Wesley Snipes has been released from jail after serving a 3 year sentence for not paying the government extortion racket known as “taxation”. By JG Vibes Intellihub.com April 7, 2013 After spending…
Prison
Via Prison Photography, the Pelican Bay State Prison SHU Short Corridor Collective’s statement on the demands of the protest on behalf of which many California prisoners are willing to risk death (with…
The Los Angeles Times reports on the largest prisoner protest in state history:
California officials don’t plan until Tuesday afternoon to update the situation in prisons throughout the state, where 30,000 inmates on Monday began refusing meals.
The mass protest was called for months ago by a group of inmate leaders in isolation at Pelican Bay State Prison over conditions in solitary confinement, where inmates may be held indefinitely without access to phone calls.
But inmates in at least five other prisons have provided their own lists of demands. They seek such things as warmer clothing, cleaning supplies, and better food, as well as changes in how suspected gang activity is investigated and punished. Lawyers for a group of Pelican Bay hunger strike leaders, who also are suing in federal court over what they contend are inhumane conditions, are to meet with their clients Tuesday.
ThinkProgress on the rosy outlook from Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, the nation’s first- and second-largest operators of for-profit prisons: During a conference call touting its success, representatives at…
Via Common Dreams, Ann Neumann on barbaric force feeding occurring onshore and offshore against prisoners who see hunger striking as their last available method of protest: I know a hunger-striking prisoner who…
Despite being blatantly unconstitutional, citizens are commonly being jailed for their inability to pay tickets and fines, wreaking havoc on people’s lives (and costing the state far greater sums than the unpaid…
Via Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi on crime and punishment under California’s Three Strikes law: Suddenly, a pair of socks caught his eye. He grabbed them and slipped them into a shopping bag….
Via Creative Time Reports, aerial photographer Christoph Gielen on prisons as the new housing boom: Since 1980, when the U.S. prison population began to increase dramatically, Americans have been living in an…
American justice: 17 years behind bars for stealing cigarettes. The Los Angeles Times writes: A Los Angeles County judge responsible for reconsidering the life prison terms of more than 1,000 offenders sentenced under…
Corrections Corporation of America is accused of using targeted prison gang violence as a cost-saving measure, ThinkProgress reports: A lawsuit brought by eight inmates of the Idaho Correctional Center alleges that the…
What is the punishment for compelling performance art? Two years to be spent in cramped, dirty, cold “corrective labor” camps, with possible abuse from guards or inmates, the Guardian reports: Two members…
It’s always good to see someone pushing back against the grotesqueries of the prison-industrial complex. Via Boing Boing: In 2008, Finbar McGarry, a grad student at the University of Vermont, was arrested on…
“As his face faded from the television screen, the light in my eyes dimmed.” Natalie Solidarity writes at Diatribe Media: My gentle friend was returned to state custody even as I willed…
Natalie Solidarity writes at Diatribe Media: In the depressing afternoon of June 14th, I watched the same tactics from prosecutors regarding freedoms of the remaining NATO5 “terrorists.” After dejectedly exiting 26th and…
Ai Weiwei writing in the Guardian: A year ago tomorrow, I was released from more than two months of secret detention. Police told me today that they have lifted my bail conditions. I…
We may peruse neighborhoods on Google Maps, read about suburban sprawl and new city developments, but millions of Americans exist in a different, ignored geography. Via the The Funambulist: Prison Map is…
Imagine having to go through this. Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox have lived 40 straight years in windowless boxes in Louisiana’s worst jail, as political prisoners. Via the Guardian: They’ve spent 23…
With jails fuller than ever and government budgets being slashed, is the future of prisoner management the robo-correctional officer? Via CBS News:
The world’s first corrections service robot allows for efficient prisoner management and takes on a number of simple tasks for guards while closing the communication gap between prisoners and their guards. The prisoners are protected from situations such as suicide, arson and assault. Furthermore, it recognizes repeated behaviors of prisoners, and detects anomalies in advance, protecting incidents from happening in the first place.
Make sure you don’t jaywalk, ride a bike without a bell, protest anything, or otherwise upset a police officer, because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that you can be forced to…
Via Al Jazeera English:
The US has the highest prison population in the world – some of whom have been subjected to lengthy sentences for relatively minor crimes. And that population has surged over the past three decades.
Although there has been a slight reduction in the past year, more than two million people are either incarcerated in prison or in jail awaiting trial.
The US has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world, with 743 people incarcerated for every 100,000 Americans. No other nation even comes close to these figures.
One explanation for the boom in the prison population is the mandatory sentencing imposed for drug offences and the “tough on crime” attitude that has prevailed since the 1980s.
But it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes US prison policy. Some prisoners are locked up for life – literally – and many receive harsh sentences for non-violent crime…
From Burlington Free Press:
How did an image of a pig — the infamous ’60s-era epithet by protesters for police officers — wind up on a decal used on as many as 30 Vermont State Police cruisers?
State officials Thursday pointed to the failure of the quality assurance office within the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop in St. Albans to detect a prisoner-artist’s addition made four years ago to the traditional state police logo. A spot on the shoulder of the cow in the state emblem was modified into a pig…
Der Spiegel takes a look at the resort-like island that houses some of Norway’s most hardened convicts — they are given a wide berth to do as they please, but must complete…
Incarceration just got a lot more adorable. Via the BBC: A jail in the eastern city of Pohang plans to run a month-long trial with three of the automatons in March. The…
David Edwards writes on The Raw Story:
Between 50 and 100 inmates in solitary confinement at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have pledged to refuse to eat until officials agree to better conditions.
Isaac Ontiveros of the anti-prison group Critical Resistance explained the prisoners’ demands to DemocracyNow.
“End the use of group punishment and administrative abuse; abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria; comply with the commission on safety and abuse in America’s prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement; provide adequate and nutritious food; and expand and provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates.”
Adam Cohen asks in TIME: Flogging someone with a cane causes intense pain and permanent bodily damage. An Australian who was flogged for drug trafficking in Malaysia in the 1970s recalled that…