Prisons

Prisoners Gear Up For Mass Strike To Protest State-Sponsored ‘Slavery,’ Racism

September 8, 2016 Emma Niles, www.truthdig.com Resist! Prisons, Racism, Slavery, Strikes

By Emma Niles for Truth Dig - On Sept. 9, 1971, prisoners staged a takeover of Attica State Penitentiary, New York state’s most notorious prison. On Friday, the 45th anniversary of the uprising, many prisoners and prison workers in the U.S. and around the world are set to hold what organizers call an unprecedented strike. The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), a standing committee of the Industrial Workers of the World, is joining with the Free Alabama Movement, Free Ohio Movement and a variety of other grass-roots coalitions to demand changes in the prison system.

Call For International Anarchist Action In Solidarity With US Prison Strike

August 29, 2016 Staff, www.en-contrainfo.espiv.net Resist! Prisoner rights, Prisons, Strikes

By Staff of Contra Info - On September 9th [the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion], prisoners across the United States will begin a strike that will be a general work stoppage against prison slavery. In short, prisoners will refuse to work; they will refuse to keep the prisons running by their own labors. Prisoners are striking not just for better conditions or changes in parole rules, but against prison slavery. Prisoners state that under the 13th Amendment which abolished racial slavery, at the same time it allowed human beings to be worked for free or next to nothing as long as they were prisoners.

Even Nixon Let Out More Prisoners Than Obama

August 28, 2016 Meagan Day, www.timeline.com Create! Commutations, Criminal Justice, Obama, Pardons, Prisons

By Meagan Day for Timeline. Throughout his tenure, President Obama’s hesitation to use his executive pardon power has left critics scratching their heads. He granted zero clemencies during the first two years of his first term — except for Thanksgiving turkeys, of course — and the numbers have been in the low double digits every year since. But recently Obama picked up the pace, commuting the sentences of 214 federal inmates. All of them were non-violent drug offenders, sending a clear message to the legislative branch. But Obama has released for fewer prisoners than many presidents, including Richard Nixon. Even if Obama grants a slew of commutations here at the end of his presidency, it will hardly make a dent in the number of inmates that have been stuffed into federal prison since the beginning of the tough-on-crime era.

Stop Suing Ex-Prisoners For Room And Board

August 26, 2016 Alan Mills and David M. Shapiro, www.chicagotribune.com Resist! Prisoner rights, Prisons, Profit

By Alan Mills and David M. Shapiro for Chicago Tribune - Illinois prisons are in crisis. They are among the most overcrowded, understaffed and underfunded in the nation — but Gov. Bruce Rauner has established himself as a barrier to serious reform. The governor recently vetoed a bill with the potential to reduce recidivism. It would end the state's practice of destroying the finances of former prisoners by going after their assets to recover the costs of incarcerating them. The bill had passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support. Even the Department of Corrections had no objection to it.

CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Close To Death In Federal Prison

August 22, 2016 Staff, www.mintpressnews.com Resist! CIA, Prisons, Whistleblowers

By Staff of MintPress News - LITTLETON, Colorado — Jeffrey Sterling, one of the most recent victims of the U.S. government’s war on whistleblowers, may be at risk of dying in a Colorado prison. In an interview published Tuesday in The Colorado Independent, the wife of the CIA whistleblower warned that his health is failing due to inadequate medical care at FCI Englewood, the federal prison where he is serving a sentence of three-and-a-half years.

Executive Clemency Requested For 25 Deserving Women

July 26, 2016 Staff, www.change.org Resist! Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex, Prisons

By Staff of The Clemency Report and CAN-DO Foundation - Note from Amy Ralston Povah, President - CAN-DO Foundation: “Thirteen of the original women on the Top 25 are NOW FREE - most due to clemency and a few for the two point reduction - this is progress. We've been told there will be "more women" on the next list coming out toward the end of July due to several of us who went to the White House complaining that there were only two women on the last list! We feel this short video helps explain why people end up with 10-LIFE for conspiracy even if they never sold drugs - and puts a face on it.”

Texas Prison Objects To Ruling That It Must Provide Arsenic-Free Water

July 6, 2016 Kit O'Connell, www.mintpressnews.com Create! Prisoner rights, Prisons, Texas

By Kit O'Connell for Mint Press News - AUSTIN, Texas — As summer sun sends temperatures soaring across much of the country, a federal judge has ordered the Lone Star State to stop giving poisonous drinking water to some of its most vulnerable prisoners. On June 21, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison gave prison officials 15 days to replace the arsenic-laden water supply at the Wallace Pack Unit, a minimum security facility northwest of Houston that houses mostly elderly and chronically ill inmates.

Prison Sentencing As If Budgets Mattered

July 2, 2016 Staff, www.oregonpen.org Create! Prison Industrial Complex, Prisons

By Staff of Oregon Penn - In Oregon, where are we now spend more on prisons run by the Department of Corrections than on public four-year universities, what is right in front of our noses is that the way we decide how long criminals should spend in prison is not only bankrupting us in the present moment, it is sowing the seeds of economic inequality and social weakness for generations to come, because excessive spending on incarceration deprives us of public goods that promote prosperity.

Activists Fight Plans For Prison On Mountaintop-Removal Site

June 19, 2016 Candace Bernd, www.truthout.org Resist! Environmental Justice, EPA, health, Prisons

By Candace Bernd for TruthOut. Activists from Kentucky and across the US met in Washington, DC, this week to highlight the intersections between environmental justice issues and the prison-industrial complex, and to protest plans for the construction of a new federal prison at a mountaintop-removal coal mining site that they say will impact the health of incarcerated people and endangered species. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) plans to allocate $444 million in federal money to construct a new maximum-security prison at a 700-acre site in Roxana, in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. The location is the site of a former mountaintop-removal coal mine and constitutes habitat for scores of endangered species. Mountaintop-removal mining involves exploding and flattening the tops of mountains to expose underlying coal seams, and has long polluted regional waterways.

Forget Hunger Strikes. What Prisons Fear Most Is Labor Strikes

June 9, 2016 Raven Rakia, www.yesmagazine.org Strategize! Prisoner rights, Prisons, Strikes

By Raven Rakia for Yes Magazine - On May 1, prison labor came to a halt in multiple prisons in Alabama, including Holman and Elmore prisons. Starting at midnight that day, prisoners stayed in their dormitories—refusing to show up for work at their assigned posts: the kitchen, the license plate manufacturing plant, the recycling plant, the food processing center, and a prison farm. The prisoners’ demands were pretty simple: basic human rights, educational opportunities, and a reform of Alabama’s harsh sentencing guidelines and parole board.

Newsletter: Justice Takes A Lifetime

March 19, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter #BlackLivesMatter, Baltimore, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Chicago, Cleveland, Desegregation, Detroit, Donald Trump, Environmental Justice, Ferguson, Flint, Freddie Gray, Hillary Clinton, Incinerators, Inequality, Internet, Jeb Bush, Jim Crow, LAPD, Laquan McDonald, Los Angeles, Mass Incarceration, North Carolina, Prison Labor, Prisons, Privatization, Slavery, Student Activism, Tamir Rice, Wall Street, Water

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The #BlackLivesMatter movement continues to grow its power and have notable victories, but 600 hundred years of racial oppression, older than the nation itself, will not be rooted out quickly. The movement had a series of electoral and other victories this week. These victories for #BLM and their supporters are notable but problems still persist and the movement must continue to grow and get stronger. There are no quick fixes to a country that is crippled by its history of racism. We must all recognize that the work we are doing for racial, economic and environmental justice requires us to be persistent and uncompromising. achieve the transformational justice we seek will last our lifetimes – a marathon and not a sprint.

Holman Prison In Alabama Sees Two Mass Uprisings

March 16, 2016 Casey Tolan, www.fusion.net Resist! Alabama, Prisons, Uprising

By Casey Tolan for Fusion - Inmates who took over part of an overcrowded prison in southern Alabama two times over the last few days are demanding that the state change its draconian sentencing laws. The uprising at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, began on Friday night, when more than 100 inmates barricaded themselves in a dormitory and began lighting fires. It took officers hours to regain control, and at least two officers—including the prison warden, Carter Davenport—were stabbed in the process, The Associated Press reported.

Town Ditches Prison Economy For Marijuana & Is Saving Its Economy

February 23, 2016 Justin Gardner, www.thefreethoughtproject.com Create! Creative Economy, Marijuana, Prisons

By Justin Gardner for The Free Thought Porject - Adelanto, CA – A tiny California desert town is making a drastic change to reverse its downward spiral and embrace an enlightened future. For 24 years, Adelanto tried unsuccessfully to sustain its economy through prisons, but now it will be hosting a very different kind of business—cannabis cultivation. The town became only the second city in California to permit commercial cultivation of medical cannabis, after a year of heated debate in the City Council. The persistence of John “Bug” Woodard, Jr. paid off in a 4-1 vote on Nov. 23 to allow cultivation.

Let’s End Torture In U.S. Prisons

February 4, 2016 John Kiriakou, www.otherwords.org Create! Prison Industrial Complex, Prisons, Solitary Confinement, Torture

By John Kiriakou for Other Worlds - A prisoner is kept in a small cell — usually 6 feet by 10 — alone, for 23 hours a day. For one hour a day, he or she may be taken into a small cage outside, with the opportunity to walk in circles before being taken back in. Even the outdoor cage can usually be opened and closed remotely. The idea is to keep the prisoner from having any human interaction. Those who’ve been through it call it a “living death.” The United Nations calls it torture. The practice is widespread in the United States. And until recently, it was applied even to juveniles in the federal prison.

BYP100 Agenda To Build Black Futures, Economic Justice Plan

January 17, 2016 Staff, www.byp100.org Strategize! Black Trans People, Black Trans Women, Black Women, Divestment, New Economy, Prisons, Racism, Reparations

By Staff for BYP100. As people across the world celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and take action to reclaim his legacy of radicalism, the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) announces its upcoming release of the Agenda to Build Black Futures. The Agenda to Build Black Futures, the organization’s second public policy agenda, is a platform for young activists seeking to create a new economy where young Black people can thrive. “For Black people living in America, there is no economic justice without racial justice. We live in a country that tells us that not all of us deserve to breathe, eat well or have access to water,” says BYP100 National Director Charlene Carruthers. We understand that Dr. King’s personal revolution sparked his commitment to economic justice. In doing so, a wider target was placed on his back. His last days were spent among street sanitation workers demanding dignity and fair pay for their work.

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