Abu Ghraib Convictions and U.S. Correctional Policy
As reported on Bloomberg.com and elsewhere, Lynndie England, the U.S. Army private photographed holding a nude Iraqi man on a leash, was convicted on Sep. 26 of abusing detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and faces up to 10 years in jail.

The Abu Ghraib scandal shocked the world, but the abuse there was not an isolated incident, as it reflected a violent, inhumane culture that is widespread throughout the correctional system in the United States, where strikingly similar violence regularly occurs at prisons across the country. The New Release TORTURE: AMERICA'S BRUTAL PRISONS exposes this shameful "secret" through survelliance videos and interviews with guards who have broken the "green wall" of silence to become whisteblowers, as it visits correctional institutions in Texas, Florida and California.

"The Saint Patrick's Day Four" - Civil Disobediance and Iraq
On March 17, 2003, two days before the US invasion of Iraq, four protesters entered a military recruiting center near Ithaca, New York, and poured small amounts of their own blood around the building's vestibule in a symbolic protest against the coming invasion. For this act of non-violent civil disobedience, the Catholic activists are now charged with conspiracy to impede "by force, intimidation and threat" an officer of the United States along with three lesser offenses. If convicted of federal conspiracy in a trial that started yesterday, September 19, they face up to six years in prison, a period of probation and $275,000 in fines.

The First Run/Icarus Films release INVESTIGATION OF A FLAME, through the story of the Catonsville Nine, is a poetic exploration of how personal ethics and religious beliefs necessitate civil disobediant acts when one's government is committing grave international crimes.