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“Shocks the Conscience” August 15, 2012

Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Education.
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08.15.12 – www.commondreams.org

 

by Abby Zimet

 

A horrific story out of Meridian, Miss. – and evidently a lot of other places – where police act as a “taxi service” for a school-to-prison pipeline that shuttles mostly black kids to jail for “offenses” like dress code violations, flatulence, profanity, and disrespect. After months of investigation, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division found the police, Youth Court and Youth Services systematically violated the rights of mostly black and disabled children by arresting them without probable cause and sending them into a juvenile justice system where “existing due process protections are illusory and inadequate.”

“The systematic disregard for children’s basic constitutional rights by agencies with a duty to protect and serve these children betrays the public trust.“

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The Top Five Special Interest Groups Lobbying To Keep Marijuana Illegal April 22, 2012

Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Drugs.
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By posted Apr 20th 2012 at 9:04AM, www.republicreport.org

Last year, over 850,000 people in America were arrested for marijuana-related crimes. Despite public opinion, the medical community, and human rights experts all moving in favor of relaxing marijuana prohibition laws, little has changed in terms of policy.

There have been many great books and articles detailing the history of the drug war. Part of America’s fixation with keeping the leafy green plant illegal is rooted in cultural and political clashes from the past.

However, we at Republic Report think it’s worth showing that there are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our broken drug laws on the books:

1.) Police Unions: Police departments across the country have become dependent on federal drug war grants to finance their budget. In March, we published a story revealing that a police union lobbyist in California coordinated the effort to defeat Prop 19, a ballot measure in 2010 to legalize marijuana, while helping his police department clients collect tens of millions in federal marijuana-eradication grants. And it’s not just in California. Federal lobbying disclosures show that other police union lobbyists have pushed for stiffer penalties for marijuana-related crimes nationwide.

2.) Private Prisons Corporations: Private prison corporations make millions by incarcerating people who have been imprisoned for drug crimes, including marijuana. As Republic Report’s Matt Stoller noted last year, Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies, revealed in a regulatory filing that continuing the drug war is part in parcel to their business strategy. Prison companies have spent millions bankrolling pro-drug war politicians and have used secretive front groups, like the American Legislative Exchange Council, to pass harsh sentencing requirements for drug crimes.

3.) Alcohol and Beer Companies: Fearing competition for the dollars Americans spend on leisure, alcohol and tobacco interests have lobbied to keep marijuana out of reach. For instance, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors contributed campaign contributions to a committee set up to prevent marijuana from being legalized and taxed.

4.) Pharmaceutical Corporations: Like the sin industries listed above, pharmaceutical interests would like to keep marijuana illegal so American don’t have the option of cheap medical alternatives to their products. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now lobbies the government to relax marijuana prohibition laws, told Republic Report that next to police unions, the “second biggest opponent on Capitol Hill is big PhRMA” because marijuana can replace “everything from Advil to Vicodin and other expensive pills.”

5.) Prison Guard Unions: Prison guard unions have a vested interest in keeping people behind bars just like for-profit prison companies. In 2008, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association spent a whopping $1 million to defeat a measure that would have “reduced sentences and parole times for nonviolent drug offenders while emphasizing drug treatment over prison.”

RELATED: Why Can’t You Smoke Pot? Because Lobbyists Are Getting Rich Off of the War on Drugs

The Thriving Fear Based Prison / Industrial Complex May 9, 2009

Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Race, Racism.
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black-men-jail
Allen L Roland
www.opednews.com, May 8, 2009
While the nation flounders economically a for-profit prison firm, The GEO Group Inc, rakes in millions from the US Government detaining undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates amid increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death: Allen L Roland
As I have recently pointed out ~ America has less than 5% of the world’s people but almost 25% of its prisoners. We imprison 756 people per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the world average. About one in every 31 adults is either in prison or on parole. Black men have a one in three chance of being imprisoned at some point in their lives. http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13415267


Driven by fear and bolstered by greed ~ the Prison / Industrial complex continues to thrive in much the same manner as the Military / Industrial complex while being fully supported by the U.S. Government and American tax payers ~ despite many allegations of negligence and abuse.
Erin Rosa writes, in a Special to CorpWatch, that detaining immigrants has become a profitable business, and the niche industry is showing no signs of slowing down ~ ” The number of undocumented immigrants the U.S. federal government jails has grown by at least 65 percent in the last six years. In 2002, the average daily population of immigration detainees was 20,838 people, according to ICE records. By 2008, the average daily population had grown to 31,345.” 
Rosa goes on to report GEO operates four of the seven for-profit contracted detention facilities ~ which are part of a network of at least 300 local, state and federal lockups. She also sites the numerous investigations and documented problems at GEO’s immigration detention facilities.
GEO Group, Inc.: Despite a Crashing Economy, Private Prison Firm Turns a Handsome Profit

by Erin Rosa, Special to CorpWatch
March 1st, 2009 
Excerpts: ” At the company’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, federal prosecutors charged a GEO prison administrator in September 2008 with “knowingly and willfully making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements to senior special agents” with ICE, according to court filings. A February 2008 audit found that over a period of more than two years ending in November 2005, GEO hired nearly 100 guards without performing the required criminal background checks. The GEO employee responsible, Sylvia Wong, pleaded guilty. In the plea agreement the federal government stated that Wong falsified documents “because of the pressure she felt” while working at the GEO lockup to get security personnel hired at the detention center “as quickly as possible.”

Two months before the fraud charges, a study by the Seattle University School of Law and the nonprofit group OneAmerica reported that conditions at the Tacoma facility violated both international and domestic laws that grant detained immigrants the right to food, due process and humane treatment.

Federal immigration officials have the authority to incarcerate undocumented immigrants, asylum-seekers, and even lawful permanent residents while they await hearings with immigration judges or appeal decisions. ICE reports the average length of stay is 30 days, but detentions can last years, according to a November 2008 ICE fact sheet.”

Rosa concludes that ” GEO has accrued contracts worth more than $588 million in federal tax dollars since 1997, according to available federal procurement data. And as long as federal officials continue to remand a growing number of inmates and immigrants over to private businesses, without imposing strict oversight, GEO will likely remain profitable.”
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Multi million dollar contracts without oversight ~ and then add the moral implications. Sounds familiar ~ does it not.
Allen L Roland

National Public Service Council To Abolish Private Prisons April 9, 2009

Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Human Rights.
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“Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere”

MARTIN LUTHER KING
…Letter From the Birmingham Jail, 1963

 

“When once a republic is corrupted there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principle” …… THOMAS JEFFERSON

Vision Without Action Is A Daydream. Action Without Vision A Nightmare.

 

 

 

The National Public Service Council To Abolish Private Prisons made a concerted effort when choosing its name to erase any possibility of ambiguity regarding who we are and our mission statement. It is our unwavering organizational belief that as long as our government permits Private Prisons For Profit to operate as legal businesses, the American Criminal Justice System, in particular, will never have the capacity to develop -in theory or otherwise- a credibility that the people of this great nation can respect and feel morally comfortable with. This is not a complicated matter. In spite of the endless assortment of political debates and the countless number of discussions among independent committees appointed to research and examine the economic pros and cons of privitization, and in spite of all the “other” arguments created by design, to distract, divide, frighten and confuse the citizens of this country and prevent them from using humane common sense, one cannot ignore or pretend not to see the flashing red flag draped around the philosophical question standing at attention in the middle of the room. Arguably, the criminal justice system is not designed to be a “moral compass.” However, it cannot ignore or deny the inherent components at the core of its foundation: equality, fairness, and the humane practice of justice. These are more than lofty concepts to be arbitrarily applied when convenience allows. Our justice system must offer unequivocal, resplendent and reliable standards of “right and wrong” …”just and unjust” because the people cannot respect or pledge an allegiance to a justice system that fails to demonstrate the difference between “right and wrong” in its own application. The inherent and most fundamental reponsibility of the criminal justice system cannot be shirked, avoided, taken lightly or “jobbed out.” Like it or not, when an institution is the definitive symbol representing authority and judicial proceeding, your function must reflect a fundamental fairness, and above all else, it must be accountable to all of its citizens. If ever there was a reason for second guessing the process or the ability of the United States Government (Federal & State) to perform its duty when addressing the important task of corrections and rehabilitation in the criminal justice system, the cornerstone of that uncertainty sits squarely upon the shoulders that permit private prisons for profit to operate in the United States of America. Clearly, this immoral profit driven system is without parallel in its resemblance to the most heinous institution to ever exist upon American soil. Slavery.

Aristotle wrote, “It is the peculiarity of man, in comparison with the rest of the animal world that he alone possesses a perception of good and evil, of the just and the unjust”

INCARCERATING PEOPLE FOR PROFIT IS IN A WORD WRONG

All law emanates from the people, so that, when the laws thus enacted are not executed, the power returns to the people, and is theirs whenever they may choose to exercise it.

We are mindful that the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the constitution…we are also mindful that the federal and state correctional facilities originate from government design and, therfore, must be regulated and maintained by the government.

We must restore the principles and the vacated promise of our judicial system. Our government cannot continue to “job-out” its obligation and neglect its duty to the individuals confined in the corrections and rehabilitation facilities throughout this nation, nor can it ignore the will of the people that it was designed to serve and protect.

There is urgent need for the good people of this country to emerge from the shadows of indifference, apathy, cynicsim, fear, and those other dark places that we migrate to when we are overwhelmed by frustration and the loss of hope.

My hope is that you will support the NPSCTAPP with a show of solidarity by signing our petition to send one million signatures to congress expressing the will of the people to abolish the private prison for profit industry. Ahma Daeus

The Single Voice Project (T0 Sign Petition, Click on the icon below)

The Single Voice Project

 

And To Further Support Prison Reform: http://colorofchange.org/webb/?id=2420-698363

Private Prison as Stimulus April 6, 2009

Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Economic Crisis, Human Rights, Immigration.
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Matt Kelley, http://immigration.change.org/blog

Published April 02, 2009 @ 05:00AM PST

 

 

 

[Change.org's Criminal Justice blogger Matt Kelley guest blogs here today about the consequences of privatization and proliferation of immigration detention.  Check out Matt's blog today for my guest post there about the DREAM Act. - DB]

Cities and towns from coast to coast are struggling to stay afloat in this recession and they’re grasping for any new industry that will move to town  - including one that profits from locking up immigrants, private prisons. It’s sad that the warehousing of immigrants is one of few stable industries in the United States today, but it’ll stay that way as long a cycle of profit surrounds our immigration policy.

Local governments are tripping over one another to get a piece of the private prison pie. Two news stories this week – from Baldwin County, Georgia and Morton, Mississippi – make plain the unapologetic drive of municipal governments to become prison towns to create jobs and industry when manufacturing and other industries are dying and moving away. The destructive immigration policies that siphon thousands of people into these prisons are viewed as nothing more than fodder in an economic machine.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of locking up undocumented immigrants, we could focus on enabling hard-working people to pursue their dreams and stimulate the economy through work and innovation rather than through prison profits.

Today on the Criminal Justice blog, Dave Bennion writes about the promise of the DREAM Act, which – as you know – would allow undocumented immigrants to pursue legal status through college education or military service. Passage of the DREAM Act would be a big step in the right direction, for an America that should allow us to pursue our personal and professional goals. But until progressive reforms like this take root, we’re dangling the American Dream before the eyes of millions, only to divert them to being warehoused in our private prisons, working and living for someone else’s profit.

(more…)

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