CA Legislative Office Suggests Billions Dollars in Reductions to AB900 and Prison Closures

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE–February 24, 2012

LAO Suggests Billions of Dollars in Reductions to AB900 and Possible Prison Closures

Contact: Isaac Ontiveros, Californians United for a Responsible Budget | Phone: 510-517-6612

Oakland–In its recent assessment of Governor Brown’s realignment plan, Refocusing CDCR After the 2011 Realignment, California’s Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) suggested that the Legislature examine reducing prison expansion plans and closing prisons. The report also calls for a moratorium on building new prison hospital beds and points out the need to recalibrate rehabilitation programs to meet the needs of those remaining in state prisons. Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), a statewide coalition working to reduce the number of prisons and the number of people in prisons and jails in California has been recommending many of the same changes for years. 

Canadian National Conference: PROGRESS, NOT PRISONS

PROGRESS, NOT PRISONS

 CSSDP National Conference 2012

Hosted by: University of Calgary CSSDP chapter

March 2 – 4, 2012 Calgary, Alberta

JOIN US at Canada’s only national drug policy reform conference! Join students, young people, researchers, social workers, policy makers, activists, academics, curious onlookers, and more for an exciting weekend! The conference will feature panel discussions on pressing topics in drug policy, interactive workshops, student research presentations, chances to hang out with inspiring people, and more.  As Canada continues to increase the role of prisons and punishment in our society, we will come together to ask what ‘progress’ means for the current Canadian drug policy movement. Click here for more information

California prison hunger strikers propose ‘10 core demands’ for the national Occupy Wall Street Movement

From N.C.T.T. Corcoran SHU to the Occupy Movement

By Heshima Denham, Zaharibu Dorrough and Kambui Robinson | CA Hunger Strike

“The Constitution, then, illustrates the complexity of this American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the Blacks, the Natives, the very poor Whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law – all made palatable by this fanfare of patriotism and unity.” – Howard Zinn

Greetings, Brothers and Sisters. A firm, warm and solid embrace of revolutionary love is extended to you all. These words by Brother Howard Zinn are particularly relevant to the survival of the evolving Occupy Wall Street Movement, as these truths have been integral to the success of populist organizing in the U.S. historically and are central to the proposal we’re putting forward here.

Most of you, at this point, are familiar with the NARN Collective Think Tank (NCTT) from the many progressive programs and ideas that have come out of this body from both Pelican Bay SHU and here in Corcoran SHU, most recently our work in the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition. Like the Arab Spring, which is still rocking the Middle East, and our own struggle to abolish indefinite confinement in sensory deprivation SHU torture units (see the five core demands from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity), the Occupy Wall Street Movement expresses a fundamental rule of materialist dialectics as they apply to social development – i.e., the transformation of quantity into quality – expressed eloquently by the Honorable Comrade George Lester Jackson some 40 years ago: “(C)onsciousness is directly proportional to oppression.”

For-Profit Prison System Guarantees Injustice

Private Prisons Profit From Pain

By Jakada Imani | The Huffington Post | February 23, 2012

I’ve been working on issues of police accountability, locked-up youth, violence, and community investment for a long time. Sometimes I think that no example of injustice could still surprise me. I was recently proved wrong.

It happened when I was sent a Huffington Post article about the Corrections Corporation of America’s (CCA) move to buy prisons from cash-strapped states. As part of their offer to the 48 states they propositioned was a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full over the course of the contract. Shame on you CCA, shame on you!

Occupy for Prisoners Comes Out Against Mass Incarceration

Occupy for Prisoners Comes Out Against Mass Incarceration

by: Yana Kunichoff | Truthout | February 22, 2012

Each time the 100-strong crowd assembled for the national Occupy for Prisoners day roared below the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago on Monday evening, the lights in a couple of windows would flicker on and off – prisoners up above, responding to the chants of “build schools, not prisons” and “we’re with you, brothers and sisters.”

“I can only imagine how excited they might have been to see that there are people in the free world that are concerned about them.” said Christan Bufford, an organizer for juvenile justice with the Southwest Youth Collaborative. “When you are in there [detention], you feel like you are the only person in the world.”

Bufford would know – he spent four months in the Illinois Youth Department of Corrected at the age of 16 after an aggravated gun charge and a probation violation. The statistics on mass incarceration for juveniles are bleak. For the more than 93,000 young people in the juvenile justice system in 2008, about 80 percent went on to have contact with the adult criminal justice system, found the MacArthur Foundation.

Video: The Prison Industrial Complex is Modern Slavery

Occupy for Prisoners rally held in Durham

Occupy for Prisoners rally held in Durham

By Kosta Harlan | February 21, 2012 | Fight Back News

Durham, NC – Holding signs and shaking noise-makers, about 50 people gathered outside the Durham County Detention Facility on Feb. 20. The protest brought out a diverse group of people, who held banners that read “No more prisons” and “Solidarity with prisoners everywhere.” Others held placards saying, “End prisoners abuse and solitary confinement.” Dozens of people honked their car horns in support as they drove past the demonstration.

In the distance and several stories above, inmates crowded around the few windows that looked out onto the plaza, waving to the demonstrators.

Protesters Call for more Rehabilitation Programs Not Cages

Fresno jail protesters call for more rehabilitation programs

By Gene Haagenson | ABC | February 20, 2012

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) – Protestors rallied outside the Fresno County jail on Monday. They were asking county leaders to dedicate more money to drug treatment and mental health programs as an alternative to jail.

This protest outside the Fresno County Jail was aimed at getting the attention of the Board of Supervisors. Under legislation called AB 109 board members will have discretion in how to spend state realignment funds.

Protesting Prisons-For-Profit that Prey on the Poor

Protesting prisons-for-profit that prey on the poor, powerless immigrant detainees 

By Albor Ruiz | New York Daily News | February 22, 2012

Occupy Wall Street groups march on Wells Fargo bank in Harlem

Incarcerating poor, powerless people for profit is a despicable business, but it sure is profitable.

“Hello Harlem, we’re here to help” reads an unintentionally ironic sign in a Wells Fargo bank, a major investor in two private prison companies, the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) that in 2010 made a whopping $2.9 billion in profits.

“The School to Prison Pipeline” Community Forum

Join Parents, Teachers, Students and families for the

“The School to Prison Pipeline” Community Forum

Get informed by students, and speakers about how schools are connected to the prison pipeline.

Wednesday February 22nd from 6pm- 8pm
Central Region High school (300 e. 53rd st, Los Angeles CA 90011)

More than 30% of Latino and African American Students are likely to go to prison.
More than 60% of Latinos and African Americans do not finish high school.
What is the relationship between schools and prisons?
Find out what you can do to avoid these obstacles.
This event is being co-sponsored by Raza Educators LA and Rise YouthGroup.

Click here for Facebook event

The Human Stories Behind the Immigration Detention Contract

Via IRATE & First Friends Since Essex County signed its contract with ICE to expand immigration detention to 1250 people this past fall, Essex County has been in the news.   Not just for the shady back doors deals and political contributions from the private for-profit company that received the immigration detention subcontract but also for the suffering that this contract is causing to local residents and their families.

In October, there was the story of Neida Lavayen whose fiance was taken into custody one week before their wedding and held at Delaney Hall until he was deported to Ecuador.

Action to Demand Los Angeles County End 287(g) and S-Comm Programs!

Join NDLON and the national day laborer community and allies in demanding that the LA County Board of Supervisors and LA County Sheriff Lee Baca put an end to the 287(g) and “Secure Communities” immigration enforcement programs. LA County is NOT Maricopa County and Los Angeles doesn’t need a Sheriff Joe Arpaio!

We know that these local/federal immigration enforcement programs cast an overbroad dragnet that tears apart families and drives a wedge between the community and law enforcement. These programs do not make our communities safer but are flawed and should be ended immediately.

Please join us and our national network of member organizations and allies during our 6th Annual Asamblea in taking to the streets to demand the humane treatment of our communities.

Rally and Press Conference, 5 pm: Board of Supervisors Building Then March to: Federal Building

Please share with your friends, family and networks! Click here for Facebook event

Occupy Wall Street Calls for End of Death Penalty & Solitary Confinement

Occupy Wall Street Takes On U.S. Prison Conditions

By Laird Harrison | The Huffington Post | February 21, 2012

SAN QUENTIN, Calif., Feb 20 (Reuters) – Hundreds of anti-Wall Street demonstrators and prison reform activists joined forces outside San Quentin State Prison in California on Monday to protest high incarceration rates and living conditions for inmates.

Speakers said the state’s sentencing laws were too strict. They called for an end to solitary confinement and the death penalty and said children should not be tried as adults.

The END of the For-Profit Prison Era?

Profiting from Prisons

By Hannah Rappleye | The Crime Report | February 19, 2012

Early this year, the United Methodist Church Board of Pension and Health Benefits voted to withdraw nearly $1 million in stocks from two private prison companies, the GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

The decision by the largest faith-based pension fund in the United States came in response to concerns expressed last May by the church’s immigration task force and a group of national activists

“Our board simply felt that it did not want to profit from the business of incarcerating others,” said Colette Nies, managing director of communications for the board.

“Our concern was not with how the companies manage or operate their business, but with the service that the companies offer,” Nies added. “We believe that profiting from incarceration is contrary to Church values.”

It was an important success for a slew activists across the country who are pushing investors and institutions to divest in the private prison industry.

FAITH LEADERS & ACTIVISTS WALKING 12 MILES TO PROTEST PRISONPROFITEERING THAT IS DRIVING IMMIGRATION DETENTION EXPANSION IN NJ

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS:
Kathy O’Leary, Pax Christi NJ, 973-610-1684, kolearypcnj@gmail.com 
Sally Pillay, IRATE & First Friends, 201-394-9093, firstfirends2@juno.com 
Br.John Skrodinsky(English & Spanish), 973-896-0444, joskrost@hotmail.com

FAITH LEADERS & ACTIVISTS WALKING 12 MILES TO PROTEST PRISONPROFITEERING THAT IS DRIVING IMMIGRATION DETENTION EXPANSION IN NJ

Pilgrims To March from Ellis Island in Liberty State Park to the Elizabeth Detention Center for the 3rd Consecutive Year on Ash Wednesday.

Jersey City, NJ- Beginning at 10 am on Wednesday, February 22, members from over two dozen faith based, community and immigrant rights groups, including members from Pax Christi NJ, IRATE & First Friends, American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights Program- Newark and NJ Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, will gather in Liberty State Park, just off Freedom Way, in front of the footbridge to Ellis Island for a press conference and prayer service before beginning a 12 mile “pilgrimage” that will end at theElizabethDetentionCenter.