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"The writers of the Wednesday Night Creative Writing Class at San Quentin have finally completed their latest anthology, Brothers in Pen: Six Cubic Feet."
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Wendy Jason shared this post on Facebook. (October 21, 2011 2:22 PM) |
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Wendy Jason shared this post on Twitter. (October 21, 2011 2:22 PM) |
Humanizing Justice
What does the geography of incarceration in the United States look like? 
A Mississippi jail is on lockdown today after a Sunday night riot left one prison guard dead and as many as 20 inmates and guards injured. According to sheriff’s reports, the violence began as a gang feud and soon engulfed the privately operated facility, which holds 2,500 non-citizens incarcerated for reentering the United States after deportation and for other charges. But the fragments of information that have emerged from inmates and advocates suggest that the violence had more to do with a pattern of abuse and neglect that has emerged at privately run, for-profit prisons. 
The Equal Justice Initiative said the abuse has been widespread, involving dozens of complaints and in several cases resulting in pregnancy. 
The National Registry of Exonerations is a joint project of the University of the Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. We maintain an up to date list of all known exonerations in the United States since 1989. 
We look at what kind of neighbour you want to have when they come out. If you stay in a box for a few years, then you are not a good person when you come out. If you treat them hard… well, we don't think that treating them hard will make them a better man. We don't think about revenge in the Norwegian prison system. We have much more focus on rehabilitation. It is a long time since we had fights between inmates. It is this building that makes softer people." 
And so, as people are still put down like dogs in the land of the free -- despite the momentum for abolition -- capital punishment represents America's human rights blind spot. But really, this is about more than executions. Rather, it speaks to a nation that often pays lip service to upholding human rights, but debases and denigrates human life through its actions. The result is a callous culture of violence, neglect and disregard. 
“There is just so much wrong with the original idea of putting youth in the adult system that we didn’t think through as a society,” said Ashley Nellis, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group that aims to reform sentencing laws. “Now we’re coming to see how many injustices there really are [in] the way we are sentencing youth from the very start.” 
Mail call often happens in public spaces in prison; when someone hears their name called by a prison guard during mail call it can be a powerful reminder that people on the outside care about them, and it sends a message to guards and other inmates that this person has support and isn’t forgotten. This can be a vital harm reduction strategy for people who are locked up, especially queer and trans people. Additionally, many people are incarcerated far from their communities or may not have a lot of support from the outside world; many queer and trans people may be in “protective custody” or solitary confinement and may not have a lot of daily contact with others or time out of their cell. A quick letter of support or a long-term correspondence can be a great way to keep their spirits up and let them know they aren’t alone. 
CHINO, California (Reuters) - On a recent Saturday morning, hundreds of sleepy children tumbled out of buses and into a dusty jail parking lot in southern California to pay a rare visit to their mothers in prison. A hundred feet (Thirty meters) away, behind two tall barbed wire fences at the California Institute for Women, stood a cluster of women clad in blue cotton prison garb. They anxiously craned their necks and stood on tip-toes for a glimpse of their kids, some of whom had come to the prison roughly 90 minutes by bus from south central Los Angeles. 
This Mother's Day, take a few minutes to find out how you can help shape a society where no woman ever has to give birth while in shackles and chains. 
For far too long, our approach to developing public policy on issues of crime and punishment has been overly framed by sensationalist imagery. 
DVD now available! At Night I Fly is a poetic testimony from a secluded world. New Folsom is one of the strictest prisons in USA. A brutal world with riots, heavily armed guards and murders between rivaling gangs. In the middle of this there is also hope. In the film we meet several prisoners sentenced to life who take part in the programme Arts in Correction, where they meet over racial borders and gang hierarchies. These men have grown during their time in prison, they have learnt what it really means to be a human being. At Night I Fly is film about the power of art.
"I monitor these courts for the simple fact that a lot of these youngsters need someone there to show support," he says. "I represent those that have no representation of the spirit. My commitment is to work with those who need some hope." |
The next time you see an exoneree take his first steps to freedom, look past their smiles. Get pissed. Get involved. Make a difference. 
I care most about rape survivors. I put the highest value on our lives and I prioritize our healing. The current criminal legal system focus on addressing rape is, I repeat, a FAILURE. Those who are working in the field of sexual assault prevention and intervention (who are honest with themselves) know that this is true. So we have a choice… We can keep going in the direction that we have been or we can prioritize the desires and needs of many rape survivors and develop models for seeking accountability for the harm experienced and also focus on healing. This is what I choose to do. Ten Demands of ROSP Hunger Strikers 1. We demand fully cooked food, and access to a better quality of fresh fruit and vegetables. In addition, we demand increased portions on our trays, which allows us to meet our basic nutritional needs as defined by VDOC regulations. 2. We demand that every prisoner at ROSP have unrestricted access to complaint and grievance forms and other paperwork we may request. 3. We demand better communication between prisoners and higher- ranking guards. Presently higher-ranking guards invariably take the lower-ranking guards’ side in disputes between guards and prisoners, forcing the prisoner to act out in order to be heard. We demand that higher- ranking guards take prisoner complaints and grievances into consideration without prejudice. 4. We demand an end to torture in the form of indefinite segregation through the implementation of a fair and transparent process whereby prisoners can earn the right to be released from segregation. We demand that prison officials completely adhere to the security point system, insuring that prisoners are transferred to institutions that correspond with their particular security level. 5. We demand the right to an adequate standard of living, including access to quality materials that we may use to clean our own cells. Presently, we are forced to clean our entire cell, including the inside of our toilets, with a single sponge and our bare hands. This is unsanitary and promotes the spread of disease-carrying bacteria. 6. We demand the right to have 3rd party neutral observers visit and document the condition of the prisons to ensure an end to the corruption amongst prison officials and widespread human rights abuses of prisoners. Internal Affairs and Prison Administrator's monitoring of prison conditions have not alleviated the dangerous circumstances we are living under while in custody of the state which include, but are not limited to: the threat of undue physical aggression by guards, sexual abuse and retaliatory measures, which violate prison policies and our human rights. 7. We demand to be informed of any and all changes to VDOC/IOP policies as soon as these changes are made. 8. We demand the right to adequate medical care. Our right to medical care is guaranteed under the eight amendment of the constitution, and thus the deliberate indifference of prison officials to our medical needs constitutes a violation of our constitutional rights. In particular, the toothpaste we are forced to purchase in the prison is a danger to our dental health and causes widespread gum disease and associated illnesses. 9. We demand our right as enumerated through VDOC policy, to a monthly haircut. Presently, we have been denied haircuts for nearly three months. We also demand to have our razors changed out on a weekly basis. The current practice of changing out the razors every three weeks leaves prisoners exposed to the risk of dangerous infections and injury. 10. We demand that there be no reprisals for any of the participants in the Hunger Strike. We are simply organizing in the interest of more humane living conditions. 
During and after his own two-year incarceration for “gross indecency,” Oscar Wilde wrote several works on the cruelty and degradation of prison life. Among them is a lengthy letter to the editor of the London Daily Chronicle, written in 1897 shortly after his release from Reading Gaol and self-exile to France. It concerns the treatment of children in Britain’s prisons, including their solitary confinement. Wilde does not specify the ages of the children in question, but at one point he argues that children under the age of fourteen should not be put in prison at all–so it is safe to assume that the children he refers to were younger still. What follows is an excerpt from Wilde’s letter, highlighting those practices that have changed relatively little since his day. Today, children as young as ten can be locked up in the UK, though they are placed in juvenile facilities rather than adult prisons, and solitary confinement is rare. In the United States, on the other hand, an estimated 10,000 juveniles are in adult prisons and jails. There, they are far more likely than adults to be beaten by guards, sexually assaulted, or end up in solitary confinement. They are also 36 times more likely to commit suicide than children in juvenile facilities. –Jean Casella
Those in prisons and jails are, and will always be, human beings, despite what they have done, or what they are told, or what we believe. That wasn’t always easy to hold on to when I was on the inside. The message that we were animals, or worse, was constant. Our whole world seemed to scream it at us. I saw many men who forgot their humanity. Somehow I was able to remember it, and now I remember those still on the inside. I invite you to join me. 
With the arts one of the first sacrifices in education budget cuts, I can’t help but wonder how many people may have taken a different path had their natural talents been given the opportunity to develop in the classroom. We know there is a higher illiteracy rate among inmates compared to the free world, but there also seems to be a disproportionately high percentage of talented artists incarcerated today. Many of my friends are educators, and all lament the focus on standardized tests vs. creative development. Could our education system be working against certain children by not fostering their unique talents? If taught and encouraged in the school system, would more children find themselves behind an easel rather than behind bars? 
Carlos DeLuna was put to death in December 1989 for a murder in Corpus Christi. But he didn't commit the crime. Today, his case reminds us of the glaring flaws of capital punishment. 
Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's.
The hidden engine behind the state's well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt. 
How understanding helps make us all much safer. By Michael Ungar, Ph.D....
If we are to intervene to stop radicalization and the violence that follows, we might consider doing the following:
1) Get the full story. Understand the individual and where the individual grew up. 2) Consider the individual’s actions in comparison to others who grew up facing the same challenges. Is the violence reasonable, or normal, under the circumstances? 3) Ask ourselves what alternatives were realistic available to the violent individual who grew up looking for connections, power, social status, and meaning. How else could they achieve these good things that unfortunately can be achieved through extreme violence. 4) Advocate for solutions that provide the next generation of potential terrorists, bullies and psychopaths with sources of support and self-expression that are just as powerful, and socially acceptable. Via Jim Manske 
This year, hundreds of mothers will be kept from hugging their children by the walls of solitary confinement. 
Trina Garnett accidentally set a fatal fire when she was 14. That was in 1976. Could a Supreme Court ruling on juvenile life without parole finally bring her home? 
Welcome to the Birthing Behind Bars site. This is a national campaign to address pregnancy and other reproductive justice issues in prison. We want to hear your story! |
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