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Petition to the GA Commission on Criminal Justice Reform

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 02:56 — admin

 

Petition to the Georgia Commission on Criminal Justice Reform

We the undersigned Georgia residents believe a thorough re-evaluation of our state's criminal justice system is long overdue, and we welcome the formation of the Governor's Commission on Criminal Justice Reform. But the Commission's current vision of what constiutes such reform and even who the relevant stakeholders in such a process must be are seriously flawed.

Our state's current policies of over-policing, racial selectivity in enforcement and sentencing, over-incarceration and lifelong sanctions against offenders exact enormous economic, health and human tolls upon the communities and families those offenders come from and return to. The stakeholders, therefore, in criminal justice reform are not just sheriffs, judges, chambers of commerce, legislators, contractors and well-connected insiders. The real stakeholders include the imprisoned themelves, including juveniles, and the formerly incarcerated, along with their families and communities, none of whom are currently represented on the Commission, and none of whom this Commission, as currently envisioned, intends to consult in the formulation of its recommendations to the legislature.

We therefore demand that the Commission hold multiple public hearings in communities around the state, including Savannah, Augusta, Macon, and Columbus, and at least one apiece inside an adult a juvenile institution, in order to solicit input into its deliberations from more of the real stakeholders in reform, and that the Commission include in its recommendations, at a minimum the following:

  • An immediate and permanent end to all incarceration of juveniles with adults;

  • The decriminalization of mental illness, homelessness, drug use and immigration status;

  • The provision of decent health care and educational opportunities inside prisons and jails;

  • Recognition and abolition of longstanding racial selectivity in law enforcement, prosecution and sentencing;

  • The provision of clear paths to expungment of convictions and cessation of lifelong discrimination against former offenders in employment and public benefits of all kinds.

     

What Fake Reform of the Prison State Looks Like: Georgia's Criminal Justice Reform Commission

Thu, 06/09/2011 - 07:20 — Bruce A. Dixon

 

 

 

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

In Georgia, where prisoners staged a brief and courageous strike for their human rights last December, the state's new governor is talking “prison reform.” But the vision of Georgia's new commission on criminal justice reform seems to be less about healing the wounds caused by racist hyper-incarceration than saving the state money. What kind of “prison reform” does that lead to?

July 1 Hunger Strike to Commence at California's Pelican Bay

Sat, 07/02/2011 - 09:58 — Bruce A. Dixon

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Vowing to die, if necessary, inmates at the dreaded “SHU” section of California’s Pelican Bay prison begin a hunger strike on July 1. “Like the strike by inmates in Georgia’s prison system late last year, the Pelican Bay protest cuts across racial lines.” The core issue: a brutal, soul-killing policy of solitary confinement and other deprivations aimed at turning every inmate into a snitch on everyone else.

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Chatham County lets contract for 852 new jail beds

Wed, 12/29/2010 - 21:38 — admin

Joint Venture Nabs Chatham County Jail Project http://www.correctionalnews.com/articles/2010/12/29/joint-venture-nabs-c... (12/29/2010) SAVANNAH, Ga. — A joint venture of Oldcastle Precast Modular and a Hunt/Mills joint venture will be providing the precast concrete prison cells and building components for the new $71 million, 330,000 square-foot expansion of the Chatham County Detention Center in Georgia.

Welcome to EndMassIncarceration.org

Wed, 12/22/2010 - 18:56 — admin

The spiraling costs of mass incarceration have not made our communities safer.
 
That is the bottom line.
 

2005's Ten Worst Places to be Black

Tue, 07/31/2007 - 17:00 — Bruce A. Dixon

by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon

This article was originally published in Black Commentator on July 14, 2005 

"It's high time to begin constructing useful indices with which to measure the quality of life, not for just a fortunate few, but for the broad masses of our people."

The pervasive corporate media bubble, which grossly distorts the views most Americans have of the world beyond their shores, and of life in America’s black one-eighth, operates to fool African Americans, too.  While a fortunate few of us are doing very well indeed, and many more are hanging on as best we can, the conditions of life for a substantial chunk of black America are not substantially improving, and appear to be getting much worse. 

How to Make Mass Incarceration a Political Issue

Thu, 07/21/2005 - 20:45 — Bruce A. Dixon

by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon

This article was originally published in Black Commentator July 21, 2005 

 

“A great force of suffering accumulated between the basement of heaven and the roof of hell...”

Zora Neale Hurston wrote those words almost seventy years ago at the beginning of her great allegorical work on black America, Moses, Man of the Mountain. She could have been speaking about African America today. As black activists ponder how best to build a mass movement to transform America, a mass movement that must start in but not be confined to our communities, one single low-hanging fruit of organizing opportunity is hard to miss.  That opportunity lies in the manifest unfairness and hypocrisy of America’s system of racially selective policing, prosecution and mass imprisonment.  These awful public policies are inviting targets for electoral and other mobilizations in black communities and beyond.

It's Time To Build A Mass Movement

Sun, 07/10/2005 - 22:05 — Bruce A. Dixon

 

by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon 

“Democracy… does not come from the government, from on high, it comes from people getting together and struggling for justice.” – Howard Zinn, Spelman College commencement address, Atlanta, 2005.

Politicians are elected and selected, but mass movements transform societies.  Judges uphold, strike down, or invent brand new law, but mass movements drag the courts, laws and officeholders all in their wake.  Progressive and even partially successful mass movements can alter the political calculus for decades to come, thus improving the lives of millions. 

 

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by Dr. Radut.