Mass Incarceration

Rethinking Prisons And Public Safety During A Pandemic

May 7, 2020 Janai Nelson, Shondaland.com. Create! COVID-19, health, Mass Incarceration, Prison

Of all the places one would not want to be during a pandemic, prison presumably ranks above nearly every other. The unsanitary conditions of prisons, jails, and other places of forced confinement create what amounts to a petri dish ripe for viral transmission. Correctional facilities are epicenters for COVID-19 because people who are incarcerated endure unavoidable close contact in often overcrowded, poorly ventilated, and unhygienic facilities, coupled with limited access to health care services. These conditions make compliance with essential viral mitigation measures — social distancing, frequent hand washing, and respiratory masking — challenging, if not, in many cases, impossible. In the nation’s federal prisons alone, approximately 800 incarcerated individuals and over 300 staff have already tested positive for COVID-19.

First Known Federal Inmate Dies Of Coronavirus

March 31, 2020 C.J. Ciaramella, Reason.com Educate! Coronavirus, COVID-19, Mass Incarceration, Prisoner

The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) confirmed late Saturday night that a federal inmate has died from COVID-19—the first known death of an inmate in the federal prison system. Reuters reports that Patrick Jones, 49, an inmate at a low-security federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, died from complications after contracting COVID-19. According to the latest numbers from the BOP, 14 inmates and 13 staff members are infected with the virus. Civil liberties groups, criminal justice advocates, and families of inmates have been begging the Justice Department to get elderly and at-risk inmates out of federal prisons, saying the effects of outbreaks inside prison walls could be catastrophic. There are roughly 20,000 inmates over the age of 55 in the federal prison system.

Elected Prosecutors Call For Dramatic Reduction In Prison Populations

March 25, 2020 Staff, Fairandjustprosecution.org Create! COVID-19, Mass Incarceration, Prisons

COVID-19 has the world on high alert. In recognition that the coronavirus is spreading quickly among high concentrations of people in close proximity, schools are being shut down, conferences rescheduled, international travel is being restricted...

You Can Be Free To Vote, Even Behind Bars

March 14, 2020 By Kenyetta Rich, Otherwords.org Create! Electoral Politics, Incarcerated workers, Mass Incarceration, Prisons, Voting

Birmingham, Alabama is a landmark city for the American civil rights movement. Even today, it’s ground zero for a vital fight over voting rights. I visited Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham recently to deliver inmates a simple message: you are free to vote, even if you don’t know it. And now is the time for you to claim and exercise this right. I was there with volunteers from The Ordinary People Society (TOPS), the League of Women Voters...

What Are The Political Views Of People Who Are Incarcerated?

March 14, 2020 By Nicole Lewis, Aviva Shen and Anna Flagg, Themarshallproject.org Educate! Mass Incarceration, Politics

Asimple question at a Bernie Sanders town hall last spring sparked a debate new to prime time: Should incarcerated people be allowed to vote? Sanders said yes—his home state of Vermont (and its neighbor, Maine) are the only states to give all people in prison that right. Later, Joe Biden said no.

Progressive Prosecutors, Police Accountability, And Decarceration

February 10, 2020 Mark Manning, Towardfreedom.org Educate! Criminal Justice System, Mass Incarceration, police brutality

In 2014, St. Louis County experienced periods of heightened social protests following the highly publicized shooting of Michael Brown by then-police officer Darren Wilson. According to the New York Times, Wilson noticed Brown fit the description of a suspect who had stolen cigarillos and pulled up near Brown in his police SUV. A struggle ensued and Wilson fired his pistol at close range. Brown moved away from Wilson initially but turned towards him after a short pursuit.

Senate Panel Briefed On Disparity In Incarceration

January 27, 2020 Hannah Gaskill, Marylandmatters.org Educate! Congress, Electoral Politics, Mass Incarceration, Reform

Maryland has the highest incarceration rate in the nation of black men aged 18 to 24, according to a November report issued by the Justice Policy Institute. The second highest incarceration rate for young black men is in Mississippi. “No disrespect to Mississippi,” said Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chairman William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), “but this should be something that raises everyone’s eyebrows throughout the entire General Assembly, and especially in this committee.”

Can We Fix Mass Incarceration Without Including Violent Offenders?

December 15, 2019 By Jamiles Lartey, The Marshall Project Educate! Mass Incarceration, Three Strikes

While relief for “non-violent” offenders remains a staple of talking points and campaign platforms, several candidates are also beginning to wrestle publicly with the question of what to do about violent offenders, amid a party-wide progressive swing on criminal justice policy. These conversations have yet to produce comprehensive proposals aimed specifically at violent offenders, who make up roughly half the nation’s prison population. But advocates say reversing mass incarceration is impossible without including them, and the idea should not scare politicians or the public. They point to growing research that indicates most people “age out” of violent crime after their 20s and 30s, and to the fact that many states classify as violent some drug crimes and other offenses most Americans do not consider violent.

Groundbreaking MUMI Conference: Making & Unmaking Mass Incarceration In Mississippi’s Prison Origin

December 13, 2019 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org Organize! Mass Incarceration, Mississippi

This past week organizers, activists, students, professors, reformists and abolitionists from across the spectrum convened at the University of Mississippi’s Oxford campus to discuss the status of America’s outcomes of deadly sin at the Making and UnMaking Mass Incarceration (MUMI) Conference. With a diverse panel of inspirational and highly qualified speakers over a series of agenda packed days, the event united great minds and aspiring revolutionaries alike in order to tackle the plethora of complexities that exist within America’s criminal legal system.

‘Starve The Beast’: Southern Campaigns To Divest, Decarcerate, And Re-Imagine Public Safety

November 6, 2019 Zaina Alsous, Scalawagmagazine.org Organize! Mass Incarceration, Public safety, South

In La Casa Azul, “The Blue House” in East Point, Atlanta, organizers with the Racial Justice Action Center meet in what they call “the war room;" a room where they discuss political strategy, conditions, challenges, and ultimately decide which campaigns they want to take on. Founded seven years ago in order to train and support directly impacted people who want to organize grassroots campaigns to transform policies and institutions, the Racial Justice Action Center focuses on three prongs of the criminal justice legal system for reform: policing, courts, and jails.

Largest Sentence Commutation In US History: Nearly 500 Inmates Walk Free After Oklahoma Voters Demand Reform

November 5, 2019 By Julia Conley, Commondreams.org Create! Electoral Politics, Mass Incarceration, Oklahoma, Reform

Oklahoma voters' approval of a referendum in 2016 allowed for nearly 500 inmates to walk free on Monday from the state's massive prison system—the largest single-day commutation in U.S. history. Four hundred and sixty-two people had their sentences commuted as a result of Question 780, which asked voters if they approved of recategorizing many felonies, including drug possession and minor property crimes, as misdemeanors. The referendum passed by a 16 percent margin.

Prisoners On Hunger Strike And Work Stoppage At Santa Rita Jail

October 30, 2019 Yolanda Huang, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. Resist! Hunger Strike, Jail, Mass Incarceration, Worker Rights

Prisoners inside Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, CA are staging a one-day hunger strike and work stoppage to protest widespread institutional neglect and abuse, including unsanitary living conditions, price gouging, poor medical care, forced labor, and lack of access to legal resources. The self-organized protest began as a sit-in within a single housing unit, but organizers have called for a jail wide action on Wednesday, October 30th in response to poor jail conditions and indefinite lockdowns. Conditions inside Santa Rita are at a “crisis point,” according to a statement released by strike organizers today. “Detainees are only provided cleaning supplies once a week…[and] are contracting lice, bed bugs, and flesh-eating staph infections from the MRSA virus,” organizers write, adding that jail staff routinely neglects medical and mental health emergencies.

Close The Workhouse Campaign To Stop The War Against Black People

October 23, 2019 the Close the Workhouse Campaign. Resist! Ferguson, Justice System, Mass Incarceration, Systemic Racism

The Close the Workhouse campaign aims to attack mass incarceration, without legitimizing or justifying the continued caging of people as punishment. We call for the closure of the Medium Security Institute, better known in St. Louis as the Workhouse, an end to wealth based pretrial detention, and the reinvestment of the money used to cage poor people and Black people into rebuilding the most impacted neighborhoods in this region. The Workhouse is part and parcel of a racist and predatory system of mass incarceration that grew directly out of slavery and Jim Crow and works to perpetuate this shameful legacy in America. The story of the Workhouse illustrates this oppressive history. The campaign is a collaboration of the individuals subjected to incarceration at the Workhouse and lawyers and activists engaged on the issue.

A State-by-State Plan To End Our Mass Incarceration Crisis

October 22, 2019 Udi Ofer and Nicole Zayas Fortier, Aclu.org Create! Mass Incarceration

The United States locks up more of its people than any other nation in the world. A whopping 2.2 million people are living behind bars in this country on any given day. Our national incarceration rate is four times that of Australia, five times that of the United Kingdom, and six times that of Canada. This uniquely American problem is not one crisis — rather, mass incarceration is a series of state-based catastrophes, each one different from the next. While much attention was paid to the federal reforms passed last year through the First Step Act, of the 2.2 million people locked up on any given day...

The Number Of People Incarcerated In United States Is Far Higher Than 2.5 Million

August 30, 2019 Brian Sonenstein, Shadowproof.com Educate! Mass Incarceration, Prisons, United States

The most popular statistic regarding the United States’ prison system is that there are 2.5 million people incarcerated. However, this figure significantly under-represents the number of people caged in this country each year. According to a new analysis released by the Prison Policy Initiative, at least 4.9 million people are arrested and jailed each year. Those individuals are disproportionately poor, Black, and lack access to education and health care. Researchers say the 4.9 million figure represents a minimum estimate, as data on arrests and incarceration in the U.S. are woefully inadequate at every jurisdictional level.

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