Prisoner rights

HIV Prison Activists Are Leading A Freedom Movement

April 23, 2020 By Emily Hobson & Laura McTighe, Truthout. Organize! COVID-19, health, HIV/AIDS, Prisoner rights

When AIDS hit prisons and jails in the 1980s, incarcerated people organized. They developed peer education programs to counter stigma and slow transmission, established buddy programs to provide mutual support, led hunger and medication strikes to challenge medical neglect, and worked with outside supporters to file class-action lawsuits and to win compassionate release. The Prisoner Education Project on AIDS and AIDS Counseling and Education in New York state prisons, and similar projects in federal lockup became the best known among hundreds of efforts behind bars. Rusti Miller-Hill, a formerly incarcerated woman living with HIV, said of her emergence as an HIV activist in jail: “I needed to live, and that was my way of fighting.”

Caravans Are Demanding Immediate Release Of Prisoners During COVID-19 Crisis

April 21, 2020 By Prisoners Solidarity Committee/Peoples Power Assembly, Popular Resistance. Resist! COVID-19, Prisoner rights, Prisons

Local activists caravan in Baltimore demanded the immediate release of prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Saturday, April 18th, 2020, a coalition of Baltimore area activists organized a caravan to Baltimore area prisons to show solidarity and demand that Governor Hogan immediately begin to release prisoners amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating organizations included People’s Power Assembly, Baltimore Peace Action, Black Alliance for Peace, the Truth and Justice for Marlyn Barnes Campaign, and Ujima People’s Progress Party.

Federal Prisons Make Phone Calls Free

April 20, 2020 Shani Saxon, Colorlines. Create! Communication, COVID-19, Federal Prisons, Prisoner rights

Now that in-person prison visits have been banned amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced plans to make prison phone and video calls free for incarcerated people, Politico reports. Prison reform advocates have long condemned the unreasonably high prices predatory phone companies charge incarcerated people to make phone calls. Those concerns were exacerbated once the COVID-19 pandemic began tearing through prison populations across the country, making face-to-face visits impossible. Twelve Senators wrote a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the BOP, asking the agencies to cease burdening the 226,000 incarcerated people and their families with unnecessary fees, especially when their ability to maintain communication is now more urgent than ever.

Federal Prison Factories Kept Running As Coronavirus Spreads

April 11, 2020 Cary Aspinwall, Keri Blakinger, and Joseph Neff, The Marshall Project. Educate! COVID-19, health, Prison Labor, Prisoner rights

As the coronavirus spread across the country, Patrick Jones kept reporting to his job in the textile factory at the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. He’d worked there for years, sewing tidy buttonholes on government uniforms. Though the highly contagious virus was creeping into prisons by mid-March, Jones and his fellow inmates were working without masks, according to interviews with family and prisoners who knew him. He collapsed on March 19 and was taken to a hospital. About a week later, he died from COVID-19. Shortly after his death, the pandemic’s first in a federal Bureau of Prisons facility, the agency announced a nationwide 14-day “lockdown,” saying inmates would be mostly kept in their cells to decrease the spread of the virus.

Impact Of COVID-19 On Prisons

April 5, 2020 the Prison Policy Initiative. Create! COVID-19, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Decarceration, health, Prisoner rights

Prisons and jails are amplifiers of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, because the conditions that can keep diseases from spreading - such as social distancing - are nearly impossible to achieve in correctional facilities. So what should criminal justice agencies be doing to protect public health? On this page, we're tracking examples of state and local agencies taking meaningful steps to slow the spread of COVID-19. (So far, however, no state or municipality has implemented all of our five key policy ideas, nor met the demands issued by various organizations nationwide.) Can't find what you're looking for here? See our list of other webpages aggregating information about the criminal justice system and COVID-19.

Court: Florida Can’t Bar Felons From Vote Over Fines, Fees

February 20, 2020 BobCaina Calvan and Curt Anderson, AP News. Educate! Elections, Florida, Prisoner rights, Voting

Tallahassee, FL — Florida cannot, for now, bar felons who served their time from registering to vote simply because they have failed to pay all fines and fees stemming from their cases, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Tallahassee federal judge’s preliminary injunction that a state law implementing Amendment 4 amounted to an unfair poll tax that would disenfranchise many of the released felons. “We disagree with the ruling,” said Helen Ferre, chief spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. She said the state would immediately ask the entire 11th Circuit to reconsider. The case is one of several now before judges amid high-stakes legal skirmishes over Florida elections, which have drawn national scrutiny because of the state’s perennial status as a political battleground and the razor-thin margins deciding some high-profile contests.

Anatomy Of A Hunger Strike: A Prisoner Speaks

February 14, 2020 Demetrius Grant/ Joe Piette, editor, Workers.org Strategize! Activists, Hunger Strike, Prisoner rights

Many protests against mass incarceration have taken place on the streets of U.S. cities over the last decade. Many resistance struggles have also been waged by individuals or groups of prisoners inside the prison walls, often without any support from or knowledge of by people or press on the outside.

Our Prisons Have A Medical Crisis

January 27, 2020 Shandre Delaney, Lawatthemargins.com Educate! Health Care, Prisoner rights, Prisons

I advocate for prisoners through the Human Rights Coalition Fed-Up! We believe that although prisoners lose their right to live in a free society, they do not lose their civil or human rights. We receive calls and letters from prisoners and their families daily. A large portion of the mail exposes inhumane medical conditions that amount to cruel and unusual punishment. What we are learning is quite alarming and an outrage.

Chaos Erupts At Infamous Prison As Legislature Fails To Provide Funding

January 16, 2020 By Jerry Mitchell, Propublica.org Educate! Mississippi, Prisoner rights, Prisons

One prisoner strangled another to death while other inmates cheered the killing. Two convicts escaped a dilapidated building by walking out an open door. Maximum-security detainees freely roamed hallways, beating and threatening others. Violence has roiled the Mississippi prison system for more than a week, with state corrections officials imposing a statewide lockdown and a county coroner declaring that gangs in the prisons have launched an all-out war against one another.

Advancing Rights Restoration: Where Should Civil Rights Stop?

September 14, 2019 Sawari Amani, Sawari Mi. Strategize! Civil Rights, Democracy, Prisoner rights, Voting Rights

This week was called by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS) to be Unchain the Vote Week focused on bringing attention to the unconstitutional, dehumanizing act of felony disenfranchisement that plagues 48 of the 50 United States. During this week outside organizers hosted and attended events in solidarity with inside organizers’ call. One of the events I attended was the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights Symposium, The Road to Re-Enfranchisement: Advancing Rights Restoration. The event was a closed invite only collaboration between New York and New Jersey attended by aligned organizations across the country including grassroots organizers like Initiate Justice, Emancipation Initiative and Millions for Prisoners (all of which are apart of the Right2Vote Campaign) as well as larger organizations like Demos, the Vera Institute and Common Cause.

Students Lead The Movement To Restore Prisoners’ Voting Rights On The East Coast

April 9, 2019 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org Organize! Electoral Politics, Prisoner rights, Student Activism

Currently the only two states in which incarcerated individuals have the right to vote. In Maine and Vermont incarcerated individuals never lost their voting rights. These two states also have the whitest prison populations and with the realization that policies never came to strip the rights of incarcerated citizens in the north-most region of the east cost, the argument that prisoners lose their voting rights as a form of punishment for their ‘breaking social contract’ is false looking at our reality. It’s also worth noting that incarcerated citizens’ loss of voting rights wasn’t a standard practice in the United States.

In Landslide Colorado Voters Abolish Prison Slavery

February 21, 2019 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Create! Abolition of Slavery, Prison Strike, Prisoner rights

Last November, Colorado became the first state to abolish prison slavery. Colorado voted overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing slavery and forced servitude as punishment for a crime. Abolish Slavery Colorado‘s co-chair Jumoke Emery said: "Regardless how people feel about the criminal justice system, the ultimate outcome is that it shouldn’t be slavery." The victory for prisoner rights comes at a time of resistance by prisoners. Abolishing prison slavery was the second demand of the national prison strike.

Protests Support Prisoners Living Without Heat

February 3, 2019 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Prisoner rights, Prisons

Protests continue inside and outside of the MDC Federal Detention Center in New York where prisoners do not have heat. Prisoners can be heard by people on the outside banging on windows and walls from all over the building. The New York Justice League is outside during the day and night showing prisoners that people on the outside support them. People are bringing warm drinks and food to support Justice League activists. Holding people in prisons without heat in freezing cold weather violates their basic human rights. Protesters are demanding the people being held are treated with dignity and respect as well as treated humanely.

Oct. 1 NC Department Of Public Safety Phone Zap

October 1, 2018 Staff, Incarceratedworkers.org Resist! Class Struggle, Prison Strike, Prisoner rights, Repression

Call in to demand an end to repression against organizing prisoners. North Carolina DPS is keeping three prisoners in segregation in response to the strike activity at Hyde correctional facility that occurred on August 20. The three prisoners are also facing trumped up "active rioter" infractions. We demand that repression against these prisoners stop. Call in and tell DPS director Kennith Lassiter to move these men out of segregation and remove the infraction charges against them.

Vermont Puts Prisoners Out For Bid To Slave Labor Corporations

September 17, 2018 William Boardman, Readersupportednews.org Educate! Corporations, Labor, Prisoner rights, Slave labor, Vermont

Since the budget summary was written, Vermont has removed all its prisoners from the Michigan facility. In its place, Vermont used the Pennsylvania state facility at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where four Vermonters have died, one from untreated cancer with no palliative care. Now Vermont negotiators have reportedly agreed to a contract to send Vermont prisoners to Tallahatchie, Mississippi, to be housed in a 2,672-bed facility run by CoreCivic, Inc. (formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America), the largest private prison company in the US (2018 second-quarter profit $42 million on revenue of $449 million). The Vermont contract is currently secret. The ACLU opposes the contract sight unseen. State and corporate officials have refused to discuss it in any detail, but promise it will be made public once the necessary parties have signed it to make it binding.

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