A senior policy strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) finds it troubling that New Mexico state prison employees would watch for several minutes as an individual was attacked on Sept. 22.
"When folks are sent to prison, you know, that is that is their, that is their punishment, right, being removed from society, taken away from their family and friends," Barron Jones, ACLU senior policy strategist, told KRQE. "And that’s where it should end, they should be treated like human beings throughout the process. I find it very troubling that employees of the Corrections Department would stand by and watch an individual get attacked by several individuals for a significant amount of time."
A surveillance video was released by the ACLU from Central New Mexico prison in Los Lunas showing guards standing around as an inmate was attacked by four other inmates, KRQE reported.
The video shows many problems and proves the State Corrections Department needs more oversight, the ACLU said.
The guards wrote in their reports that the inmates who inflicted the beating were just protecting the guards from the other inmates. But the ACLU is looking to find out how the inmate was any threat to the guards, along with why the guards omitted one attacker from their report.
The organization added that street justice has no place in a prison.
The ACLU is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States," its website said.