted from the use of depleted uranium munitions. A great many babies in Afghanistan and Iraq are being born with terrible deformities and many of the remaining adults will have their lifespans dramatically shortened by the cancers and other illnesses that black DU dust will bring them.

But Bin Laden was not found in Afghanistan and there were, contrary to the assurances of the outgoing Secretary of State, NO WMDs in Iraq. What then was all this 'Shock and Awe' horror for?

Condi's colleagues in the White House have been claiming that it was all done to rid the people of Iraq of a tyrant, and bring them 'democracy' and 'the rule of law'. But there is a catch to that argument, for to be a credible agent of democracy, equality, justice and respect for human rights, the United States has to be able to point to high standards in its own homeland.

Given the realities of the denial of justice to so many Americans and the absolute scandal of the prison-industrial complex that has burgeoned under George Bush, Condoleezza Rice will be unable to honestly assure other nations and their peoples that all is well stateside, and that they should support the pre-emptive military actions of her country, in the dubious War on Terror.

The Horrors of the Homeland
They've been having a War on Drugs and a War on Crime in Condi's homeland, and the consequences have been horrific for African Americans - her people. Given what has been happening to the black underclass, the present justice and sentencing systems in the US are not deserving of the terms 'fair' or 'equal. They aren't even fit to be called 'civilized'.

What is happening to black americans is MEDIEVAL !

How will the new Secretary of State be able to look the rest of the world in the eye and argue that her country comes anywhere close to meeting reasonable standards of human rights and justice? And if she can't, what notice should the rest of the world take of the US, and why should it support the War on Terror?

Black women are particularly affected by the harsh justice that now prevails in 'The Land of the Free'. The following excerpts from an article by Kimberly Davis in Ebony (June 2000) provide an insight into their plight.

• One woman living in the system is Rochelle Johnson, who has been an inmate at the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) outside Chowchilla, Calif., since 1993, and may stay at the 100-acre correctional facility for the rest of her life. The 26-year-old Detroit native received a sentence of 14 years to life for an attempted murder in which a robbery victim was stabbed. Although she says that she did not do the stabbing, the law says that if she was present and in any way involved in the robbery, she can be held accountable.

  That she's a first-time offender didn't matter much, she says, because of her juvenile drug arrests as a member of the East Coast Crips. "I was just there", says Johnson, one of nearly 3,400 inmates in a prison built 10 years ago for 2,000 inmates. "They threw up the fact that I was an ex-gang member and sentenced me."

As soon as a Black woman walks through the gates of an American prison, she becomes a number, and the vestiges of self-esteem are stripped away. At women's prisons across America, the problem nobody talks about is sexual exploitation by some male prison guards and some tougher, older female prisoners. When you're in prison, inmates say, you can't live like you would if you were on the outside, and that knowledge drives some prisoners to do what they wouldn't ordinarily do.

One heartbreaking example of this is a letter, a cry for help EBONY received from an inmate in another California state prison. In an attached letter to her warden, the writer, a 30-year-old woman serving 25 years to life for murder, says she has no hope of ever seeing freedom again. She's been in prison since she was 18 years old, she says, and has willingly turned to other female inmates for the comfort, love, attention and intimacy that she can't get anywhere else. Although some prisons do allow weekend visits, she says she has no husband or children, and few relatives. She says she had no intention of becoming a lesbian, but found it to be a "way of life" in prison.

"What I want to know is, am I going to die in here?" she writes. "I understand I committed a crime, however, does that mean that I will never be normal again? I have feelings and needs that also must be met."

The letter goes on to say that she realises that no matter what she does, she may be in that prison until the end of her days. "I'm scared to death I'll never be normal again, and struggling hard to keep it all together ...," she writes. "I feel this prison system has promoted homosexuality because there is no marriage, sexual relief ... [no] real male contact ..."

• Amid reports of drug use by inmates, about a third of all female prisoners reported using drugs in their past, and half said they used drugs daily. Their addiction rules their lives.

  "I have done everything - prostitution, burglary, forgery, robbery and begging on the street to support my habit," says CCWF inmate Beverly Henry, who at 51 has lived most of her life addicted to heroin and is now living with HIV and hepatitis C. "It's overwhelming, That feeling is so overwhelming. It has so much control over you, it's unbelievable."

  Henry, who grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., is serving 12 years of a 15-year sentence for selling heroin outside an elementary school. With an arrest record dating back to 1969, she's in the midst of her sixth incarceration, and is scheduled for release in 2009. Henry, who gave birth to a daughter about 23 years ago while in state custody, learned she was HIV-positive in 1994, while serving time at CCWF. She says that she contracted HIV by sharing a needle with another female inmate. "Six months after I got my test results back, she was dead," says a now clean-and-sober Henry, the track marks still visible on her neck. "Being here did not stop me from using ... You can get it, and a person who has been in and out of the system as much as I have, you know who's who, and how to get it."

There are countless more examples of the harshness and mercilessness of the Rule of Law as it effects African American women, but it is clear enough from these few excerpts that these women have no hope whatsoever of avoiding prison, or of being rehabilitated there.

When a White woman like Kristin Rossum, supported by a full legal team and a loving family with good educations and contacts, can't beat a rap in which there is only circumstantial evidence - no eye witnesses or murder weapon - what chance does the average Black woman have when she already has an arrest record going back to her teens? None at all. She's bound for the slammer, to work in the prisons-for-profit system where she might wrap new editions of Windows for Microsoft or sew US Branded garments that are so cheap (because there's no appreciable labour cost) that they can even compete in China against items made there in local sweatshops. And, in the majority of cases, while she's inside there are one or more of her children outside, motherless, and headed for an identical fate - life in the largest prison-industry system on planet Earth. Uncle Sam has become Uncle Slam !

Even if Condoleezza Rice manages to defuse the issue of what's happening to African American women in general in the United States, as she seeks support for the War on Terror in the Middle East and elsewhere, the situation with Black men is even worse. It shows the US to be a more racist and unequal society than South Africa was during its apartheid period.

Here are the facts that demonstrate this unenviable reality.

Currently (from January 2004 data) the numbers of residents (of all skin colours) in prison per 100,000 are:

U.S.A. 701 per 100,000
South Africa: 402 per 100,000

The numbers for solely Black males imprisoned under apartheid and under George Bush are:

Apartheid South Africa, Black males: 851 per 100,000
Under George Bush in the U.S.A. Black males: 4,834 per 100,000

In the apartheid era South Africa was internationally condemned as a racist society and trade and armaments sanctions were applied against it. More recently the governments (not necessarily the people) of countries such as Britain, Australia, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic joined the US in its invasion of Iraq, apparently with no concern about the racist abuse of Black citizens at home in America. The aim was 'regime change' in Iraq but the people of the 'liberating' nations are npw beginning to see the fallacy and hypocrisy involved.

As the US is increasingly mired down in an unwinnable war in Iraq, and the news of prisoner atrocities and the use of terror weapons against civilian populations begins to leak out, Condi will have the enormously difficult task of keeping the member countries of the Coalition of the Willing (COW) onside. The governments of those member nations might be prepared to ignore the medieval justice and prison apartheid in the American homeland and the failures and crimes of the US military abroad, but their citizens won't. in the face of rising disenchantment and anger amongst their peoples, the COW members will find it politically impossible to avoid pressures to censure the once-powerful United States over its treatment of its citizens in general and African American people in particular.

Inevitably, the truth will out. The US Feds might have the media barons onside, they might have the best snowmen and parrot-persons that various colleges of propaganda can produce, but it won't be enough. The Internet is sure to spread the truth to ordinary folk, just as the movable type printing press of Johannes Gutenberg did 550 years ago in Europe. Once they recognise the racial discrimination, cruelty, and injustice that is now embodied in the Rule of Law, the ordinary people, both within the US and abroad will simply lose respect for it.

Condi faces a very difficult period in office as U.S. Secretary of State. I genuinely wish her luck. Because if she succeeds, it will surely mean that she and her colleagues in the White House have realised that America can't fool the world into believing that it is a fair and free society. Not while there are places like the huge warehouse of women that is the twin-prisons complex at Chowchilla. If this obscene facility, and all the others like it, are closed down and most of the inmates - who present no threat to the communities they would re-enter - are set free, then there will be a good chance that a better society and a new civilization can emerge peacefully.

Much of the science and technology needed to build the new civilization already exists. What is needed now is new thinking and new leadership. Do you have the right stuff, Condi?

Lothar, January 2005.