Criminal Justice and Prisons

Politicians Make Black People The Face Of Crime

November 2, 2022 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black America, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Media, New York (NY)

When politicians and corporate media speak of crime they are invariably talking about Black people as a group. The latest manufactured crime panic is following a very old and successful playbook. The dog whistle is very clearly heard by white people, who don’t need very much encouragement to indulge in their worst racist fantasies. Politicians feed the madness and then profit from it, making Black people the face of crime and then winning office as result. In New York state, the incumbent democratic governor Kathy Hochul is having a closer than expected race against republican congressman Lee Zeldin. New York is a solidly democratic state, where a republican presidential candidate hasn’t won since 1984 and where republicans are in the minority in both houses of the legislature.

American Gulag

November 1, 2022 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! Brittney Griner, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Marijuana, Russia

Western journalists are providing breathless depictions of the harsh conditions facing U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in Russia. Have none of them been inside a U.S. prison? All of the major media outlets announced recently that former American women’s basketball sensation Brittney Griner had been moved to a “Russian penal colony” after an appellate court rejected the appeal of her conviction and sentence of nine years for trying to smuggle a vial of THC oil into Russia. The sentence is draconian, but it’s not unlike drug sentences here in the United States. But that’s not the point that I want to make here. What I do want to point out is the U.S. media’s use of the term “Russian penal colony.” Other outlets have thrown out the word “gulag,” harkening back to the days of Josef Stalin.

Noelle Hanrahan On Mumia Abu-Jamal Update

October 29, 2022 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Legal System, Mumia Abu-Jamal

This week on CounterSpin: A 1995 Washington Post story led with a macabre account from the widow of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, about how when her husband’s bloody shirt was held up in court, his accused killer Mumia Abu-Jamal turned in his chair and smiled at her. An evocatively sinister report, which the paper printed untroubled by the fact that the court record showed that Abu-Jamal wasn’t in court when the shirt was displayed. ABC‘s investigative news show 20/20 used all the techniques for their big 1998 piece on the conviction of Abu-Jamal for Faulkner’s killing—stating prosecution claims as fact, even when they were disputed by some of the prosecution’s own witnesses or the forensic record; stressing how a defense witness admitted being intoxicated, while omitting that prosecution witnesses said the same.

Media Spreads Call For Violence As Protests Erupt In Ohio Youth Prisons

October 29, 2022 Peter Gelderloos, It's Going Down. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Media, Ohio, Youth imprisonment

Massillon, Ohio - On the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of October, at least two protests broke out at the Indian River youth prison in Massillon, Ohio. In one protest, a guard was struck in the head and beaten down with a radio, and in another a dozen kids broke out of their cells, armed themselves, and set up barricades, which they defended until the following morning. Other protests and fights have occurred over the previous months. In response to the riot, local media responded with systematic spins and manipulations to help spread calls by the guards for more physical violence against the children. Two area papers, the Columbus Dispatch and the Canton Repository, as well as the local TV station, WKYC, referred to the children locked up at Indian River as “inmates,” “criminals,” or at best, “juveniles.” They referred to their cells as “rooms.”

Death Row? Hell No!

October 29, 2022 Gloria Rubac, Workers World. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Death Penalty, Legal System, Texas

Austin, Texas - It was a perfect weather day at the Texas Capitol in Austin Oct. 22, for hundreds who participated in one march and two rallies against the racist anti-poor death penalty. In three emotional hours, love, solidarity, determination, anger, heartbreak and resilience filled the crisp autumn air as activists held the 23rd Annual Texas March and Rally to Abolish the Death Penalty. A carload of people came from the Rio Grande Valley near the Texas-Mexico border and others from nearby cities. The Kids Against the Death Penalty led a loud and militant march around the capitol to the governor’s mansion and through downtown, totally disturbing the peace. Austin’s progressive singer/songwriter Sara Hickman warmed up the crowd early on with her vocals.

Alabama Prison Strike On Hold After Three Weeks

October 24, 2022 Unicorn Riot. Resist! Alabama, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Retaliation, Strikes

Alabama – Prisoners in Alabama announced on Oct. 14 that they had paused their historic three-week work stoppage. The strike, which started Sept. 26, involved thousands of prisoners throughout the state, causing the breakdown of normal operations at most major male prisons this month. According to organizers, the strike’s end was announced following a protest at the state capitol in Montgomery hosted by Both Sides of the Wall. Diyawn Caldwell, founder of the prisoner advocacy group, explained that the strike may only be on pause, depending upon the government’s response. “It’s been a collective effort from us on the outside and those on the inside that are organizing the strike to put it on hold to give the state, the governor, and the department of corrections time to address our grievances and concerns surrounding our demands,” said Caldwell.

Lawyer Jennifer Robinson Gives Powerful Defence Of Assange

October 23, 2022 Oscar Grenfell, WSWS. Educate! Australia, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Julian Assange, Press Freedom

Robinson’s speech, which was broadcast live on the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, contained a sharp warning on Assange’s plight and the implications of the US attempt to prosecute him. Assange, she said, would not survive years’ more incarceration and “persecution by process.” And if he were extradited from Britain to the US and hauled before a kangaroo court for publishing true information, it would be a dagger blow to freedom of the press and democratic rights. The address was a rare breach in a wall of silence on the Assange case in Australia. His various court dates have been given cursory coverage, but there has scarcely been any television programming or substantive reporting on the persecution of an Australian citizen and journalist.

Leonard Peltier’s 46 Years In Prison: ‘What Else Do You Want?’

October 23, 2022 Resumen English. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Leonard Peltier, Political Prisoner

Leonard Peltier’s name has become a story that reflects other stories. One narrative describes Peltier as America’s longest political prisoner, serving more than 46 years in a federal maximum security prison. In that telling, Peltier has become a humanitarian and a 78-year-old Turtle Mountain elder who has been incarcerated for far too long. There is a long list of people, tribes and organizations that have called for Peltier’s freedom. The former prosecutor in the case. Members of Congress. Amnesty International USA. Pope John Francis. The Dalai Lama. The National Congress of American Indians. Dozens of tribal nations, including Peltier’s own tribe, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. And, as of this month, the Democratic National Committee.

Supreme Court Orders DOJ To Explain Why It Let Chevron Prosecute Me

October 19, 2022 Steven Donziger, Donziger On Justice. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Joe Biden, Steven Donziger, Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court – whose conservative justices I've criticized as of late – has ordered President Biden's Department of Justice to explain why it allowed an oil company (Chevron) to prosecute and detain me in the first and only private prosecution in US history. This is a good news for our campaign to hold Chevron accountable for its mass industrial poisoning of Ecuador’s Amazon and for the legal effort to enforce the $9.5 billion pollution judgement against the company won by Indigenous peoples whom I helped represent. Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland for almost two years have ignored repeated requests from my lawyers to take back my private prosecution from Chevron and uphold the decision by the federal prosecutor in Manhattan not to pursue Judge Kaplan's unfounded contempt charges against me.

Doctors Renew Call For Assange’s Release After COVID Infection

October 19, 2022 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. Resist! COVID-19, Criminal Justice and Prisons, health, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

Doctors For Assange sent a letter to United States Attorney General Merrick Garland and the United Kingdom Home Secretary Suella Braverman yet again expressing their concern about the deteriorating health of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The coalition of over 300 doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other medical professionals have repeatedly called for Assange’s release from Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in London and protested “health injustices” that have occurred as a result of the extradition case against him. Worsening matters, as Doctors for Assange notes, is the fact that Assange tested positive for COVID-19 on October 8. “Given his chronic lung ailment, Mr. Assange may be at increased risk of serious illness resulting from COVID infection,” the doctors write.

Hunger Strikes And Criminalization Of Human Rights Defenders

October 16, 2022 Lowkey, Mintpress News. Resistance Report Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Israeli Occupation, Palestine

In episode 45 of The Watchdog podcast, Lowkey explores the issue of life inside Israeli prisons. Currently, 30 Palestinians are on hunger strike, protesting the Israeli government’s policy of indefinitely detaining their political enemies without trial or evidence. Last week, 900 further prisoners refused their meals as a sign of solidarity. “We will continue with our struggle, knowing what awaits us of repression, abuse, isolation, confiscation of our clothes and pictures of our children, thrown into concrete cells devoid of everything, except for our bodies and our pain,” the prisoners said in a statement. The most high profile of the hunger strikers is Salah Al-Hamouri, a French-Palestinian human rights defender. Detained without charge or trial for six months, Al-Hamouri has refused all food since September 25.

Statements From Alabama Prisoners As Strike Enters Third Week

October 16, 2022 It's Going Down. Resist! Alabama, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Prisoner rights, Strike

An estimated 80% of prisoners from Alabama’s “major male facilities” went on strike on September 26th, in response to a wide range of conditions and grievances. Inside organizer Kinetik Swift Justice stated, “Basically, the message that we are sending is, the courts have shut down on us, the parole board has shut down on us. This society has long ago shut down on us. So basically, if that’s the case, and you’re not wanting us to return back to society, you can run these facilities yourselves.” The strike has now entered its third week, and at least five facilities, each with around 7,000 prisoners, continue to participate. Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has punished prisoners by drastically reducing their meals, essentially attempting to starve them off the strike.

Protesters Converge On State Capitol In Solidarity With Prison Strike

October 16, 2022 Zariya Williams and Ryan Fatica, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Alabama, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Prisoner rights, Strike

Montgomery, Alabama – On the 19th day of the statewide prisoner work strike on Friday, about 100 people gathered in front of the Alabama State Capitol Building in support of the thousands of prisoners currently striking. On Oct. 7, the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) confirmed that five facilities remained at a standstill due to the historic statewide work stoppage. Posts to a private Facebook group run by family members of striking prisoners confirmed that prisoners at five facilities continued to strike as of this week. The ADOC admitted the ongoing strike has caused significant disruptions to the functioning of the prisons. “All facilities remain operational,” the department wrote in a press release on Sept. 28, 2022.

Biden’s Marijuana Policy Frees No One

October 14, 2022 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug War, Joe Biden, Marijuana

Joe Biden’s announcement that he would pardon all federal convictions for possession of marijuana was quickly met with excitement. It isn’t hard to understand why that would be the case. Everyone knows that the United States is the world’s biggest jailer, with more than 2 million people behind bars, and that the various “wars on drugs” contributed to this dubious distinction. But upon examination, the announcement was found to be meaningless. Anyone who thought that thousands of people would be freed from jail was in for a surprise. Most convictions in this country occur at the state level, not federal, so any Biden pardons would impact a small number of people. Also, very few people are convicted solely for possession of marijuana or any other narcotic. They are usually convicted for selling, distribution, or conspiracy as well.

Why The United States Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab

October 14, 2022 Roger D. Harris, Dissident Voice. Educate! Alex Saab, Criminal Justice and Prisons, US Sanctions, Venezuela

A year ago, October 16, the long arm of US extra-territorial judicial overreach abducted Alex Saab and threw him into prison in Miami, where the Venezuelan diplomat has languished ever since. The official narrative is that Saab had bilked the Venezuelans in a “vast corruption network” and the US as the world’s self-appointed cop was simply enforcing good business practices. However, commentary by Washington insiders corroborates that Saab’s “crime” was trying to obtain humanitarian supplies in legal international trade but in circumvention of the illegal US sanctions on Venezuela. Back on June 12, 2021, Mr. Saab was on a humanitarian mission to procure needed food, fuel, and medicine for the people of Venezuela who had been suffering from an unconscionable blockade of their country.

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