I want to make sure I understand how to live as an AMERICAN.

If you commit a crime in this country:

* You no longer have any rights.

* Any person who fights for those rights, is a 'second class citizen'.

* You are no longer a human being and it's okay to treat you like an animal.

* We can do whatever we feel like to you and get away with it.

* We can torture you, abuse you, neglect you, and treat you like scum.

* We can hate you all we want.

* We can lock you up for as long as we feel like it, regardless of what the laws say.

* We don't have to listen to you or the laws that should protect you, because you're bad. Most of all it's okay to run a prison industry, at the expense of the taxpayer, to pay staff to act like worse criminals than the ones we lock up. I'd rather live in the depth of the jungle than face my maker with that on my hands. Thanks but no thanks. I am no longer proud to be an American. We should truly be ashamed of ourselves and the people who allow this treatment to continue.

There are 2 million human beings suffering at the hands of our government and the prison authorities right now. These 2 million people are not the people that victimized you or me. To wish these things upon every inmate in America is pure hatred and vengeance.

Suppose it were your loved one locked away to receive this treatment of abuse, neglect and torture… would you care just a bit? We DO NOT know why each of these 2 million people are locked away, yet they are receiving the same horrid treatment. Careful what we wish for, our loved ones might get it. When we feel that we have been victimized; American's work to make laws worse for the criminals. What they don't realize is that these punishments end up hurting millions of other people and rarely the one that they hated first. The victim now becomes the criminal. If you think watching what Americans have done to this system is not criminal, lock up your loved one and watch for yourself. Trust me, if you don't think that prison is that HARD then I dare you to spend a night at one.

In America today, we pay a large group of people to care for our human beings that are locked up. They are being tortured. We place people in prison for a term of punishment not for the purposes of abuse and neglect. They are sentenced to removal from society. They are not sentenced to torture. We want to live in a civilized society.

When it comes to the subject of prisons most citizens, government and prison staff do not act civilized. People sentenced to prison should do their sentences. But treated like human beings while doing so. In America, we treat them so awful, how could we expect them to love themselves and others? We should treat all human beings equal, because we are. The first person without sin may ignore this letter.

We should demand that people not be tortured in America. We should demand they receive medical care. We should demand that all people in America be treated like a human being regardless of who you are. We should demand for fair sentencing. It is torture to keep people who have served their time and are long past due for release. We should demand their immediate release.

Christina McGarey