Mass Incarceration

Ex-Felons And Advocates Rally For Voting Rights

August 11, 2015 Eddie Conway, www.therealnews.com Resist! Mass Incarceration, Re-entry, Voting Rights

By Eddie Conway in The Real News - What happens is in any organizing campaign or anything bottom-up, you have to build momentum. I think that this is, what it's going to do, it's going to amplify the voices of the people that don't have their voices. This is a conversation right now between the haves, the have-nots. You have an industry or administration that want to keep things the way they are. Then you have people that live in my district, District 45, where there's a high population of ex-offenders that want to see change.They want to have a voice, they want to be able to have that conversation in reference to job employment. In reference to the Second Chance Act. In reference to housing. In reference to transportation, the rail line coming. So many things that affect not only this generation but so many generations to come.

Opal Tometi On Building A Transnational Movement For Black Lives

August 6, 2015 Interview with Opal Tometi Laura Flanders, www.truth-out.org Strategize! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Power, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Police Brutrality, Racial Justice, Worker Rights and Jobs

Interview with Opal Tometi by Laura Flanders in Truthout - Take us back a couple of years. Were you conscious of the fact, in 2013 when you saw that Black Lives Matter post from Alicia, that here was an opportunity to connect your issue, the issue of immigrants' rights and justice, to the Black justice movement in this country? Was it a conscious thing? It was absolutely conscious. When I reached out to Alicia to say, "I really think we need an online platform to connect our groups and to connect our communities," I had in mind that it was really important that we establish a really broad notion of who is Black America, these days. A really broad notion to ensure that this platform was big enough for the communities like the ones that I represent (my parents are Nigerian immigrants; the communities that I work with are Afro-Latinos and Caribbean and so on) and that they could also have their concerns heard. It was really important to us to ensure that it wasn't just a movement about police killing Black people but it was also about structural racism and justice for all Black people.

Court Fees Trap Ex-Inmates In A Prison Of Debt

August 5, 2015 E. Tammy Kim, www.america.aljazeera.com Educate! Debt, Mass Incarceration, Prison

By E. Tammy Kim in Al Jazeera - In Washington, a state whose progressive reputation masks a tough-on-crime undercurrent, defendants and prisoners are charged “user fees” that fund the state and local systems designed to put them away. Those who do not or cannot pay are at risk of arrest and reimprisonment. It’s a national trend: In nearly every state, offenders pay for court costs, representation by a public defender, jail and probation, and fees are on the rise. The county clerk’s offices that depend most on these sums routinely refer to defendants as “customers”. Since 2003, Spokane County, home to about half a million people, has more than doubled what it collects in these legal financial obligations, or LFOs, from criminal defendants.

Prison Art Arrives At Governor’s Island In “Escaping Time” Show

August 3, 2015 Sarah Cascone, www.news.artnet.com Create! Art, Mass Incarceration, Prison

By Sarah Cascone in Artnet - "Escaping Time: Art From U.S. Prisons," an exhibition opening this weekend on Governor's Island, looks to highlight the power of rehabilitation. Featuring 200 artworks including pieces by noted prisoner-turned-painter Anthony Papa as well as condemned killer Charles Manson (but not by recently-killed escapee Richard W. Matt), the show also serves as a reminder of the island's historic past. Today, Governors Island is New York's summer playground, a picturesque island full of art, bike trails, and shaded picnic spots, but not that long ago, its 19th-century fort, Castle Williams, was actually used as a prison, first during the Civil War, and later for offenders within the US Army. "Art offers prisoners a new conviction that, although their circumstances may seem inescapable, their memories, experiences, and hopeful dispositions are preserved," explained curator Anastasia Voron, director of exhibitions at New York's Wallplay, in a statement.

8 Stats That Reveal How Badly Police State Hurts Black Women

August 1, 2015 Terrell Jermain Starr, www.alternet.org Resist! Black Women, Mass Incarceration, police brutality

By Terrell Jermain Starr in Alternet - A major barrier in understanding the ways in which the criminal justice system treats black women is the dearth of research on the subject. While statistics on how law enforcement engage black men are plentiful, similar data on black women is limited. But Bland’s death has sparked a rare national conversation that’s forcing the country to take a closer look at how law enforcement and the criminal justice system treat black women. AlterNet was able to find eight statistically-backed ways in which law enforcement disproportionately abuses black women, despite limited scholarly research devoted to the issue. Below are some of the most glaring findings, along with some commentary from Willingham and Jordan-Zachery.

Social Worker Blows Whistle On Private Prison In Texas

July 28, 2015 Franco Ordoñez, www.mcclatchydc.com Resist! Families, Hunger Strike, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Solitary Confinement, Torture

By Franco Ordoñez in McClatchy DC - Olivia López thought she’d be working with migrant mothers and children in a group-home setting when hired as a social worker at a Texas family detention center. But when she arrived at the concrete facility and the doors were unlocked to let her in, she was startled by the cacophony of cell doors clanging. “I walked in and thought, ‘oh my Lord, this is really a prison,’” she said. In an exclusive interview with McClatchy, López shared an inside perspective of troubling operations at the Karnes County Residential Center, which has been at the center of controversy over the Obama administration’s family detention policy. She described a facility where guards isolated mothers and children in medical units, nurses falsified medical reports, staff members were told to lie to federal officials and a psychologist acted as an informant for federal agents.

Illinois Spent 2.4 Million Incarcerating People In One Chicago Block

July 28, 2015 Alex Nitkin, www.dnainfo.com Educate! Capitalism, Chicago, Illinois, Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex

By Alex Nitkin in DNAInfo - In just five years, the State of Illinois dedicated more than $2.4 million to the 4800 block of West Adams Street in Austin. But don't look for new developments or freshly paved roads on that stretch of street, because that's not where the money went. No, $2.4 million is the amount of money the state spent on incarcerating people for drug offenses from that block alone. Million Dollar Blocks looks at more than 300,000 criminal records, showing what developers called a "conservative estimate" of how much the Illinois Department of Corrections spent on people from each block and neighborhood. Cooper said he and his colleagues assumed the minimum sentence for each offense, when in reality the state likely spends much more. Developers at DataMade spent months putting together data based on offenders' home addresses, assuming that the state spends an average of $22,000 on each criminal every year.

Solitary Confinement In NJ Immigration Detention Centers Overused

July 23, 2015 American Friends Service Committee, www.afsc.org Educate! Mass Incarceration, New Jersey (NJ), Solitary Confinement, Torture

An investigation of the use of solitary confinement in New Jersey’s immigration detention centers finds an unnecessarily harsh and unfair system that violates state and international standards. The report “23 Hours in the Box, Solitary Confinement in New Jersey Immigration Detention” is released by New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees*, a coalition of community-based groups that support immigration and detention reform, and NYU School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic. The investigation examined hundreds of documents from public record requests and found that solitary confinement is applied far too often and far too long to immigrant detainees in New Jersey. Investigators also found an unnecessarily harsh system severely limiting due process and fraught with violations of state regulations and international standards.

U.N. Remains Barred From Visiting U.S. Prisons Amid Abuse Charges

July 23, 2015 Thalif Deen, www.ipsnews.net Educate! Mass Incarceration, Prison, Torture, United Nations

By Thalif Deen in IPS News - When U.S. President Barack Obama visited the El Reno Correctional Facility in Oklahoma last week to check on living conditions of prisoners incarcerated there, no one in authority could prevent him from visiting the prison. Obama, the first sitting president to visit a federal penitentiary, said “in too many places, black boys and black men, and Latino boys and Latino men experience being treated different under the law.” The visit itself was described as “unprecedented” and “historic.” But the United Nations has not been as lucky as the U.S. president was. Several U.N. officials, armed with mandates from the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, have been barred from U.S. penitentiaries which are routinely accused of being steeped in a culture of violence.

Unapologetic Black Anger Can Change The World For The Better

July 21, 2015 Chauncey de Vega, www.alternet.org Strategize! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Law, Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Racial Justice, White Supremacy

By Chauncey de Vega in Alternet - At the Socialism 2015 conference, Martinez Sutton, the brother of Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old black woman killed by an offduty white Chicago cop who recklessly fired five shots into a crowd of people because he was supposedly upset that they were playing loud music, shared his story of anger and pain at a legal system that twisted justice in order to protect one of its enforcers of death and destruction on the black and brown body, as well as the poor of all colors. Sutton told the audience that he and his family will not forgive the cop who killed his sister. He called out how this expectation that black and brown folks should always forgive those who malign and hurt us is an absurdity.

What President Obama Didn’t Hear Or Smell At El Reno

July 21, 2015 Carl Takei, www.aclu.org Educate! Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex, Solitary Confinement, Torture

By Carl Takei in ACLU - From several years of touring prisons, I’ve learned they all have a distinctive and oddly similar smell: sweat, human misery, and grime — sometimes overlain, but never hidden, by the acrid odors of chlorine and other cleaning products. The sounds give you a sense of the different parts of the institution. Dorm-style general population units are a constant murmur of activity, with TV programs blending into the sound of people talking, playing cards, microwaving overpriced cups of noodles—anything to pass the idle hours, days, months, and years in custody that lay before them. I wish he had reached behind a solid steel door to shake the hand of someone in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, solitary confinement units are filled with the yells of those seeking help, the screams of those battling hallucinations, and the echoing metallic thuds of people banging their hands — or sometimes their heads — against the metal doors of their cells.

“Conscious Capitalism” Icon Whole Foods Exploits Prison Labor

July 20, 2015 Ben Norton, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Capitalism, Libertarian, Mass Incarceration, Prison Labor

By Ben Norton in CounterPunch - Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, whose net worth exceeds $100 million, is a fervent proselytizer on behalf of “conscious capitalism.” A self-described libertarian, Mackey believes the solution to all of the world’s problems is letting corporations run amok, without regulation. He believes this so fervently, in fact, he wrote an entire book extolling the magnanimous virtue of the free market. At the same time, while preaching the supposedly beneficent gospel of the “conscious capitalism,” Mackey’s company Whole Foods, which has a $13 billion and growing annual revenue, sells overpriced fish, milk, and gourmet cheeses cultivated by inmates in US prisons. The renowned “green capitalist” organic supermarket chain pays what are effectively indentured servants in the Colorado prison system a mere $1.50 per hour to farm organic tilapia.

93 Orgs Urge EPA To Consider Prisoners In Environmental Justice

July 20, 2015 Human Rights Defense Center, www.nationinside.org Educate! Environmental Justice, Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex, Prisons

By Human Rights Defense Center in Nation Inside - The Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC) submitted a public comment to the Environmental Protection Agency today that provides input on the agency’s EJ 2020 Action Agenda Framework, highlighting the lack of consideration for environmental justice among the millions of prisoners in the United States. The comment was co-signed by 93 social justice, environmental and prisoners’ rights organizations from across the country. “It’s encouraging to see the EPA attempting to increase the effectiveness of protecting vulnerable communities that have been overburdened by industrial pollution, but a significant component is missing when impacts on millions of prisoners and their families are ignored,” said Panagioti Tsolkas, coordinator of HRDC’s Prison Ecology Project.

Questions Surround Private Prisons After AZ Riot

July 20, 2015 Donald Cohen, www.capitalandmain.com Educate! Arizona, Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex, Torture

By Donald Cohen in Capital and Main - By now, you have probably heard about the riot at the for-profit Kingman Prison in Arizona. Days of unrest at the prison, run by the privately-held Management Training Corporation, left 15 wounded and forced nearly 1,000 incarcerated people to be transferred to other facilities. The same facility also suffered from a major riot in 2010. Similarly, people detained at an MTC-run camp in Texas names Willacy rioted earlier this year, forcing that facility to close completely. The Kingman riots are focusing renewed attention on the Arizona legislature’s long, cozy relationship with the private prison industry.

Family Of Prison Hunger Strikers Mobilize Against Solitary Confinement

July 17, 2015 Victoria Law, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Mass Incarceration, Solitary Confinement, Torture

By Victoria Law in Waging Non-Violence - “By our silence, this is how they’ve gotten away with decades-long isolation,” Dolores Canales told me as this year’s anniversary of the California hunger strikes drew close. In July 2011, Canales’s son Johnny and several thousand others incarcerated in the state’s Security Housing Units, or SHUs, went on hunger strike to protest the policies allowing them to be placed in 23-hour lockdown for an indefinite period of time. In the SHU, people are locked inside their cells for 23 to 24 hours a day. Although prison policy dictates that they be allowed outside for one hour each day, Canales and other family member report that their loved ones are often held in their cells for several days without respite, then allowed outside for a single five-hour stretch.

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