Human rights in the United States
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The Angola Three are three former prison inmates (Robert King, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace) who were put in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as Angola Prison); the latter two after being convicted in April 1972 of the killing of a prison corrections officer. Each was kept in solitary for more than 25 years; two of the men served more than 40 years each in solitary, the "longest period of solitary confinement in American prison history."" --Sholem Stein |
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Human rights in the United States comprise a series of rights which are legally protected by the Constitution of the United States (particularly the Bill of Rights), State constitution (United States)|state constitution]]s, treaty and customary international law, legislation enacted by Congress and state legislatures, and state referenda and citizen's initiatives. The Federal Government has, through a ratified constitution, guaranteed unalienable rights to its citizens and (to some degree) non-citizens. These rights have evolved over time through constitutional amendments, legislation, and judicial precedent.
Despite the fair to high rankings in reports on human rights, the United States also receives significant international criticism for its human rights record. Criticisms include lower labor protections than most Western countries, imprisonment of debtors, criminalization of homelessness and poverty, invasion of its citizens' privacy through mass surveillance programs, police brutality, police impunity and corruption, incarceration of citizens for profit, mistreatment of prisoners, the highest number of juveniles in the prison system of any country, some of the longest prison sentences in the world, continued use of the death penalty despite its abolition in nearly all other western countries, abuse of both legal and illegal immigrants (including children), facilitating state terrorism, a health care system favoring profit via privatization over the wellbeing of citizens, of the most expensive and worst-performing health care systems of any developed country, continued support for foreign dictators (even when genocide has been committed), forced disappearances, extraordinary renditions, extrajudicial detentions, the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and black sites, and extrajudicial targeted killings (e.g. the Disposition Matrix).
See also
Criticism of the US human rights record
- Human Rights Record of the United States, report prepared by the People's Republic of China
- United States and State terrorism
US Human rights abuses
Organizations involved in US human rights
People involved in US human rights
Notable comments on US human rights
- Four Freedoms, a 1941 speech made by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Second Bill of Rights, a list of rights proposed by Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944.