Critical Resistance fights to abolish prisons
By Gloria Rubac
Oakland, Calif.
Published Oct 10, 2008 11:28 PM
At a massive, well-organized and politically radical conference
called CR10, some 3,000 prison abolitionists from coast to coast
gathered in Oakland, Calif., for three days of reflecting,
strategizing, collaborating and organizing around abolishing the
prison-industrial complex (PIC).
Soffiyah Elijah listens as Green
Party's presidential candidate
Cynthia McKinney speaks on
Cointelpro.
WW photos: Gloria Rubac
The conference was held on the 10th anniversary of the founding of
Critical Resistance, an organization formed in 1998 to launch a
movement to eliminate prisons, detention, policing and surveillance
used by the PIC to "solve" problems brought on by poverty, racism,
homelessness and sex and gender oppression.
CR10 included hundreds of workshops, a film series, performances,
meetings, strategy sessions, regional meetings and cultural
expressions from dance to drama, from spoken word to drumming.
The atmosphere in the opening plenary session was electric as it
opened with Native drumming. Then the Welfare Poets brought the house
down with their sharp-edged hip-hop dedicated to Hassan Shakur,
unjustly executed in Texas in 2006. From San Francisco 8 member Hank
Jones to former political prisoner Linda Evans to INCITE! Women of
Color Against Violence leader Andrea Smith to Palestinian- American
poet and activist Suheir Hammad, the speakers set the high political
tone for the weekend.
Second from left, Pam Africa, fourth
from left, Ramona Africa.
A standing ovation followed Miss Major, an elder, African American,
formerly incarcerated transgender activist of 35 years, who spoke of
her love and concern and activism for transgender women of color
locked in U.S. prisons.
The evening ended with Angela Davis igniting the crowd when she
called for an end to prisons in the United States. She was swarmed
afterward, particularly by youth of color who wanted photos and
autographs from a hero that they had read about and admired and were
now meeting in person.
During the entire conference the California Prison Focus and the
Prison Activist Resource Center had thousands of letters from
prisoners and a space where participants would read, answer and
process prisoners' mail.
A striking character of the conference was the large number of youth,
people of color and lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people who not only
attended CR10 in large numbers but who led and participated in
workshops, plenary sessions, security and entertainment.
At a workshop called "Live from Death Row," Barbara Becnel mesmerized
the large crowd by telling her story of friendship with California
death row prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams until she witnessed his
execution in 2005. She has just released a documentary on Williams
entitled "TRIBUTE: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005."
A death row prisoner from San Quentin called in live via telephone to
the workshop and spoke to the crowd.
Family members, journalists and activists involved in the Jena Six
case did a workshop organized by Jesse Muhammad with the Final Call
newspaper.
The Jericho Movement, which is holding activities at the United
Nations in New York the weekend of October 10-12, ran a workshop on
political prisoners along with the National Boricua Human Rights
Network.
Actors read parts from a new and graphic drama called "Lucasville:
the Untold Story of a Prison Uprising," which exposed how the state
of Ohio framed up five innocent men and put them on death row after a
1993 prison uprising.
Ramona Africa of the Move Organization and Pam Africa of
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal held a
workshop on Abu-Jamal. They later held a community meeting at the New
Black World, a West Oakland social club, which featured Chairman Fred
Hampton Jr. of the Prisoners of Consciousness Committee and Julia
Wright, journalist, activist and daughter of author Richard Wright,
as well as music by the Welfare Poets.
There were several workshops on long-term isolation in prison, which
is usually referred to with expressions like solitary confinement,
Special Housing Units, supermaximum prisons, and supersegregation by
different departments of correction but which the men and women who
have to live under these conditions call "torture."
From the Angola 3 to the San Francisco 8, from Mumia Abu-Jamal and
Leonard Peltier to the Puerto Rican independentistas, political
prisoners were discussed all throughout the conference. A taped
message from political prisoner Sundiata Acoli, driven underground by
Cointelpro and one of the three Black Liberation Army members
ambushed by state police on the New Jersey turnpike in 1973, was part
of the closing plenary.
In a workshop on Cointelpro, Green Party presidential candidate
Cynthia McKinney told the standing-room- only crowd, "Our government
has been wrong since the founding of our country. ... This government
would stoop to the lowest level possible to achieve their goals.
Through Cointelpro, a heinous U.S. government program, they would
destroy families by locking people up, they would kill, they would
incarcerate. They do this with the help of the corporations and the
media, from the New York Times to the New Orleans Times Picayune.
This needs an open hearing!"
The three days invigorated, educated and inspired the thousands of
activists attending to carry on the struggle from county jails, to
ICE detention centers, to state and federal and military prisons.
As Ramona Africa told a crowd: "Do whatever you can for Mumia and for
all prisoners. Victory is never giving in. We must think strong and
be strong. We will win!"
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Prop. 5 calls for expanding drug-crime rehabilitation
Prop. 5 calls for expanding drug-crime rehabilitation
By Don Thompson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 11, 2008
SACRAMENTO – Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed a novel initiative requiring treatment instead of jail or prison for tens of thousands of drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative are back with a follow-up measure that would require even greater leniency.
Billionaire investor and liberal activist George Soros is helping fund Proposition 5 on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure would prohibit sending paroled drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
The initiative would shorten parole for most drug and property crimes, while lengthening it for violent and serious felons. It also would require the state to put hundreds of millions of dollars into treatment and rehabilitation programs for nonviolent drug offenders and parolees.
To opponents, it's another step down a dangerous path that fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about true rehabilitation, opponents contend.
At issue:
Proposition 5
Requires treatment instead of prison or jail for most drug offenders, including those on parole or probation. Costs $610 million through mid-2010 followed by annual increases. Prohibits sending drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
Pro: Rehabilitation is more effective than jail for getting nonviolent offenders off drugs. Relieves prison overcrowding and saves the state money.
Con: Fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about rehabilitation.
Actor Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie nearly died of a drug overdose in 1998 but received court-ordered rehabilitation, is the initiative's most prominent opponent.
Sheen argues that it would discourage drug treatment by steering most addicts away from jail, even if they keep using drugs or refuse to attend rehabilitation programs.
“You have to be given a stern proposition. The judge will say to you, 'You're either facing jail or you're facing rehab.' That's the program that we've found to work,” Sheen said in a telephone interview.
The star of “The West Wing” also opposed Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that required treatment for nonviolent first-and second-time drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative developed Proposition 5 after seeing money for drug rehabilitation programs dwindle, from $145 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year to $108 million this year.
Last year, a University of California Los Angeles study recommended that the state increase money for Proposition 36 programs to about $228 million a year.
Nearly 20 percent of California's 171,000 inmates are imprisoned for drug offenses, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“This is about treatment, and it's about breaking cycles of crime that are driven by a completely treatable condition,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy California director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network and a campaign manager for Yes on 5. “The fact that we provide so little treatment is unconscionable.”
Penny Sheridan of Sacramento has first-hand experience with rehabilitation programs and believes Proposition 5 is another step toward helping addicts. She cycled through county jail and prison for eight years because of a methamphetamine addiction she developed as a teenager.
The last time she tested positive for drugs, her parole officer sent her to inpatient rehabilitation for 90 days instead of back to prison. That was two years ago. Now she is off parole, has a steady job and is going back to college.
“I'm not a liability to society anymore,” said Sheridan, 34.
Proposition 5 would not come without a price to California taxpayers if voters approve it.
The initiative would trigger $610 million in new state spending for treatment through mid-2010, followed by annual increases that would track the state's population growth and cost of living. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office projected that state spending required by the measure eventually could top $1 billion a year.
Supporters say the cost would be offset by reducing the prison population 17 percent over four years because more drug offenders and parolees would be sent to diversion programs. The analysis says that could save $1 billion in annual prison costs and $2.5 billion for new prisons.
Former state corrections secretary Jeanne Woodford supports the initiative as a responsible way to ease prison crowding. At its core, the debate is over finding a balance between incarceration and treatment, she said.
Law enforcement officials say the initiative dangerously broadens diversion programs established under Proposition 36.
For example, those convicted of property crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and auto and identity theft could get treatment instead of jail if they convince a judge that their crimes were related to drug use.
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a former drug court judge who is now president of the state prosecutors' association, calls it the “drugs made me do it” defense.
Additionally, parole would be shortened from three years to six months for nonviolent drug or drug-related property offenders, including dealers caught with up to $50,000 worth of methamphetamine. Marijuana possession would be reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction, similar to a traffic ticket. Inmates could earn more time off their sentences by completing treatment programs.
Opponents also object that Proposition 5 would give drug users five tries at rehabilitation programs before they could be jailed, up from three in Proposition 36.
Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer, president of the state chiefs' association, said the initiative amounts to a “drug dealers' bill of rights.”
Some former drug addicts aren't convinced the proposition would work.
Wesley Williams Jr. of Culver City said he never would have kicked a cocaine habit that cost him his home, his family and his law career had a Los Angeles judge not sent him to jail for a week for flunking out of a rehabilitation program.
“With addicts, unless there are consequences to their actions, they are going to continue to use,” said Williams, 55, now a business owner.
By Don Thompson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 11, 2008
SACRAMENTO – Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed a novel initiative requiring treatment instead of jail or prison for tens of thousands of drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative are back with a follow-up measure that would require even greater leniency.
Billionaire investor and liberal activist George Soros is helping fund Proposition 5 on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure would prohibit sending paroled drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
The initiative would shorten parole for most drug and property crimes, while lengthening it for violent and serious felons. It also would require the state to put hundreds of millions of dollars into treatment and rehabilitation programs for nonviolent drug offenders and parolees.
To opponents, it's another step down a dangerous path that fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about true rehabilitation, opponents contend.
At issue:
Proposition 5
Requires treatment instead of prison or jail for most drug offenders, including those on parole or probation. Costs $610 million through mid-2010 followed by annual increases. Prohibits sending drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
Pro: Rehabilitation is more effective than jail for getting nonviolent offenders off drugs. Relieves prison overcrowding and saves the state money.
Con: Fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won't get serious about rehabilitation.
Actor Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie nearly died of a drug overdose in 1998 but received court-ordered rehabilitation, is the initiative's most prominent opponent.
Sheen argues that it would discourage drug treatment by steering most addicts away from jail, even if they keep using drugs or refuse to attend rehabilitation programs.
“You have to be given a stern proposition. The judge will say to you, 'You're either facing jail or you're facing rehab.' That's the program that we've found to work,” Sheen said in a telephone interview.
The star of “The West Wing” also opposed Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that required treatment for nonviolent first-and second-time drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative developed Proposition 5 after seeing money for drug rehabilitation programs dwindle, from $145 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year to $108 million this year.
Last year, a University of California Los Angeles study recommended that the state increase money for Proposition 36 programs to about $228 million a year.
Nearly 20 percent of California's 171,000 inmates are imprisoned for drug offenses, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“This is about treatment, and it's about breaking cycles of crime that are driven by a completely treatable condition,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy California director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network and a campaign manager for Yes on 5. “The fact that we provide so little treatment is unconscionable.”
Penny Sheridan of Sacramento has first-hand experience with rehabilitation programs and believes Proposition 5 is another step toward helping addicts. She cycled through county jail and prison for eight years because of a methamphetamine addiction she developed as a teenager.
The last time she tested positive for drugs, her parole officer sent her to inpatient rehabilitation for 90 days instead of back to prison. That was two years ago. Now she is off parole, has a steady job and is going back to college.
“I'm not a liability to society anymore,” said Sheridan, 34.
Proposition 5 would not come without a price to California taxpayers if voters approve it.
The initiative would trigger $610 million in new state spending for treatment through mid-2010, followed by annual increases that would track the state's population growth and cost of living. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office projected that state spending required by the measure eventually could top $1 billion a year.
Supporters say the cost would be offset by reducing the prison population 17 percent over four years because more drug offenders and parolees would be sent to diversion programs. The analysis says that could save $1 billion in annual prison costs and $2.5 billion for new prisons.
Former state corrections secretary Jeanne Woodford supports the initiative as a responsible way to ease prison crowding. At its core, the debate is over finding a balance between incarceration and treatment, she said.
Law enforcement officials say the initiative dangerously broadens diversion programs established under Proposition 36.
For example, those convicted of property crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and auto and identity theft could get treatment instead of jail if they convince a judge that their crimes were related to drug use.
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a former drug court judge who is now president of the state prosecutors' association, calls it the “drugs made me do it” defense.
Additionally, parole would be shortened from three years to six months for nonviolent drug or drug-related property offenders, including dealers caught with up to $50,000 worth of methamphetamine. Marijuana possession would be reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction, similar to a traffic ticket. Inmates could earn more time off their sentences by completing treatment programs.
Opponents also object that Proposition 5 would give drug users five tries at rehabilitation programs before they could be jailed, up from three in Proposition 36.
Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer, president of the state chiefs' association, said the initiative amounts to a “drug dealers' bill of rights.”
Some former drug addicts aren't convinced the proposition would work.
Wesley Williams Jr. of Culver City said he never would have kicked a cocaine habit that cost him his home, his family and his law career had a Los Angeles judge not sent him to jail for a week for flunking out of a rehabilitation program.
“With addicts, unless there are consequences to their actions, they are going to continue to use,” said Williams, 55, now a business owner.
Report: 1 in 3 inmates will offend again
Back to web version Saturday, Oct 11, 2008
Report: 1 in 3 inmates will offend again
The Associated Press
A report to Kentucky lawmakers says one in three state prison inmates
will be back behind bars within two years.
The Lexington Herald-Leader said a report requested last year by the
legislature' s Program Review and Investigations Committee was
presented Thursday.
The committee wanted an examination of programs that teach prison
inmates how to find jobs and housing after their release.
The report also said the re-entry programs vary widely from prison to
prison and are nonexistent for state inmates held in county jails,
where about one-third of them are housed.
The report was prepared by the Legislative Research Commission.
Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky .com
Report: 1 in 3 inmates will offend again
The Associated Press
A report to Kentucky lawmakers says one in three state prison inmates
will be back behind bars within two years.
The Lexington Herald-Leader said a report requested last year by the
legislature' s Program Review and Investigations Committee was
presented Thursday.
The committee wanted an examination of programs that teach prison
inmates how to find jobs and housing after their release.
The report also said the re-entry programs vary widely from prison to
prison and are nonexistent for state inmates held in county jails,
where about one-third of them are housed.
The report was prepared by the Legislative Research Commission.
Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky .com
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