Tag Archives: prison

Time to divest from private prison companies

It’s time to stop private prison profiteering by refusing to take
their profit: divest private prison company stock from personal,
pension, and church funds.

There’s no need to speculate that private prison companies have
incentive to keep more people locked up: CCA says so.
Kanya D’Almeida wrote for IPS 24 August 2011,

‘Profiteers of Misery’: The U.S. Private Prison Industrial Complex:




CCA’s 2010 annual report states categorically that, “The demand for our
facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation
of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards
and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain
activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws — for
instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances
or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested,
convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for
correctional facilities to house them.”

CCA continues, “Legislation has been proposed in numerous jurisdictions
that could lower minimum sentences for some non-violent crimes and
make more inmates eligible for early release based on good behaviour,
(while) sentencing alternatives under consideration could put some
offenders on probation who would otherwise be incarcerated. Similarly,
reductions in crime rates or resources dedicated to prevent and enforce
crime could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences
requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.”

What’s this got to do with Georgia?

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“about as fruitful as trying to squeeze information out of the Kremlin”

Which organization was this judge referring to?



Schuster told the directors that he thought [that organization] was
supplying “vague” information and he directed that henceforth
the sides meet monthly in his office for updates on the liquidation
process. In short, Schuster is learning first hand — just like members,
the media and the public at large have learned — that prying information
out of [that organization] is usually about as fruitful as trying to
squeeze information out of the Kremlin.

No, not that city council!
No, not that county commission!
Not even the state board of corrections.
(Although some of them might want to try that bureaucratic shoe on to see
if it fits.) Here’s who:

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And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand —Charles Dickens

You, too, can end up in debtor’s prison, much more easily than you might think.


How America criminalised poverty:
The viciousness of state officials to the poor and homeless is breathtaking, trapping them in a cycle of poverty:




Photograph: Robyn Beck/EPA

The most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the
working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed
been criminalised in America.

Perhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered
in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when
you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well
have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.

Maybe you think you’re safe, because you’re not out on the street. Think again:

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You can’t get rid of the War on Drugs unless you end Prohibition

Video from the NAACP Criminal Justice Summit in Chicago,

thanks to LEAP:



We cannot duck this issue.
I couldn’t duck it any more.
I couldn’t sleep, if I wasn’t out advocating
getting rid of the War on Drugs.
You can’t get to end the War on Drugs
that the whole bureaucratic
institution of the United States of America
has declared, unless you end prohibtion.
They couldn’t do it with alcohol, and you can’t do it with drugs.

—Alice Huffman, President, California NAACP

Here’s the video:

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Private prison operations have been rife with abuse —WV Council of Churches

Another Sunday, another church group against private prisons;
this time, a group of churches.

Dan Heyman wrote 12 January 2010 for Public News Service – WV,

Churches: No Private Prison For Immigrants In WV,

CHARLESTON, WV – West Virginia’s largest church group has asked
U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd and the rest of the state’s congressional delegation
to oppose funding a private prison for undocumented immigrants in
Pendleton County near the Virginia border.


The Council of Churches is
one of several groups discussing immigration reform ahead of expected
congressional action on the issue. The Council has asked federal
lawmakers’ help in the effort, arguing private prison operations have
been rife with abuse. GSI Professional Corrections is seeking county
commission approval to build the detention center near Sugar Grove to
house 1,000 nonviolent immigrant detainees awaiting possible deportation.

Rev. Dennis Sparks, the Council’s executive director, complains private
prisons operate outside the mainstream legal

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Prison slave labor infects beef with rat feces

In case you thought prison slave labor
didn’t affect you, watch Mike Elk on Democracy Now today,

New Exposé Tracks ALEC-Private Prison Industry Effort to Replace Unionized Workers with Prison Labor:



“more than 14 million pounds of beef infected with rat feces
processed by inmates were not recalled, in order to avoid drawing
attention to how many products are made by prison labor.”

Is this what you want for yourself and your children?
If not, it’s time to stop
ALEC crafting state laws to lock people up and then exploit them as slave labor.

We can start by not accepting a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.

Update 9:35 AM 6 Aug 2011: Fixed the links to the Democracy Now story. Thanks for catching that, Barbara!

Here’s a bonus link to the story in The Nation.

-jsq

PS: This post owed to Cheryl Ann Fillekes.

The members of the CUEE, they send their children to private schools —Annie Fisher



Valdosta school board member Annie Fisher
pointed out CUEE members sent their chidren to private schools
and now they’re meddling in public education.
She listed some real issues, such as
Valdosta city schools remain segregated,
focussing on tests just to meet AYP,
and we need

to remove students from the prison to the classroom.

“How can we equally educate each child?”

Yes, let’s forget “unification” and focus on that.

Here’s

the video:




The members of the CUEE, they send their children to private schools —Annie Fisher

No school consolidation,

Press Conference, Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 July 2011.

Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

You thought maybe I made up the three points I proposed to improve education?
Nope, unlike CUEE, I’ve been paying attention.

-jsq

Strikes inside Georgia prisons

David Slavin wrote for BayView 21 January 2011,

Georgia prisoners staged a STRIKE, not a riot or a protest:



Inmates are the largest single workforce in Georgia. THEY ARE
PAID NO WAGES. To anyone who is familiar with Doug Blackmon’s “Slavery by Another
Name,” this forced convict labor system should come as no
surprise. It is part of the

“New Jim Crow” mass incarceration system
that reincarnates the Old Jim Crow in the first half of the 20th century.



So some inmates decided to do something about it.

This action by the inmates was a STRIKE, not a riot or a protest. It
was an action by workers TO WITHHOLD THEIR LABOR by refusing to leave
their cells. The risks they have taken are enormous. Refusal to work
gets you a “Disciplinary Report,” which can affect parole and your
“privileges” in prison.

The demands they presented were for

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Disparity in Criminal Justice

Is a private prison “good clean industry” as a local leader once told me?



According to the CRF [Constitutional Rights Foundation], over 25 percent
of black males and 16 percent of Hispanic males spend time in prison,
while only 4 percent of white males do so. Blacks make up only 12 percent
of the United States population.

Why?

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ALEC crafts state laws, including for private prisons and big oil

ALEC writes laws for big oil and for private prison companies.
In the

first LAKE post about the proposed private prison in Lowndes County,
I pointed out that ALEC helped CCA lobby for that Arizona “anti-immigration”
law that actually is stuffed with new jail, misdemeanor, and felony penalties that
bring more “customers” to CCA private prisons.
Georgia was just the first of
24 states lobbied by ALEC to pass such bogus bills for CCA’s private profit.
Since then other people have dug into ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and found its tentacles everywhere, promoting profits
for big business at taxpayer expense.

Alison Fitzgerald wrote for Bloomberg 21 July 2011,

Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws:



Koch Industries Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) are among companies
that would benefit from almost identical energy legislation introduced
in state capitals from Oregon to New Mexico to New Hampshire — and
that’s by design.

The energy companies helped write the legislation at a meeting organized
by a group they finance, the American Legislative Exchange Council,
a Washington-based policy institute known as ALEC.

The corporations, both ALEC members, took a seat at the legislative
drafting table beside elected officials and policy analysts by paying
a fee between $3,000 and $10,000, according to documents obtained by
Bloomberg News.

The opportunity for corporations to become co-authors of state laws
legally

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