Prisoner rights

COVID-19 And Democrats’ Indifference Killed My Husband In Jail

February 10, 2021 Cassandra Greer Lee, Current Affairs. Educate! COVID-19, Democrats, Illinois, Prisoner rights

In February 2020, my husband, Nickolas Lee, was incarcerated in Cook County Jail in Chicago. The judge didn’t offer him bail. So even though he was presumed innocent, he had to await his trial in jail. When the coronavirus seeped into the facility, he was sleeping in a dormitory with 50 other men, including those with active COVID-19 symptoms. Nick and the other men had no ability to social distance. Although the sheriff’s office claimed to be “clearly leaders in the Country on dealing with the pandemic [sic],” Nick was denied even basic sanitary products, like sanitizer or a mask. He had to use his shirt to cover his nose and mouth.

St. Louis Inmates Take Over Units After Weeks Of Complaints

February 7, 2021 Doyle Murphy, River Front Times. Resist! Civil Disobedience, COVID-19, Missouri, Prisoner rights

More than 100 inmates at the St. Louis City Justice Center took over two units of the jail early this morning, shattering fourth-floor windows and setting small fires as they called out jubilantly to a crowd of supporters who gathered on the street below. The uprising began around 2:30 a.m., and detainees held control of the units for more than six hours before teams of city sheriff's deputies and police regained custody. For weeks, tensions have been high at the downtown jail. Inmates staged two protests in late December and early January to complain about COVID-19 protocols and other conditions in the facility, where the majority of the city's detainees are now housed.

111 NGOs Call On Biden To Close Guantánamo

February 3, 2021 Center for Constitutional Rights. Resist! Guantanamo Bay, Indefinite Detention, Prison, Prisoner rights

On February 2, more than a hundred non-governmental organizations joined a letter led by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Victims of Torture, urging President Joe Biden to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and end indefinite military detention. The letter is signed by organizations ranging from those working to end anti-Muslim discrimination and torture to immigrant rights organizations and organizations working broadly on civil rights, civil liberties, and racial justice at the national and local level. It emphasizes the devastating and ongoing consequences of the prison, including the effect of a post-9/11 national security framework on domestic racial justice struggles and efforts to end police violence.

Hunger Strikes At Three New Jersey Prisons

January 9, 2021 Sara Flounders, Workers.org. Resist! Hunger Strike, ICE, Prisoner rights, Prisons

The filthy conditions, indefinite incarceration and escalating COVID infections have touched off desperate hunger strikes at three New Jersey county jails. Each jail operates as a prison-for-profit, renting space at $120 a day for ICE to jail out-of-state migrant detainees. The N.J. counties use the contracts to generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually. Immigrant detention has become a moneymaking “cash cow” raising more than $87 million in revenue. There are four immigration detention facilities in New Jersey — Bergen, Essex, and Hudson County jails, and the Elizabeth Detention Center, run by CoreCivic, the private prison-for-profit company.

Black Inmates Begin 2021 With Uprising In Saint Louis Justice Center

January 4, 2021 Huey Dessalines, Peoples Voice. Resist! COVID-19, health, Missouri, Prisoner rights

Saint Louis, MO - It is a custom in the City of Saint Louis and other predominantly New Afrikan cities to welcome a new year by firing into the air. The coming of the New Year 2021 saw the most oppressed of our people improve on this popular custom by initiating a struggle against atrocious conditions at the Saint Louis “Justice” Center. This justice center downtown is directly across from the hideous faux-gothic, soot stained monstrosity of City Hall, and it is not lost on many who enter the doors of either building that one feeds the other. The City needs Black people incarcerated because, as Huey P. Newton and other revolutionary theoreticians pointed out, New Afrikan people after slavery technically ended became a surplus population.

Demonstrators Besiege California Prison Headquarters

December 25, 2020 Judy Greenspan, Workers.org. Resist! COVID-19, health, Prisoner rights

Sacramento, CA - Under the banner “From Balloons to Bullhorns,” an angry group of protesters converged on the steps of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to demand mass releases of incarcerated people due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The vigil and rally organized by Sistas With Voices began with 104 seconds of silence to symbolize the 104 prisoners who have already died inside California state prisons from COVID-19. According to the latest reports from the CDCR, there are 8,800 reported cases of COVID-19 among a prison population of 91,000. More than 3,000 guards and other prison staff — the most probable source of the COVID-19 infection — have also tested positive.

Prison Staff Force Prisoners to Accept Liability For Their Own Deaths

December 11, 2020 No Justice Under Capitalism, Popular Resistance. Educate! California, COVID-19, health, Prisoner rights

Prisoners at San Quentin State Prison are reporting that, over the past week, San Quentin medical staff have been pressuring prisoners to sign waiver forms accepting legal responsibility for their own deaths from COVID-19. That, despite more than 10 months of continuous neglect and Eighth Amendment violations by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) which has, so far, killed 28 prisoners at the prison. Multiple prisoners – many are refusing to cooperate – at San Quentin tell the same story.

Prison Strikers Suspend Starvation, Continue Work Strike

December 4, 2020 Oakland Abolition and Solidarity. Resist! COVID-19, Hunger Strike, Prisoner rights, Strike

Corcoran, CA - CDCr’s negligent and careless response to the COVID-19 outbreak at CSATF has now killed at least three people. Active cases at the prison continue to hover near 1000 and now over half of the facility has contracted the disease. Guards and staff members are still failing to follow safety protocols and continue to move people around the facility creating more and more exposure. The hunger strikers in D have decided to suspend their starvation in order to recover their health for an ongoing fight.

Letter To Rob Davis Governor of HMP Belmarsh

November 30, 2020 Wise Up Action. Organize! COVID-19, HMP Belmarsh, Julian Assange, Prisoner rights

I am shocked to read that all 56 virus-infected prisoners at Belmarsh have been moved to the same wing as Mr. Assange, who so far by miracle is not infected. This seems utter madness to me and suggests you may want him also to become infected. Everyone knows Mr. Assange has damaged lungs (see UN report by Nils Melzer) and will almost certainly die if he catches this virus, yet instead of taking measures to protect him it appears you are deliberately placing him at greater risk of catching the virus. If he dies I believe your lack of appropriate actions will make you legally responsible for his death.

Over 100 Rebellions In Jails And Prisons Over COVID19 Conditions

November 21, 2020 Ella Fassler, Truthout. Resist! COVID-19, health, Prisoner rights, Rebellion2020

U.S jails and prisons, already death traps, have been completely ravaged by COVID-19. Crowded quarters, a lack of PPE, inadequate medical care, an aging population, and unsanitary conditions have contributed to an infection rate 5.5 times higher than the already ballooned average in the U.S. As of this writing, over 252,000 people in jails and prisons have been infected and at least 1,450 incarcerated people and officers have died from the novel coronavirus. Evidence suggests these figures are underreported, however.

Inmate Kitchen Workers Forced To Serve Expired Meat In Prison

November 19, 2020 Jimmy Jenkins, KJZZ. Educate! Arizona, Food and Agriculture, health, Prisoner rights

Arizona - Incarcerated people who work in the kitchens at the Eyman, Lewis and Yuma state prisons claim they were forced to serve expired meat to their fellow inmates, resulting in foodborne illnesses. Several inmates report being diagnosed with H. pylori infections, which they attribute to the food and unsanitary conditions in the kitchens. The inmates say they were subsequently put on antibiotics in recent days and weeks to treat the infections. KJZZ is not naming the inmates because they fear retaliation for speaking out about the prison conditions.

Hunger Strike Enters Third Week At California’s Largest Prison

November 18, 2020 Ryan Fatika, Perilous Chronicle. Resist! California, COVID-19, Hunger Strike, Prisoner rights

In the southern part of California’s Central Valley, about halfway between Bakersfield and Fresno, sits Corcoran, California—a small farming town surrounded on all sides by acres of cotton and tomato fields. Perched at the town’s southern tip are two of the state’s largest prisons. Together, their denizens make up about 33% of the population of Corcoran. One of the facilities, the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (CSATF), is the state’s single largest, housing 4,481 prisoners, about 130% of its intended capacity.

Why A 58-day vigil Is Going On Outside The Governor’s House

November 18, 2020 Sophie Kasakove, The News and Observer. Resist! COVID-19, North Carolina, Prisoner rights, Prisons

Demonstrators gathered outside the Executive Mansion on Sunday to demand that Gov. Roy Cooper use his powers of pardon and clemency to protect people who are incarcerated during the pandemic. Members of Decarcerate Now NC, a coalition of organizations which say they’re working to end to mass incarceration, have been holding daily vigils outside the governor’s mansion since Election Day and plan to continue through Jan. 1, when Cooper begins his second term. That’s a total of 58 days. “We stand vigil to bring attention to your Administration’s ongoing failure to prioritize and appropriately protect Black lives — indeed, any lives incarcerated in state prisons — from Covid-19.

Inmate Sues Prison Over Lack Of COVID19 Precautions

October 27, 2020 Nick Muscavage, Central New Jersey. Resist! COVID-19, health, PPE, Prisoner rights

Union, NJ - An inmate at the state's only prison for women has filed a lawsuit alleging the state Department of Corrections is failing to take proper precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic. Jennie Cullum filed the lawsuit in state Superior Court in Hunterdon County against the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women claiming she was not allowed to take precautions against the virus as cases began to increase, and, in one instance, guards did not allow her to wear a face mask she had fashioned out of her own bra.

Prisoners Won The Right To Stimulus Checks

October 24, 2020 Keri Blakinger and Joseph Neff, NBC News. Educate! Bureau of Prisons, CARES Act, Prisoner rights, Stimulus checks

Last week, Thomas Root emailed his weekly legal newsletter from his office in Ohio to nearly 11,000 federal prisoners around the country — just as he’s done every Monday since 2015. That same day, attorney Brandon Sample in Vermont fired off his own weekly legal updates to more than 6,700 federal prisoners — as he’s done for three years. Within days, the men were flooded with rejection emails declaring that the Federal Bureau of Prisons had abruptly banned their newsletters, saying they were “detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the facility, or might facilitate criminal activity.”

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