Sadly, we all recognize that the courts and the justice system are crooked; one treatment for ordinary citizens and a very different treatment for the favored classes. What ever slipshod justice we ordinary citizens can expect, prisoners get far less. Whatever favors the rich and powerful receive, cops and guards get away with that much more. That's why the worst criminals are cops and guards; they can get away with it. Reginald Steptoe and Cornell Tyler were guards at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With other thugs, they handcuffed a prisoner, Donti Hunter, and pommeled him. They beat his face and head. They beat his body. They sent him to the hospital. For this vicious thrashing, the crooked state of Pennsylvania failed to prosecute. The feds charged the guards with a violation of civil rights. They also charged Glen Guadalupe a deputy warden with a cover-up. He'd ordered his subordinates to lie about the incident. We shouldn't be surprised with official dishonesty. From the top down lying is standard practice by prison officials. Many prisons make lying a job requirement. All three of the defendants were eventually found guilty of federal crimes. They got a smack on the wrist. For you or me, for ordinary citizens, the sentence would have been more than 5 years. Guards Steptoe and Tyler got only 2.5 years. Deputy Warden Guadalupe's punishment for covering up the crime and obstructing justice, wasn't the 30 months in prison that you or I would have gotten, but only half that, 15 months! Federal Judge William Yohn considered that "justice" or, perhaps, "just- us." One of the most disturbing facets of this travesty was the reaction of William M. DiMasico, director of the once venerable Pennsylvania Prison Society. The Prison Society supposedly advocates for the welfare of prisoners. Mister DiMascio authored an article in which he expressed support for the guards who had violently brutalized the handcuffed prisoner. Apparently such abuse was acceptable because the prisoner who was the victim of the beatings was serving an exaggerated sentence for a drug conviction. All reasonable people agree that drugs should be decriminalized. Marijuana is certainly a trivial infraction. We wonder what treatment Mister DiMascio and the Honorable Judge Yohn think is acceptable for guards to inflict on murderers, child molesters or robbers.

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