Tag Archives: slave

Second prison guard pled guilty for assaulting strikers

Conspiracy, assault with injury, coverup: another Georgia prison guard pled guilty, all in response to a strike by prisoners for decent pay. And remember, private prisons have fewer guards per prisoner and less training.

WTXL wrote yesterday, Ex-prison officer pleads guilty in inmate beatings

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday Darren Douglass-Griffin pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of inmates and falsification of records in a federal investigation.

Douglass-Griffin admitted he and other correctional officers at Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe assaulted and injured inmates in a series of incidents in 2010. He told prosecutors correctional officers beat three inmates in separate incidents to punish them. One inmate was beaten so badly he had to be taken from the prison in an ambulance.

Douglass-Griffin also said he and other officers tried to cover up the officers’ involvement by writing false reports and lying to investigators.

I say “another” because the federal Department of Justice entitled its PR of yesterday Second Former Georgia Corrections Officer Pleads Guilty to Conspiring with Other Officers to Assault and Injure Inmates. DOJ didn’t say who the first to plead guilty was, but it did add:

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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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Interview with an architect of Portugal’s successful drug decriminalization

One of the architects of Portugal’s successful drug decriminalization policy says, “to make demands of addicts who are enslaved by their addiction is senseless.” Well, it makes sense to those who profit by it, such as private prison companies. And Georgia is now proposing to make field slaves out of them, for failing a drug test.

Inês Subtil wrote for communidad segura 11 May 2009, Portugal: Success in harm reduction:

In 1999, Portugal broke new ground by enacting legislation that decriminalized all drug use. Ten years later, the results are there for all to see, results of a change that João Goulão, president of the do Instituto da Droga e Toxicodependência (The Drugs and Chemical Addiction Institute) IDT, believes show the law has been instrumental in solving the problem of drug abuse, and crucial for bringing legislation into harmony with practices and people.

A family doctor, Goulão was condecorated by the president of the Portuguese Republic, but he says he is always ready for to roll up his sleeves and get out in the field. At 55, he is a candidate for the Presidency of the European Drugs Observatory, but that has not clowded his sobriety about the work at hand.

In an exclusive interview to Comunidad Segura, Goulão discusses the workings and the structure of the institution that he presides over, that has set a world-wide example of success. For him, drug use is closely associated to self-esteem. “If we could restore drug addicts their human dignity, we would be able to demand something in return. But to make demands of addicts who are enslaved by their addiction is senseless,” he said.

Now that makes a lot of sense. And Portugal demonstrates that it works.

He has more sensible things to say in the interview, including this: Continue reading →