Join the motorcade from the private prison site to honk at Valdosta City Hall
and march at the Industrial Authority office.
I’ll be on Chris Beckham’s show on WVGA 105.9 FM this morning at 7:30 AM
to talk about it.
Update: audio of the interview.
Update 2: Here’s video of the interview.
Citizens entitled to open government,
All governmental entities supported by tax dollars are subject to the laws. Private companies are not.As the VDT knows better than anybody else around here, getting informaiton out of Valdosta State Prison or the Georgia Department of Correcions (GDOC) is very hard. The VDT has been trying to find out what’s going on at Valdosta State Prison for years now, and getting the runaround and hitting stone walls.
Florida has a law that says private prison operators have to comply with Continue reading
drive away CCA.
Near Ft. Lauderdale, CCA wants to put a detention center
in Southwest Ranches, Florida, and
CCA Go Away (facebook)
is organizing against that.
Lots of clever signs, from the unmistakable:
to the symbolic orange jailbirds holding oversize $20 and $100 bills.
CCA Go Away
Plenty more in their flickr set:
No Prison Here in This Town
Put Residents Before Profit
The Prison is No Longer A Secret
Did You Know?
A Prison is coming to your neighborhood!
Say No to
Corrections Corporation of America
No CCA
If they can do it, we can, too.
Come to the prison site Tuesday 5PM to help
Drive Away CCA!
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| “Our organizations advocate for a criminal justice system that brings healing for victims of crime, restoration for those who commit crimes, and to maintain public safety.” |
You can help
drive away CCA, 5PM this Tuesday, March 6th.
Or sign the
petition to the Industrial Authority
to reject the private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
-jsq
March 1, 2012Continue readingDear Governor:
We the undersigned faith organizations represent different
traditions from across the religious and political spectrum. Our organizations advocate for a criminal justice system that brings healing for victims of crime, restoration for those who commit crimes, and to maintain public safety.
We write in reference to a letter you recently received from Harley Lappin, Chief Corrections Officer at Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), announcing the Corrections Investment Initiative – the corporation’s plan to spend up to $250 million buying prisons from state, local, and federal government entities, and then managing the facilities. The letter from Mr. Lappin states that CCA is only interested in buying prisons if the state selling the prison agrees to pay CCA to operate the prison for 20 years — at minimum. Mr. Lappin further notes that any prison to be sold must have at least 1,000 beds, and that the state must agree to keep the prison at least 90% full during the length of the contract.
The undersigned faith organizations urge you to decline this dangerous and costly invitation. CCA’s initiative would be costly
Two years ago the Georgia legislature was in denial, as Carrie Teegardin wrote for the AJC 4 April 2010, Georgia prison population, costs on rise,
As Georgia lawmakers desperately search for ways to slash spending, they are not debating an option taken by other states: cutting the prison population.
Georgia operates the fifth-largest prison system in the nation, at a
cost of $1 billion a year. The job of overseeing 60,000 inmates and 150,000 felons on probation consumes 1 of every 17 state dollars.
The state’s prison population has jumped by more than a quarter in the past decade and officials expect the number of state inmates to continue to creep upward. Georgia has resorted to measures other than reducing the prison population to keep corrections spending under control.
19 months later, things had changed, as the Atlanta Business Chronic reported 15 December 2011, BJS: Georgia prison population drops in 2010, Continue reading
PR from yesterday, ACLU Urges States to Reject CCA Offer to Privatize Prisons,
The American Civil Liberties Union and a broad coalition of 60 policy and religious groups today urged states to reject a recent offer by the nation’s largest private prison company to buy and privatize state prisons.
In a letter sent to governors in every state, the ACLU and 26 other organizations said a recent offer by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to buy prisons currently run by state officials is a backdoor invitation to take on additional debt while increasing CCA’s profits and impeding the serious criminal justice reforms needed to combat the nation’s mass incarceration crisis.
Two similar letters are also being sent today by religious coalitions to governors. One of the letters, sent by 32 faith groups including the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, the United Church of Christ/Justice and Witness Ministries, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness, says there is a moral imperative in reducing incarceration through evidence-based alternatives to imprisonment and re-entry policies that ease the transition of prisoners back into society. A third letter, from the Presbyterian Criminal Justice Network, argues that the principles of mercy, forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation are largely absent from the private prison industry.
“Selling off prisons to CCA would be a tragic mistake for your state,” the ACLU’s letter reads. “[CCA’s] proposal is an invitation to fiscal irresponsibility, prisoner abuse and decreased public safety. It should be promptly declined.”
You can
help decline CCA’s private prison in Lowndes County.
-jsq
Join us 5PM Tuesday March 6th 2012 at the private prison site (Dasher-Johnson Road off US 84 at Inner Perimeter) for a motorcade by Valdosta City Hall to the Industrial Authority offices: for education and against the private prison.
|
on the web View Larger Map 
Petition |
Winn Roberson read the newspaper Friday (February 24th) and realized the prison site was down the street from him, so the news finally sunk in. This motorcade was his idea to drive the point across to the Industrial Authority: we don’t want a private prison!
John S. Quarterman lives about as far away from the prison site as you can get in Lowndes County, but realizes it will affect everybody for many counties around. So let’s say CCA Go Away!
-jsq
PS: If you can’t come, you can still sign the petition to the Industrial Authority, or write a letter to the editor, or…
Former Sheriff Paulk luke-warm; Sheriff Prine completely opposed.
Water and sewer, wetlands, federal funding: all hurdles, says Paulk.
Sheriff’s Association also opposed, says Prine.
More in the VDT article.
Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine has also shared his thoughts on the private prison industry:Here’s video of Sheriff Prine saying most of that a few weeks ago.“If I’m going to house an inmate and if I’m going to be responsible, I’d rather them be in my facility not a private prison,” said Prine. “If I’m going to be responsible for them I want them to be within my reach. the Sheriff’s Association feels the same way I do. I’d say the large majority of Sheriff’s feel the same way about this. I don’t want a private facility handling my prisoners.”
They also mentioned the petition and quoted me:
“If those signatures and calls are making any impression on the Authority they certainly don’t admit to it,” said Quarterman. “This is another Lofton (Brad Lofton, former Authority executive director) project. It’d be nice if the Industrial Authority represented the community they were located in.”Do you want the Industrial Authority to notice? You can sign the the petition, or send VLCIA your own letter, or write a letter to the editor to the VDT, or….
-jsq
Yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission work session lasted only eight (8) minutes,
as you can see in the videos.
Maybe they will say more tonight.
Here’s the agenda.
-jsq
Lowndes County Board of Commissioners Work Session Meeting held February
27, 2012, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Here’s
the agenda.
Here’s a playlist:
Videos of Lowndes County Commission Work Session 2012 02 27
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 February 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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