Tattoos and Freedom: Getting the Wrong Tattoo Has Landed Some People in a Maximum Security Prison

First they came for …

Photo by Seyi Ariyo on Unsplash

A month ago, 238 Venezuelan immigrants to the United States were accused of gang activity and were deported to a notorious El Salvadorian prison. On April 13, another 10 were sent to the prison.

What was the evidence for this gang activity? As far as I’ve been able to determine, there was none.

Of the 238 men who are now rotting in El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, only five were previously charged with felonies, two with human smuggling specifically. An additional three now in CECOT were charged with misdemeanors, including harassment and petty theft.

You might think that there was evidence enough against those five to declare them guilty of something. But past criminal activity is not evidence of new criminal activity. In fact, criminal records are often judged to be “unfair prejudice” in a court of law and are excluded from evidence.

Forgetting evidence for a moment, you might say that criminal records indicate a propensity toward acquiring more criminal records. You’d be right since both the Salvadorian and U.S. prison systems are designed to incarcerate and punish people rather than to provide a pathway toward freedom…