Criminal Justice and Prisons

Biden Upholds Trump Memo That Would Send 4,000 People Back To Prison

July 27, 2021 Victoria Law, Truthout. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Joe Biden, Mass Incarceration, Trump

For her 65th birthday, Diana Marquez was grateful to be out of prison and celebrating with her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. They feasted on a smorgasbord of brisket, sushi and Mexican food. She was not allowed to leave the house, but she still felt blessed to celebrate the day surrounded by family rather than confined in a prison cell. Marquez is one of over 4,000 people who were released from federal prison to home confinement under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to stem the spread of COVID-19 behind bars. The CARES Act prioritizes the release of people whose age or health makes them vulnerable to COVID, whose “risk assessment” is low and whose convictions are for federal crimes classified as nonviolent.

Drone War Whistleblower Daniel Hale Remains Steadfast

July 26, 2021 Kevin Reed, WSWS. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, Drones, Whistleblowers

In a 20-page sentencing memorandum in the case of the United States v. Daniel Everette Hale published on July 19, federal prosecutors argue vindictively that the former Air Force analyst stole classified information in order to “ingratiate himself” with journalists and that a “significant sentence is necessary to demonstrate that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a serious crime with significant consequences.”

Winona LaDuke Arrested, Released From Jail

July 24, 2021 Deena Winter, Indian Country Today. Resist! Canada, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Line 3 Pipeline, Pipelines

White Earth Ojibwe activist and former Green Party vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke was released from jail Thursday after her arrest Monday while protesting construction of an oil pipeline in northern Minnesota. She and six other women were sitting together praying on an easement and protesting construction of the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline near Park Rapids at the Shell River — which the pipeline will cross in five places — when they were arrested for trespassing.

New Yorkers Rally For Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale

July 19, 2021 David Swanson, Pressenza. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, New York (NY), Whistleblowers

A press conference was held on Saturday, July 17th on the High Line in New York City to support former Air Force “intelligence” analyst Daniel E. Hale, who faces 10 years in prison on July 27 after releasing government documents revealing atrocities of the U.S. drone program and details of its inner workings, such as the creation of “kill” lists. The event was organized by BanKillerDrones.org and held at an art installation by Sam Durant called “Untitled (drone).” On Tuesday, July 27th, truth-teller Daniel Hale is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court, possibly up to 10 years in prison, after pleading guilty to one count of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. He is accused of providing government documents to The Intercept and of anonymously writing a chapter for the 2016 book, The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program.

Minnesota’s First MMIW Office To Open

July 18, 2021 Kalle Benallie, Indian Country Today . Create! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Indigenous Rights, MMIWG2S, Violence

As a survivor, child witness and mom of an 8-year-old daughter, the work of missing and murdered Indigenous women is extremely personal to Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. “[I] don’t want her to experience the same things I’ve experienced, as well as every literally Native woman I know has experienced violence. I’m hell-bent on changing the current conditions so that she and [other] Native children will not have to experience that in their lifetime,” Flanagan told Indian Country Today. On July 1, as part of Minnesota’s COVID-19 Recovery Budget, a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives office was confirmed to be established. The budget is $1 million biennium and will hire four full-time staff.

On The Sentencing And Courage Of Daniel Hale

July 16, 2021 Robert Shetterly, Common Dreams. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, Drones, Whistleblowers

My next portrait for the Americans Who Tell the Truth project will be Daniel Hale, the former Air Force analyst and drone whistleblower who released classified documents showing that nearly 90% of the casualties of U.S. drone assassination missions are civilians—children, women, workers, farmers, and other people who show up as shadows on drone pilot computer screens and are subsequently rendered permanent shadows. Hale will be sentenced on July 27 in Alexandria, Virginia for the crime of truth telling. In all likelihood he will receive 10 years in prison—surely sufficient time to reflect on the error of his ways, which is, primarily, having an overactive conscience, believing that killing innocent civilians, no matter what the national security excuse, is murder.

DAPL Saboteur Jessica Reznicek Sentenced To Eight Years

July 15, 2021 Chris Schiano, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, DAPL, Pipelines, Property damage

DAPL was opposed by massive protests in 2016 and 2017, due to the project’s threat to the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as the global climate due to increasing fossil fuel emissions from fracked Bakken Shale oil transported by the pipeline. The pipeline route runs just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation and crosses areas designated as Treaty Lands under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. In a statement, Reznicek and Montoya described learning how to better damage pipeline work sites as they refined their techniques through repeatedly burning pipe segments and construction machinery with oxy-acetylene cutting torches, tires, gasoline-soaked rags, and motor oil. Leaked documents show that Reznicek and Montoya had been targeted for surveillance by the pipeline security mercenary firm Tigerswan.

Bless The Traitors

July 13, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, Drones, Whistleblowers

Daniel Hale, an active-duty Air Force intelligence analyst, stood in the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park in October 2011 in his military uniform. He held up a sign that read “Free Bradley Manning,” who had not yet announced her transition. It was a singular act of conscience few in uniform had the strength to replicate. He had taken a week off from his job to join the protestors in the park. He was present at 6:00 am on October 14 when Mayor Michael Bloomberg made his first attempt to clear the park. He stood in solidarity with thousands of protestors, including many unionized transit workers, teachers, Teamsters and communications workers, who formed a ring around the park.

US Offer On Assange Is New Evidence, Should Have Been Rejected

July 13, 2021 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Extradition, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

Writing on his blog two days after District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser on Jan. 4 in London denied the U.S. request to extradite WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange (on the grounds of his health and U.S. prison conditions that put him at extreme risk of suicide), former British diplomat Craig Murray made a prescient remark in light of what we know now: “I am not sure that at this stage the High Court would accept a new guarantee from the USA that Assange would not be kept in isolation or in a Supermax prison; that would be contrary to the affidavit from Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg and thus would probably be ruled to amount to new evidence.” Indeed on Wednesday, just as Murray suspected, the U.S., in its application for appeal to the High Court in London to overturn the decision not to extradite, promised not to put Assange under Special Administrative Measures [SAMS], or extreme isolation, and that if convicted, he could serve his potential life sentence in a more humane prison in his native Australia.

Black Power And Anti-Carceral State Infrastructure

July 13, 2021 Joshua L. Crutchfield, Black Perspectives. Organize! Black America, Black Panthers, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Prison abolition

It should not be surprising that last year, mutual aid groups in the United States had to step in where the government has historically failed. Groups like Black Lives Matter Nashville distributed dozens of micro-grants—even as, at the height of the pandemic, federal and state governments drug their feet to help everyday people. As we reel from the pandemic, instead of providing more resources, the Biden administration has pledged to devote more federal spending to police.

Report Calls For Reparations For Victims Of Racist Police Violence

July 13, 2021 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. Create! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, Police, United Nations

On June 28, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet released a stunning 23-page report accompanied by a 95-page conference room paper for the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) documenting systemic racism and human rights violations by police forces against Africans and people of African descent throughout the world. The report considered more than 340 interviews and more than 100 written submissions from civil society organizations. Bachelet grounded her analysis in “the long-overdue need to confront the legacies of enslavement, the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism and to seek reparatory justice.” She took aim at “misconceptions that the abolition of slavery, the end of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism” and subsequent reforms have eliminated “the racially discriminatory structures built by those practices and created equal societies.”

America’s Drug Wars

July 13, 2021 Alfred McCoy, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Health Care, War On Drugs

Fifty years ago, on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon stood before the White House press corps, staffers at his side, to announce “a new, all-out offensive” against drug abuse, which he denounced as “America’s public enemy number one.” He called on Congress to contribute $350 million for a worldwide attack on “the sources of supply.” The first battle in this new drug war would be fought in South Vietnam where, Nixon said, “a number of young Americans have become addicts as they serve abroad.” While the president was declaring his war on drugs, I was stepping off a trans-Pacific flight into the searing tropical heat of Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, to report on the sources of supply for the drug abuse that was indeed sweeping through the ranks of American soldiers fighting this country’s war in Vietnam.

Abolition Made Practical

July 12, 2021 Alysia Harris, Scalawag Magazine. Organize! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Prison abolition

How does a society go from 7,147 jails, prisons, and detention facilities nationwide down to zero? Well, it's not by scrolling and wishing. The fight for prison abolition is being won by local people and organizations who are weaving together the frayed fibers of community care. We're taking abolitionist cues from platforms that emphasize affordable housing, better access to food, and empowerment programs that equip people with practical skills instead of punitive measures that harm the most vulnerable among us. Here are three Southern organizations making their communities safer and more sustainable—without prisons.

Organizers Calling To Close Loophole That Enables Prison Slavery

July 12, 2021 Tamar Sarai Davis, Port Side Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Law, Prisons, Worker Rights

While the 13th Amendment abolished chattel slavery, an often ignored clause still allows for slavery and involuntary servitude as “punishment for a crime.” This “slavery clause” is now the target of #EndTheException, a new campaign launched this year on Juneteenth weekend. #EndTheException is pushing for the passage of the Abolition Amendment, a joint resolution cosponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Nikema Williams, which would strike the slavery clause from the 13th Amendment making it so that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude may be imposed as a punishment for a crime.” On Saturday, June 19, as communities across the country celebrated Juneteenth—a long celebrated holiday by Black Americans, particularly Black Texans—Merkley and Williams joined advocates from groups including WorthRises, LatinoJustice PRLDF, JustLeadershipUSA, and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition for an online discussion about the #EndTheException campaign and to explain how the promise of freedom has yet to be unfulfilled.

Baltimore To Stop Prosecuting ‘Nonviolent’ Crimes

July 8, 2021 Ella Fassler, Truthout. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Legal System, Mass Incarceration, Police

The pandemic, in the midst of its many horrors, has temporarily slowed the number of arrests across some U.S. cities. With pressure from advocates and incarcerated organizers, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn, Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg in Seattle, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in Cook County, Illinois, and City State Attorney Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore pledged to curb or stop prosecuting “low level” crimes in attempts to minimize the spread of COVID-19. By 2018, newly reelected Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner had already directed his office to stop prosecuting sex work, marijuana possession and marijuana drug paraphernalia. Most of these prosecutors have strictly tied their commitments to the duration of the pandemic.

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