Mass Incarceration

NY Inmates Sue Rikers Over Solitary Confinement Rollover Minutes

November 1, 2014 RYOT, www.ryot.org Resist! Law, Mass Incarceration, Solitary Confinement

NEW YORK (AP) — Inmates held in solitary confinement at Rikers Island as punishment for violations during previous stints in jail are suing to stop the practice, known as owed time. A class action lawsuit filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court says inmates are unduly placed in 23-hour confinement for breaking jailhouse rules in previous detentions, sometimes years earlier. For example, if an inmate is sentenced to a month in solitary confinement but is released or transferred before completing it, he can be forced to serve the remaining time during his next incarceration. The practice, which experts say is unique to New York City, is described in the lawsuit as arbitrary and unfair because it doesn’t allow for a hearing or other rights normally afforded under the internal disciplinary process.

A Mother Protests Solitary Confinement

October 31, 2014 Victoria Law, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! California, Mass Incarceration, Solitary Confinement

By 2011, SHU prisoners had had enough. They declared a hunger strike, demanding an end to these policies and conditions. Over a thousand people, including Johnny, joined in. Although not the first time SHU prisoners have gone on hunger strike, this particular call came at a time when prison organizing was intensifying. Less than a year earlier, in December 2010, people in a dozen Georgia prisons united across racial lines to go on work strike. Their demands included wages for their labor, educational opportunities, decent health care, nutritious meals and improved living conditions. In Illinois, activists were on the verge of closing the notorious Tamms prison, where men spent years in extreme isolation. Across the nation, lawsuits against inhumane prison conditions were filed — and won.

Time Served For Barrett Brown

October 30, 2014 Free Barrett Brown, www.freebarrettbrown.com Organize! Journalism, Law, Mass Incarceration, political prisoners

We’re making an appeal to Judge Lindsay to apply leniency and sentence Barrett Brown to time served, and we could use your help. Brown is a talented journalist who accepts responsibility for his charged conduct. He was originally charged with sharing a hyperlink to stolen information, and after that was dropped, he pled guilty to hiding his laptops, transmitting a threat, and accessory after the fact to an unauthorized access to a protected computer. He is now facing 8.5 years maximum in prison. When he is sentencedon November 24th, he will have already spent over two years in jail. Given the nature of his crimes and the lack of tangible harm resulting from them, we feel that it’s past time to let him go.

Political Prisoners In The Sacrifice Zone Of Empire

October 28, 2014 Nozomi Hayase, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Political Prisoner, Solitary Confinement

Abu-Jamal and Hammond, two men with very different backgrounds share much in common. Both were placed in prolonged solitary confinement, which the UN Special Rapporteur on torture called “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and may amount to torture.” Since his arrest in March 2010, Hammond was regularly cut off from contact with his friends and family and was more than once in solitary. Abu-Jamal has spent the last 30 years in prison, almost all of it in solitary confinement on Pennsylvania’s death row before prosecutors agreed in 2011 to reduce the sentence. They both have always held strong commitment to social justice. Hammond revealed secret collusion of corporations and the state to engage in unconstitutional spying on human rights activists.

Policing Isn’t A Solution For Youth In Baltimore

October 28, 2014 Angel Elliot and Bart Lubow, www.therealnews.com Educate! Education, Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Racial Justice

We have essentially two sets of youth policies in Baltimore, as is true in most large urban settings. We have a group of policies that are aimed at kids who we think are causing trouble or are likely to get into trouble, and then we have policies that apply to the rest of youth and that provide them with opportunities for development that all of us would like to see all children have. And we've got to somehow reconcile the fact that we have these two systems, one that affects primarily kids of color from the poorest of our communities, and the other that apply to the more privileged kids, and especially to white kids. So the first question is: are we providing all children with the right set of opportunities for them to grow in healthy ways?

Ferguson and Beyond – Next Steps to End Police Brutality

October 27, 2014 Staff, www.clearingthefogradio.org Strategize! Ferguson, Mass Incarceration, Michael Brown, Police abuse, police brutality, police murder, Racism

This edition of Clearing The FOG Radio, co-hosted by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, focuses on where the movement against police abuse is going. With the decision of the grand jury possible any day now, and the likely result being no indictment according to law enforcement leaks to the press, how should the people of Ferguson and the nation react? What would be a constructive to response for the lack of justice for Michael Brown? And, what should the movement be demanding. In the first half hour two guests who have worked in Ferguson as part of the movement for justice for Michael Brown discuss next steps, the mood of the community and how those of us outside Ferguson can help. In the second half hour, two African American activists in Washington, DC and New York City comment on the situation, not only in Ferguson but regarding police abuse nationally. In DC, Kymone Freeman has been part of the #DCFerguson coalition and in NYC, Glenn Ford long-time commentator on African American issues and editor of Black Agenda Report comments. Ford proposes that rather than "community policing" we need "community controlled policing" that includes the ability of communities to remove officers who are racist or abusive.

Union Federation Gets Vocal On Harsh Prison Sentencing

October 22, 2014 Dave Jamieson, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! Human Rights, Labor Unions, Mass Incarceration, police brutality

Backers of a California ballot measure that would release thousands of non-violent prisoners have found a surprisingly enthusiastic ally in their fight: the nation's largest federation of labor unions. On Friday, Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, is expected to deliver a speech in Los Angeles offering robust support for Proposition 47, a proposal that would reduce the penalties for simple drug possession and shoplifting. According to his prepared remarks provided to The Huffington Post, Trumka will declare that mass incarceration is a "labor issue" and that unions need to join other progressives in pressing for reform. "It's a labor issue because mass incarceration means literally millions of people work jobs in prisons for pennies an hour -- a hidden world of coerced labor here in the United States," Trumka's remarks read. "It's a labor issue because those same people who work for pennies in prison, once they have served their time, find themselves locked out of the job market by employers who screen applicants for felony convictions."

National Day To Stop Criminalization Of A Generation

October 21, 2014 Steven Yip, www.stopmassincarceration.org Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Mass Incarceration, Police abuse, Youth

Protests on October 22 against intensified police killings, tortuous conditions being inflicted on tens of thousands of incarcerated people, and young people treated like criminals, guilty until proven innocent if they can survive to prove their innocence, will mark 19 years of the annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Continuing defiant protests in Ferguson, MO, in response to the police killing of Michael Brown are part of heightened resistance to police murder all across the country. Against this backdrop, people in more than 38 cities across the U.S. are planning to take to the streets and act in other ways on Wednesday. The Organization for Black Struggle has called for civil disobedience outside the jail where people arrested in Ferguson have been imprisoned.

Substance Abuse Is A Public Health Issue, Not A Crime

October 15, 2014 Brave New Films, www.youtube.com Educate! Mass Incarceration, Mental Illness, War On Drugs

It’s simple. Diversion programs work better than incarceration – for everyone. In cities like Seattle, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City, we see that successful solutions are a viable option to help end serious social problems. These services alter the course of people’s lives in a positive way and save taxpayers huge amounts of money. We cannot continue to isolate and imprison people who suffer from mental illness, substance abuse, or homelessness. We must treat them with compassion and care to better serve our communities and our pocketbooks. It's time we got serious about pulling our money out of incarceration and putting it into systems that foster healthy communities. Hundreds of thousands of people are locked up not because of any dangerous behavior, but because of problems like mental illness, substance use disorders, and homelessness, which should be dealt with outside the criminal justice system. Services like drug treatment and affordable housing cost less and can have a better record of success.

Organizing To Stop Shackling, Abuse Of Women Prisoners

October 8, 2014 Victoria Law, www.wagingnonviolence.org Organize! Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Women's Rights

In 2009, after years of organizing by advocates, including formerly incarcerated women, New York State passed legislation restricting the shackling of pregnant women during labor, delivery and postpartum recovery. But the law is not always followed, as Ursulina and 22 other women have learned. Ursulina was three months pregnant when she arrived in 2012 at Bedford Hills — New York’s maximum-security prison for women. It was three years after anti-shackling legislation was passed and supposedly implemented. But when she went into labor, Ursulina was shackled before being taken to the hospital. When she arrived at the hospital, the doctor told her that she was not dilated enough and that she should go home. “I’m not going home,” she told him. “I’m going back to prison.” She was sent back, in shackles and chains.

Guantanamo’s Controversial Force-Feeding Policies On Trial

October 7, 2014 Jason Leopold, www.news.vice.com Educate! Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Torture, Wars and Militarism

Two weeks ago, medical personnel at Guantanamo Bay told VICE News that hunger-striking detainees are fed no differently than American patients in US hospitals who require feeding tubes. But today, lawyers for Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a 43-year-old Syrian national who has been held captive at Guantanamo since 2002 — he has been cleared for transfer out of the detention facility since 2009 — are arguing in US District Court in Washington, DC that Guantanamo's new force-feeding protocols are particularly abusive, and specifically designed to deter detainees from participating in the hunger strikes. It's a historic case that could force military officials to radically change the way detainees who engage in the protests are treated by their captors.

Political Prisoner Convicted In Trooper Death To Be Released

October 2, 2014 NewsOne Staff, www.newsone.com Educate! Law, Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Political Prisoner, Racism

A man convicted in the shooting death of a New Jersey state trooper in a crime that still provokes strong emotion among law enforcement more than 40 years later was ordered released on parole by a state appeals court Monday. Sundiata Acoli was known as Clark Edward Squire when he was convicted of the 1973 slaying of Trooper Werner Foerster during a stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Now in his mid-70s, Acoli was denied parole most recently in 2011, but the appellate judges reversed that ruling Monday. The panel found that the parole board ignored evidence favorable to Acoli and gave undue consideration to past events such as a probation violation that occurred decades earlier.

Murder, Mass Incarceration, Militarization And Genocide In Progress

September 29, 2014 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Law, Mass Incarceration, militarism, Racism

How does one explain the totality of: mass incarceration of healthy young black males in their most productive years; their falling to state-sponsored murder coast-to-coast; the impoverishment of black wealth through wholesale thievery by corporate and banking foreclosures, and the militarization of police forces arrayed nationwide against black communities? Were these crimes against African-Americans committed in a theater of war they would rise to the level of genocide as defined by the United Nations. The systematic and brutal execution of black men is illegal under domestic and international law. Under UN conventions this crime alone rises to the level of genocide as defined in international law under Article II.

The Mass Incarceration Movement Can Learn From The Climate Struggle

September 28, 2014 James Kilgore, www.truth-out.org Educate! Climate Change, Climate Justice, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Mass Incarceration

The release of the Bureau of Justice statistics for 2013 is perhaps the Rio moment for the movement against mass incarceration. This may be the time for the movement to seriously reflect on the limitations of cherry picking "non-violent offenders" and diverting a few people into drug courts or community service. Ending mass incarceration requires a different kind of movement, one with the active participation and leadership of millions of poor people of color. While policy reports and legislative lobbying can play an important role, as theBlockadia activists in North America are emphasizing, direct action from the critically impacted also needs to be added to the agenda. Let us hope that long before 20 years after this "Rio moment," the movement against mass incarceration will not be lamenting the miniscule impact our actions have had on this systemic problem and still be wondering why a piecemeal, expert-driven approach has not changed the world. And let us also hope that by that time, the vagaries of climate change have not rendered our efforts too late.

Who’s Getting Caught In The ‘School-to-Prison’ Pipeline?

September 27, 2014 Frederick Reese, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Education, Mass Incarceration, Racism

In 2009, for example, the Los Angeles Unified School District reported that among its students who were given out-of-school suspensions, 62 percent were Hispanic and 33 percent were black. Only 3 percent were white. Similarly, the West Valley School District in Spokane, Washington, reported that of the students who were expelled that year, 20 percent were black and 60 percent were white — this, for a school district whose student body is 86 percent white and 4 percent black. Also in 2009, in the Normandy School District of St. Louis, 100 percent of all students who received more than one out-of-school suspension, 100 percent of all students expelled without educational services, and 100 percent of all students referred to law enforcement were black. In New Orleans, all of the Orleans Parish School Board’s expulsions under its “zero-tolerance” policy were black, as were 67 percent of the board’s school-related arrests.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources