In Some US Prisons, Echoes of Abu Ghraib ; Complaints of Prisoner Abuse Crop Up at Home as Well as in Iraq - and May Now Get Attention

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"Simply stated, the culture of sadistic and malicious violence that continues to pervade the ... prison system violates contemporary standards of decency."

That conclusion, written by Judge William Wayne Justice, does not describe Abu Ghraib in Iraq last fall, but the Texas prison system in 1999 when George W. Bush was still governor there.

As courts-martial get under way in Baghdad for the prison-abuse scandal, critics are urging Americans to look inside their own criminal justice system for the root of the problems in Iraq.

On the surface, there are appear to be several parallels. One of the Abu Ghraib defendants, Spc. Charles Graner, is a former guard …