US Correctional System 'Hell, Slavery' - Russian National Butina

Sumaira FH Published October 26, 2019 | 04:31 PM

The US correctional system amounts to modern-day slavery where refusal to work may result in solitary confinement, Russian national Butina said Saturday following her release from US prison

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th October, 2019) The US correctional system amounts to modern-day slavery where refusal to work may result in solitary confinement, Russian national Butina said Saturday following her release from US prison.

Butina was arrested in July 2018 and sentenced to 18 months in prison for "conspiring to work for a foreign government." She was deported to Russia on Friday after her sentence was slightly reduced for good behavior. On Saturday morning, a plane with Butina landed at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.

"American prison is hell. It is slavery because you can't refuse to work, they will send you to solitary confinement. This way, slavery exists in the US," Butina said in an interview with Sputnik and RT on her way to Moscow.

She added that $28 a month washing dishes and teaching prisoners mathematics.

Butina was arrested in mid-July of last year and imprisoned in Washington, DC before being transferred to a detention center in Alexandria, Virginia. She served the bulk of her sentence in Tallahassee, Florida.

In November, the Russian Embassy in the United States said US authorities kept Butina in a single cell under solitary confinement for 67 days, exceeding the limit recommended by the Nelson Mandela Rules for the treatment of prisoners.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Butina's indictment was unjustified because she was not charged with any mission on behalf of the Russian government.