A lawsuit over a Virginia prison inmate's death has raised broader questions about conditions at the lockup and newly obtained records are providing further insights.

The Virginia State Police investigator seemed puzzled about what the inmate was describing: “unbearable” conditions at a prison so cold that toilet water would freeze over and inmates were repeatedly treated for hypothermia.

“How do you get hypothermia in a prison?” the investigator asked. “You shouldn’t.”

The exchange, captured on video obtained by The Associated Press, took place during an investigation into the death of Charles Givens, a developmentally disabled inmate at the Marion Correctional Treatment Center, who records show was among those repeatedly hospitalized for hypothermia.

After a special grand jury considered the case but opted not to bring criminal charges, Givens’ sister sued in federal court, alleging her brother was subjected to routine mistreatment, including “cold-water torture,” before he was fatally beaten in 2022.

The lawsuit has raised broader questions about conditions at the southwest Virginia prison, which the grand jury described as “inhumane and deplorable.”

  • Flying Squid
    4•1 month ago

    People like you just don’t understand how much of a strangle hold the media has on the public’s mind. You just don’t understand how much corporations control us.

    So why aren’t you getting out the guillotine? I thought it makes you a hypocrite wanting to change these things but not being willing to cut heads off.

    Once again, sounds like you want people to be brave on your behalf.

    • @CoreidanEnglish
      -2•1 month ago

      You’re a hypocrite because you put the blame on everyone else but you sit there as an arm chair warrior.

      I’m not the one complaining about why isn’t the American public doing something. You are.

      • Flying Squid
        2•1 month ago

        I’m not complaining about anything. I’m asking how to convince people of something. And the ironic part of this is that I’m asking how to get people out of a vengeance mentality and your answer is vengeance.

        • @CoreidanEnglish
          -1•1 month ago

          Cool good luck with that. Let me know how that goes.

          I am sure you’re going to change the world by spreading your words on lemmy. Sounds like complaining to me.

          🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

          • Flying Squid
            1•1 month ago

            Do explain how asking a question is complaining.

            • @CoreidanEnglish
              -1•1 month ago

              Look up the definition of complaining and get back to me

              • Flying Squid
                1•1 month ago

                Sure, just as soon as you look up what vengeance means. Because, again, your suggestion for getting people out of a vengeance mentality is vengeance. While suggesting I’m disparaging Americans by suggesting they have a vengeance mentality.

                • @CoreidanEnglish
                  -1•1 month ago

                  I’m disparaging Americans by suggesting they have a vengeance mentality.

                  Wrong. Americans are sitting on their asses. There is no vengeance or vengeance mentality. If that’s truly what you think you need to go outside and touch grass. Go mingle with your community because your mind is warped. Lemmy and reddit is a terrible representation of the American or greater mentality in the world.

                  Looking at your comment history it’s clear you spend entirely way too much time on lemmy. It’s no wonder your perspective is so warped.

                  • Flying Squid
                    0•1 month ago

                    I am far from the only one who sees America’s vengeance culture. Here are some others who see it, including academics:

                    The call for vengeance is rooted in the nation’s very founding, in the way English settlers treated the native people and each other. Over the last four centuries, it has repeatedly been expressed as violence acted upon the most defenseless people, scapegoats of social tyranny. Vengeance is the Achilles heel of what it means to an American, negating the hope that inspires each generation and continues to draw immigrants.

                    The most gruesome recent examples of social vengeance were the state murders of Troy Anthony Davis in Georgia and Lawrence Russell Brewer in Texas. For many supporters of the death penalty, these killings illustrate the blindness of justice: death was inflicted fairly on an obviously wrongly-convicted black man and an unrepentant racist white man. For anyone who believes in a humane sense of justice, one that has a moral or ethical (as opposed to a vindictive or punitive) lesson at its heart, these acts illustrate how barbarity is accepted as a normal part of American life.

                    …

                    From the return of the death penalty to the wars on terror and in Iraq, Americans demand retribution and moral certainty; they assert the “rights of victims” and make pronouncements against “evil.” Yet for Aladjem this dangerously authoritarian turn has its origins in the tradition of liberal justice itself - in theories of punishment that justify inflicting pain and in the punitive practices that result. Exploring vengeance as the defining problem of our time, Aladjem returns to the theories of Locke, Hegel and Mill. He engages the ancient Greeks, Nietzsche, Paine and Foucault to challenge liberal assumptions about punishment. He interrogates American law, capital punishment and images of justice in the media.

                    …

                    In this season of gratitude and goodwill, we’re greeted with headlines reporting revenge travel, revenge dressing, revenge impeachments and revenge of presidential proportions in the 2024 campaign of Donald Trump. But are Americans avengers?

                    The answer was simple once. Yes, we dreamed of revenge, cheered it at theaters and sports arenas, secretly wished it upon bosses and double-crossers. We prayed revenge would right family slights and false friends. Yet we respected the line between fantasy and action. Our society demanded it. Vengeance was considered uncivilized, unethical, an act of ugly self-destruction. We denied the need to get even.

                    In recent years though, we’ve seen a surge in vindictive behavior. Judges, journalists, politicians and their families have been targeted with violent reprisals. Online encounters trend spiteful, with TikTok and Bumble fighting the spread of revenge porn. Corporate culture plays like a mud-pit production of “Measure for Measure,” starring Elon Musk. And congressional midterms are a grudge match, the next round scheduled for January, according to the headlines: “The GOP captures the House — and is ready for revenge.”

                    https://scholar.harvard.edu/terryaladjem/publications/culture-vengeance-and-fate-american-democracy

                    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/27/lets-get-american-revenge-00074960

                    https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-afghanistan-revenge/

                    https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1003&context=book_chapters

                    https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/american-vengeance/

                    So are you sure it’s not you who has the warped perspective? Considering you’re suggesting people commit murder to effect change?