April212012

Watergate figure, Christian leader Chuck Colson dies

(CNN) — Chuck Colson, a Watergate-era “hatchet man” for President Richard Nixon who became an influential evangelical leader after serving time in prison, died Saturday afternoon, according to his website. He was 80.

…..

A former U.S. Marine captain, Colson was considered a main player in the Nixon White House’s dirty tricks during the rough-and-tumble politics of the Vietnam era in America.

Not tied directly to the June 17, 1972, break-in to Democratic National Committee offices in Washington’s Watergate complex, Colson was implicated in the broader political scandal and became the first Nixon aide to be convicted.

While indicted, he negotiated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in 1974 to obstruction of justice for attempting to defame anti-war activist Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked the once-secret Pentagon Papers that revealed the full extent of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia.

He served seven months in prison before being paroled in 1975. […]

Chuck Colson Republicans Watergate scandal prison Daniel Ellsberg

April82012

Peace Corps Volunteer Behind Bars‏

~~~~~

Jason Puracal is an American who’s right now fighting for his life in a Nicaraguan prison called La Modela — known to be one of the world’s most dangerous jails — after being convicted of crimes many people say he didn’t commit.

Just four years earlier, in the same Nicaraguan courtroom, another American named Eric Volz was also convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. He spent 14 months in the same notorious prison fighting for his own life. Eric was released from prison after public pressure in the U.S. pushed the State Department to take action — and the same day the U.S. government spoke out, Eric was free.

Now Eric is fighting to free Jason from the same fate he faced. Eric knows from experience — like no one else — the stakes that Jason faces in La Modelaprison. He hopes a similar public outcry can set Jason free.Eric started a petition on Change.org asking U.S. officials to pressure Nicaragua to release Jason Puracal from prison.

Click here to add your name to Eric’s petition to set Jason free.

Jason came to Nicaragua as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2002. He fell in love with the country, met his future wife, and stayed there to build a family and a small business.

Jason’s been behind bars for his son’s last two birthdays, in a prison cell where a hole in the corner is both his sink and his toilet. He says he doesn’t belong in prison — and so do former FBI and DEA officials who say he’s innocent, including Tom Cash, a former Drug Enforcement Agency Director who chased drug lords like Pablo Escobar. And they know that Jason Puracal is no Pablo Escobar.

The crimes that Jason was convicted of — drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime — were decided in one of the world’s most corrupt court systems. During Jason’s trial, prosecutors couldn’t present any drugs, money, or connections to drug traffickers.

It didn’t matter, Eric says: in a quick, closed-door trial, Jason was convicted and sentenced to 22 years behind bars. Jason’s doing everything he can to get out of prison and get back to his once-normal life — and Eric Volz is helping Jason make that happen.

What Jason needs now, says Eric, is a huge outcry to force action by the U.S. to help free Jason, just like how Eric was set free. Click here to sign Eric’s petition to free Jason Puracal from a Nicaraguan prison.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

- Jon and the Change.org team

Jason Puracal Peace Corps Prison Nicaragua DEA

March312012

Zakaria: Incarceration nation

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Something caught my eye the other day: Pat Robertson, the high priest of the religious right, had some startling things to say about drugs.

“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Mr. Robertson said in a recent interview. “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think. This war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”

The reason Robertson is for legalizing marijuana is that it has created a prison problem in America that is well beyond what most Americans imagine.

“It’s completely out of control,” Mr. Robertson said. “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties - the maximums - some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all.”

He’s right. Here are the numbers: The total number of Americans under correctional supervision (prison, parole, etc.) is 7.1 million, more than the entire state of Massachusetts. Adam Gopnik writes in the New Yorker, “Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America…than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.”

No other country comes even close to our rates of incarceration. We have 760 prisoners per 100,000 people. Most European countries have one seventh that number (per capita, so it’s adjusted for population). Even those on the high end of the global spectrum - Brazil and Poland - have only a quarter the number we do.

If you say this is some kind of enduring aspect of America’s “Wild West” culture, you would be wrong. In 1980, our rates of incarceration were a quarter what they are now. What changed was the war on drugs and the mindless proliferation of laws that created criminal penalties for anything and everything. […]

Prisons for Profit War on Drugs Incarceration nation Prison

February172012

Welcome to Books To Prisoners!

*******

Books To Prisoners (BTP) is a Seattle-based, all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that sends books to prisoners in the United States. BTP believes that books are tools for learning and opening minds to new ideas and possibilities. By sending books to prisoners, we hope to foster a love of reading and encourage the pursuit of knowledge and self-improvement.

Want to donate your new or used books?

You can help a prisoner by donating new or used paperback books to BTP.

Which books are needed?

Books to Prisoners reading books prison

February162012

reuters:

A woman cries while standing outside the prison in Comayagua February 15, 2012.

A massive fire swept through an overcrowded prison in Honduras and killed more than 350 inmates, including many trapped screaming inside their cells, officials said on Wednesday. Worried and angry relatives surrounded the prison with some throwing rocks at police and trying to force their way into the prison.

Police responded by firing shots into the air and tear gas at the protesters, who were mostly women. [REUTERS/Stringer]

Video/Read more: Honduras prison fire kills more than 350 inmates

prison

January262012

“Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities… . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”

Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in America, statement to stockholders, 2005.

In other words: ending the Drug War and eliminating federal mandatory minimum sentences is bad for business. Adam Gopnik notes that CCA “spends millions lobbying legislators.” presumably, inter alia, to keep harsh sentencing laws on the books.

source

(via letterstomycountry)

Private prison industry? What private prison industry?

(via excitablehonky)

Prison Corrections Corporation of America prisons for profit drugs

January242012

New Yorker: The Caging of America

progressivefriends:

America imprisons more people than Stalin did with the Gulag.

…..

For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives.

Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then.

Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States. […]

(via foulmouthedliberty)

prison incarceration black men slavery Stalin

January232012

Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline

“What if many of our students - particularly our African American, Latina/o, Native American, and Southeast Asian children - are being channeled toward prison and a lifetime of second-class status? We believe that this is the case, and there is ample evidence to support that claim. What has come to be called the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ is turning too many schools into pathways to incarceration rather than opportunity.”

This trend has extraordinary implications for teachers and education activists. It affects everything from what we teach to how we build community in our classrooms, how we deal with conflicts with and among our students, how we build coalitions, and what demands we see as central to the fight for social justice education.

Read the Article

Schools Prison education justice teachers students

January172012

Montgomery County, Tennessee Jail Bans Letters From Inmates

There’s a new policy at the Montgomery County Jail - inmates can’t send out letters anymore - only postcards. And starting in March, they won’t be able to get incoming letters, either. Only letters from lawyers can go through.

A spokesman for the sheriff’s department says the postcards-only policy was implemented because the jail staff was spending too much time opening letters to check them for contraband.

Teresa and Steven Sumner have a son in jail. They know what he did was wrong - but they say so is the new rule prohibiting him and all the other inmates from sending letters to their families.

……

Steven Sumner also points out the jail is withholding letters even from people who haven’t been tried yet - people who haven’t been found guilty of anything.

Here’s the web site for the Office of the Sheriff:

http://www.mcgtn.org/sheriff/sheriff

The sheriff is Norman Lewis and his info is:

(931) 648-0611 ext. 6500

There’s no reason to ban letters to and from inmates. The USA has already turned the prison system into a profit system. That’s the whole story behind the so-called “war on drugs”. There is no war on drugs. There is a war on citizens. And the war targets people of color more than anyone else. The people trapped in the so-called justice system are humans, but to the cops, lawyers and prison corporations, they are just “product”. The more “product” they have, the more money they make. And they don’t care about anything else.

Montgomery County Clarksville Tennessee Prison Prison for Profit inmates families

January122012

Push to Reform Prison System Brings Unlikely Allies Together by Rose Aguilar | LikeTheDew.com

Over the past 15 years, the U.S. prison population has more than doubled. There are 2.3 million Americans behind bars – that’s one in 100. About half of the people in prison are serving time for nonviolent offenses, including drug possession. More than 60 percent of U.S. prisoners are black or Hispanic, according to the Pew Center on the States. With just over 4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for a quarter of the planet’s prisoners and has more inmates than the leading 35 European countries combined.

(Source: likethedew)

Prison Prisoners Prison for Profit Incarceration

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