prison system

Nobody Is Beyond Redemption

At the age of 13, Ishmael and his friends began sniffing "brown-brown"--a mix of cocaine and gunpowder--and wielding AK-47s. By the age of 16, Ishmael had killed "too many people to count" by his own admission. "All I knew was how to fight and loot," recalled Ishmael.

If Ishmael had committed such atrocities in the United States, he would be sitting in a dank prison serving a life sentence without any possibility of parole.

Posted in child soldiers, children, prison system

Risks and Returns: Exploiting the Immigrant Detention Industry

Last winter, a remote Texas prison convulsed in a cry of outrage, voicing the desperation of the immigration system’s silenced captives.

Posted in Human Rights, ICE, immigrant rights, prison system

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 28, 2009
4:13 PM

CONTACT: NAACP
Rachel Talbot Ross
(207) 210-1052

NAACP President CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous to Lead Voter Registration Drive at Maine Correctional Facilities

PORTLAND, Maine - September 28 - NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous will be leading a voter registration and NAACP membership drive in the Maine State Prison and the Bolduc Correctional Facility.

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Founded Feb. 12. 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots–based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

NAACP Links:

Posted in civil liberties, inequality, prison system, voting

Reading Race in the Death Penalty

The power of racial bias has long loomed over the death penalty, yet has seldom been directly confronted in the courts. But in North Carolina, a race analysis of capital punishment is now being written into law.

Posted in death penalty, inequality, prison system

War Hero Tackles US Over Degrading Prison Conditions

Few United States senators have a more unusual CV than Virginia's Jim Webb. He's a Democrat who was once a Republican and served as Navy Secretary under Ronald Reagan. He's a decorated Vietnam veteran and the highly successful author of Fields of Fire, which is said by many to be the best novel ever written about that war. When he made his senate bid in 2006, his Republican opponent ran adverts criticising some explicit sexy passages in other Webb works.

Posted in prison system

Hundreds Protest 'Supermax' Prison's Solitary Conditions

More than 250 calls came into Gov. Pat Quinn's offices Thursday during a statewide protest concerning conditions at the Tamms Correctional Center prison, where many inmates have been held for longer than 10 years in continuous solitary confinement.

The protest, organized by the Tamms Year Ten Committee, was sparked by a News-Democrat investigative series -- Trapped in Tamms -- which ran Sunday and Monday. Protesters were urged to call the governor's offices in Chicago and Springfield.

Posted in prison system

Panel Sets Guidelines for Fighting Prison Rape

Nearly six years after President George W. Bush signed legislation to reduce prison rape, a blue-ribbon commission is calling on corrections officers to identify vulnerable inmates, offer better medical care and allow stricter monitoring of their facilities.

The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, in a study to be released today, affirms that more than 7.3 million people in prisons, jails and halfway houses across the nation have "fundamental rights to safety, dignity and justice."

Posted in Human Rights, prison system

Prison Is Revolving Door for Mentally Ill, Who Don't Get Needed Meds

It was 3 o'clock in the morning when the bad guy showed up, talking real loud and fast, like an auctioneer.

"Are you OK, my son?" Ellen Hanson asked as her son headed up the stairs. The look in his eyes when he turned to face her was like nothing she had ever seen before. It sent chills down her spine.

"I'm not your son," was his rapid reply.

Posted in healthcare, Human Rights, prison system

Life on Permanent Lockdown

Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox are believed to have been held in solitary confinement for longer than any inmate in America-37 years, to be precise, nearly all of them spent in 6-by-9 cells at Louisiana's notorious Angola prison. For 23 hours a day, they pass the time in their cells as best they can. For one hour, they are allowed out to take a shower or a stroll along the cell block.

Posted in prison system, torture

Lock 'em Up: Jailing Kids is a Proud American Tradition

At first glance, the news from Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, is not good. In what is known locally as the "kids for cash" scandal, two judges have pleaded guilty to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks from a for-profit juvenile correctional facility -- a privately owned jail for kids, essentially.

Posted in children, prison system, privatization