Mass Incarceration

The “Shocking” Statistics Of Racial Disparity In Baltimore

April 29, 2015 Bill Quigley, www.commondreams.org Educate! Baltimore, Education, Inequality, Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Public Health, Racial Justice, Unemployment

Were you shocked at the disruption in Baltimore? What is more shocking is daily life in Baltimore, a city of 622,000 which is 63 percent African American. Here are ten numbers that tell some of the story. One. Blacks in Baltimore are more than 5.6 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than whites even though marijuana use among the races is similar. In fact, Baltimore county has the fifth highest arrest rate for marijuana possessions in the USA. Two. Over $5.7 million has been paid out by Baltimore since 2011 in over 100 police brutality lawsuits. Victims of severe police brutality were mostly people of color and included a pregnant woman, a 65 year old church deacon, children, and an 87 year old grandmother.

Private Prison Sued For Putting Hunger Striking Moms In Solitary

April 25, 2015 Roque Planas, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Dignity, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Violence, Wars and Militarism

Three immigrant women who say they were punished for joining a hunger strike in a Texas family detention center on Thursday sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and GEO Group, the company that operates the facility. The lawsuit, filed in federal court against ICE Director Sarah Saldaña and personnel at the Karnes County Residential Center, seeks to prohibit ICE and GEO from putting women and their children in isolation as punishment for protesting, and from threatening to separate mothers from their children. “All we’re asking is that under the First Amendment, for ICE officials and GEO officials to stop retaliating against the women and allow them to peacefully protest,” said Ranjana Natarajan, an attorney with the University of Texas Civil Rights Clinic, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the women.

Seattle Activists Fight Building Of New Youth Jail

April 21, 2015 Megan Sherman, www.therealnews.com Resist! Criminal Justice, Mass Incarceration, Racial Justice, Seattle

With the prospect for a new $210 million juvenile jail looming in Seattle, a coalition of activists group held what's known as a people's tribunal to formulate strategies to fight it. Ariel Hart, a youth organizer with YUIR, Youth Undoing Institutional Racism, talks about the purpose of the tribunal. ARIEL HART, YOUTH ORGANIZER, YUIR: It is important that as we're organizing, as we're trying to talk to the politicians and dismantle the system that we're building and we're healing and we're growing our community. SHERMAN: The struggle to block the jail comes as troubling statistics show African-American youth are disproportionately ensnared in the city's juvenile justice system.

States That Send The Most Students To Police, Courts

April 18, 2015 Susan Ferriss, www.publicintegrity.org Educate! Children, Mass Incarceration, police brutality

Kayleb Moon-Robinson was 11 years old last fall when charges — criminal charges — began piling up at school. Diagnosed as autistic, Kayleb was being scolded for misbehavior one day and kicked a trash can at Linkhorne Middle School in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A police officer assigned to the school witnessed the tantrum, and filed a disorderly conduct charge against the sixth grader in juvenile court. Just weeks later, in November, Kayleb, who is African-American, disobeyed a new rule — this one just for him — that he wait while other kids left class. The principal sent the same school officer to get him. “He grabbed me and tried to take me to the office,” said Kayleb, a small, bespectacled boy who enjoys science. “I started pushing him away. He slammed me down, and then he handcuffed me.”

Protests Lead To President’s Support Of Prison Divestment

April 18, 2015 University Business Magazine, www.google.com Resist! Divestment, Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Prison, Student Activism

37 Wesleyan students sat in on President Michael Roth’s office yesterday and today demanding divestment from fossil fuels, the Israeli occupation and the prison industrial complex. This morning, they left with Roth’s endorsement of prison divestment and commitment to further dialogue on divestment from fossil fuels and the Israeli occupation. President Roth agreed to investigate the current status of the university’s investments in private prisons, to publicly state his endorsement of prison divestment, and proceed to support divestment of any holdings Wesleyan may have. Students arrived in the president’s office at noon on Thursday, marking the anniversary of President Roth’s participation in a sit-in for divestment from South African Apartheid as a Wesleyan student in 1978.

Kathy Kelly: The Storm Is Over

April 17, 2015 Kathy Kelly, www.riseuptimes.org Educate! Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Prison

Lightning flashed across Kentucky skies a few nights ago. “I love storms,” said my roommate, Gypsi, her eyes bright with excitement. Thunder boomed over the Kentucky hills and Atwood Hall, here in Lexington, KY’s federal prison. I fell asleep thinking of the gentle, haunting song our gospel choir sings: “It’s over now, It’s over now. I think that I can make it. The storm is over now.” I awoke the next morning feeling confused and bewildered. Why had the guards counted us so many times? “That was lightning,” Gypsi said, giggling. The guards shine flashlight in our rooms three times a night, to count us, and I generally wake up each time; that night the storm was also a culprit. As the day continued we saw large pools of water had collected at each entrance to Atwood Hall.

Walter Scott, Million Moms March & Stop Mass Incarceration

April 16, 2015 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.blackagendareport.com Organize! Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Racial Justice, Resistance

The killing of black men in America appears to have reached epidemic proportions. The fact of the matter is that murder of black men has remained a closely held prerogative of white supremacy exercised by agents of the state since the arrival of Africans in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. These agents, purveyors of state-sponsored violence in African communities, discharge their lethal weapons with effectiveness and efficiency under the cover of law. These agents have been known by various titles throughout US history: slave patrols, Klu Klux Klan, plantation owners, White Citizens’ Council or police officers. Last week, National Coast Guard veteran Walter Scott, 50 joined the thousands of black boys, men and women whose blood has soaked the soil of America and who die alone, frightened and terrorized while their assassins laugh at their handiwork.

Tues April 14th, First Day Of Solidarity

April 13, 2015 Lucasville Amnesty, www.lucasvilleamnesty.org Resist! Human Rights, Hunger Strike, Mass Incarceration, Ohio

As the Ohio State Penitentiary hunger strike approaches 30 days, we will rally at the Ohio Dept of Rehabilitation and Correction in Columbus, and deliver a letter to top officials demanding justice. Over 50 prisoners have been illegally denied religious and recreation programming. We stand with them The rally coincides with the 22nd anniversary of the Lucasville Uprising, where inmates in Southern Ohio took over a prison in response to religious discrimination. f you can't make it to Columbus, please be creative and find a way to support the hunger strike on Tuesday. Organize a solidarity fast like students at the University of Toledo did on Friday, with an evening "break the fast" get together. Or a call-in lunch, gather with friends mid-day and call the prison, Central Office, and The CIIC (numbers and scripts below).

Protests Explode Over KKK Plot To Kill Black Florida Prisoners

April 11, 2015 Zaid Jilani, www.alternet.org Resist! Mass Incarceration, Racial Justice

Last week, the state of Florida arrested three alleged members of the Ku Klux Klan who had plotted to kill an African American inmate after he was released from prison. While white supremacist terror plots are not uncommon, this one had a peculiar twist: two of the suspects involved were officers at the Florida Department of Corrections. The incident has incited outrage across the state. On Tuesday the Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony from prisons chief Julie Jones, who said she's unaware of other Klan activity in the prisons, but that it's difficult to ascertain because the department is not allowed to ask about political affiliations during the hiring process. The residents of Tallahassee, Florida are not content to live with this uncertainty about extremists working in the Florida prison system.

National Lawyers Guild: Immediate Medical Attention For Mumia

April 9, 2015 National Lawyers Guild, www.nlg.org Resist! Human Rights, Law, Mass Incarceration, Mumia Abu-Jamal

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to give NLG Jailhouse Lawyer Vice President Mumia Abu-Jamal immediate independent and specialized health care, including his choice of medical specialists. On March 30, Mr. Abu-Jamal collapsed in the prison infirmary at SCI Mahanoy from diabetic shock before being hospitalized in the ICU at Schuylkill Medical Center. Despite his serious condition, he was transferred back to the prison just two days later. Although he had sought care for classic warning signs of the disease over the previous three months, including extreme weight loss and severe eczema, the prison infirmary had failed to diagnose him with type 2 diabetes which, with proper medical attention, could have potentially prevented Mr. Abu-Jamal’s current illness.

New Yorkers Protest Addition Of New NYPD Officers

April 9, 2015 Ashoka Jegroo, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Mass Incarceration, New York City (NYC), police brutality

New Yorkers wasted no time hitting the streets this Easter weekend with multiple protests against racist policing and calls by politicians for new cops. Though protests against systemic racism and police brutality continued in New York City through the winter months, most actions consisted of disruptions of business-as-usual by smaller groups of activists. This past Easter weekend, New Yorkers welcomed the spring by marching against racist police practices and calls to add 1,000 new officers to the New York Police Department. In keeping with the celebration of Easter this weekend, one set of actions was part of a campaign by religious activists called #ReclaimHolyWeek. The activists sought to illustrate the similarities between the murder of Jesus by the state and people of color killed by the police in the United States.

Boycott, Divest And Sanction Corporations That Feed On Prisons

April 7, 2015 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Strategize! BDS, Capitalism, Mass Incarceration

“Organizing boycotts, work stoppages inside prisons and the refusal by prisoners and their families to pay into the accounts of phone companies and commissary companies is the only weapon we have left,” said Amos Caley, who runs the Interfaith Prison Coalition, a group formed by prisoners, the formerly incarcerated, their families and religious leaders. “Mass incarceration is the most important civil rights issue of our day. And it is time for communities of faith to stand with poor people, mostly of color, who are unfairly exploited and abused. We must halt human rights violations against the poor that grow more pronounced each year,” Caley said here. He and other prison reform leaders spoke Saturday at the Elmwood Presbyterian Church.

Decriminalize School Discipline; Black Males Matter

April 7, 2015 Tyrone Howard, www.edweek.org Educate! Criminal Justice, Education, Mass Incarceration

Recent events in Ferguson, Mo., Cleveland, and New York City have ignited a series of debates about the lives of black males in the United States and how they are viewed in the larger society. Regardless of what anyone believes, however, the reality is simple: Black males are disciplined and punished disproportionately more than any other group. The historical narrative often depicts black males as violent, anti-intellectual, and resistant to authority. What needs to be understood, however, is how schools contribute to building this narrative, and what can be done to help change that. In many ways, young black men have a much lower threshold for engaging in inappropriate behavior while at school than their peers; overwhelming data show that black male students experience school in a very different way than do their nonblack peers.

Mothers Stage Hunger Strike At Immigrant Detention Center

April 6, 2015 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org Resist! Human Rights, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Texas

About 40 women being held at the privately-run Karnes Family Detention Center in southern Texas launched a hunger strike this week to demand their release and the release of their families, vowing on Tuesday not to eat, work, or use the services at the facility until they are freed. Nearly 80 women being held at the center, many of whom are said to be asylum seekers from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, signed aletter stating that they have all been refused bond despite having established a credible fear of violence if they are sent back to Central America—a key factor in the U.S. government's process for screening detained immigrants to allow them amnesty.

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