A shocking new investigation by Insider reveals patrol dogs in U.S. prisons have attacked at least 295 people since 2017, with Virginia setting dogs on prisoners more than any other state. These attacks can leave people with grievous physical and psychological scars, sometimes permanently disabling and disfiguring them. The report also finds ties between procedures in U.S. prisons and the abuses committed by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib, where soldiers used attack dogs to terrify Iraqi detainees along with other forms of torture and humiliation. For more, we speak with journalist Hannah Beckler, an investigations editor at Insider, and Xavia Goodwyn, who says prison guards hurled racial slurs at him during a dog attack at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison in 2015. “Everything just went mayhem,” Goodwyn recalls.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.