Thread by @hannah_beckler

The US may be the only nation that authorizes dog attacks inside prison cells. I spent over a year investigating how patrol dogs are used inside United States prisons to attack and terrorize people trapped behind razor wire and cell doors.

insider.com/guard-dogs-att…

I found at least 23 prisons in eight states that have deployed attack-trained dogs on prisoners in recent years – Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia.

Prison patrol dogs have attacked at least 295 US prisoners since 2017. Many bites are severe, sometimes permanently disabling and disfiguring.

The Virginia Department of Corrections is an extreme outlier, commanding dogs to attack on an unmatched scale. Patrol dogs attacked 271 men in Virginia from 2017 to 2022.

The location of the bites indicate that many of the men may have been prone when the dog bit into their flesh. Several men described being cuffed or compliant, spread-eagled on the ground, when attacked.

A 2022 Virginia Department of Corrections incident report documents a man attacked by a patrol dog in a Virginia prison after he'd been wrestled into leg irons.

Prison patrol dogs are trained to bite once and hold to minimize flesh tears and lacerations, but Virginia patrol dogs mauled at least 15 incarcerated people all over their bodies, biting them three, four, or even six times.

In at least 18 incidents, bite victims incarcerated in Virginia were wounded so severely by attack-trained dogs that they were transferred to nearby hospitals to be treated for crush injuries, extensive muscle and tissue damage, or septic infections.

The impact of the attacks is devastating. Dozens of people said the terror of being attacked by a dog inside a prison caused them acute distress, such as recurring nightmares or other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

On top of the physical and physiological trauma, seven Black men attacked by prison patrol dogs in Virginia also alleged in court filings or in interviews that corrections officers yelled racial slurs or taunts during or immediately after the attacks.

Even witnessing a dog attack in close quarters is harrowing. One former Virginia corrections officer said watching a dog attack a person, hearing their screams and desperate pleas and seeing all that blood, was a "primal" experience and deeply traumatizing.

Corrections officers are sometimes attacked by prison patrol dogs as well. I documented 15 attacks on corrections officers from 2017 to 2022.

insider.com/correctional-o…

There are more than 370 maximum-security prisons in the United States, and the overwhelming majority do not use attack dogs at all. Read the story to find out more:

insider.com/guard-dogs-att…