Haiti's reputation for human-rights abuses was only a symptom of deeper societal problems. As a United States Marine Corps report noted in 1934, "although possessed of excellent laws, based on the Napoleonic Code of France, Haiti possessed no means of enforcing them . . . . Haiti's prisonÍÍÍÍs were a disgrace to humanity . . . ." Some might argue that little has changed over the years, particularly in the administration of the country's criminal justice system and military penal code.

Data as of December 1989