Posts Tagged ‘Prison Industrial Complex’
Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike Only Kind of Over. Support Still Needed!
9:57 am By Maegan La Mala · Activism|California|Justice|Prisons|Violence · 4 Comments
23 Jul 2011
There has been some confusion over the last few days as to if the weeks old hunger strike which began at Pelican Bay California State Prison is over. The hunger strike was started specifically to protest the conditions inside the entire prison system but also very specifically the treatment in so-called Security Housing Units. You can read the entire list of demands of the strikers here.
It has been confirmed that inside Pelican Bay, the strike leaders have accepted an offer from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The leaders confirmed CDCR’s announcement that immediate changes in SHU policy are the opportunity for some educational programs, provision of all-weather caps (beanies) and wall calendars. More substantially, the leaders explained the CDCR has agreed to investigate changes to other policies including the gang validation and debriefing processes, and it is now up to supporters outside prison to make sure the CDCR upholds their promise.
SB 1070′s Direct to Prison Pipeline?
6:30 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration · 2 Comments
29 Oct 2010In August and September of this year, VivirLatino drew your attention to a possible connection between Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signing SB1070 into law and the for profit prison corporation Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Now a new report from NPR draws a line connecting the author of SB1070, Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, and “a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC”. Members of ALEC include the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil, the National Rifle Association, and Corrections Corporation of America.
According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in “a significant portion of our revenues” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.
In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.
“There were no ‘no’ votes,” Pearce said. “I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation.”
Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona’s immigration law.
They even named it. They called it the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.”
Secure Communities Deported Almost 50,000 People
8:11 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Secure Communities · 12 Comments
10 Aug 2010VivirLatino has often written about the enforcement first immigration policy that the Obama administration has chosen to take instead of passing comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act. One of the programs that Department of Homeland Security has expanded on and is planning to spread throughout the country is Secure Communities, a program that has local jails sharing with ICE the fingerprints of anyone suspected of being undocumented so that ICE can take further action.
This morning we have some of the first stats on the impact that the fingerprint sharing program has had and who are the immigrants getting caught up in this unholy alliance between the criminal (in)justice system and the civil immigration system.
– Records show that about 47,000 people have been removed or deported from the U.S. after the Homeland Security Department sifted through 3 million sets of fingerprints taken from bookings at local jails.
About one-quarter of those kicked out of the country did not have criminal records, according to government data obtained by immigration advocacy groups that have filed a lawsuit.
Explaining Anti-Immigrant Violence Committed by People of Color
8:45 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|New York City|race|Violence · 3 Comments
10 Apr 2010Watching the local television news for 5 minutes, I heard two reports of violence against immigrants. The alleged perps, caught on video in both incidents, are young men and women of color.
Earlier this week, at least four young men attacked 26 year old Mexican immigrant Rodulfo Olmedo with bats, two-by-fours, a chain and anti-Mexican slurs in Staten Island. All four of the young men are men of color. One is a Latino.
And in Downtown Manhattan, near Chinatown, Asian women between the ages of 50 and 70 are being physically assaulted in the housing projects where they live. The attackers are young African-American men and women.
Immigrant Detainees in Louisiana on Hunger Strike
7:36 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|Justice · 4 Comments
4 Aug 2009
When your cuerpo is used as fodder to feed the prison industrial complex, how do you transform that body into a weapon of protest? For immigrants caught up in detention, using their bodies to protest the horrible and inhumane conditions inside is nothing new. What is new is the context that the current administration has made it clear that prison “reform” is not a priority, much less if the prisons we are talking about “reforming” are for those labeled alien/foreign/unwanted/brown.
Now, another group of immigrants inside a detention center are on hunger strike, their fifth one, in protest of the deplorable conditions at the South Louisiana Correctional Facility in Basile. This detention center is run by the private contractor LCS Corrections Services Inc. and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, more than 100 detainees acted as human rights monitors inside the jail throughout July. “Over the course of a month, detainee human rights monitors recorded complaints, attempted to lodge hundreds of grievances, and communicated with advocates about jail conditions,” said NOWCRJ, which released a report of their findings and the accounts of the several detainees.
Give Us your tired, your poor, Just Not Your Sick cuz We’ll Deport Them
7:39 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Health|Immigration|Obama · Comments Off
30 Jul 2009
Is it too radical to believe that hospitals should be like churches? That they should be safe spaces where people can get what they went their for, health care? Instead a court decision has legitimized hospitals acting as ICE agents and Homeland Security.
A hospital that sent a seriously brain injured illegal immigrant back to Guatemala – over the objections of his family and legal guardian – did not act unreasonably, a jury found Monday…
Health care and immigration experts across the country have closely watched the court case in the sleepy, coastal town of Stuart. The hospital had cared for Jimenez, who was uninsured, for three years. But it was unable to find any nursing home to take him permanently because his immigration status meant the government would not reimburse his care.
Immigrant Detention is the New Money Maker
11:17 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|Justice|Money · 3 Comments
18 Mar 2009
In these economic times, those with the least suffer the most and become the new fodder for the prison industrial complex.
Washington paid nearly $55.2 million to house detainees at 13 local jails in California in fiscal year 2008, up from $52.6 million the previous year. The U.S. is on track to spend $57 million this year.
The largest federal contract in the state is with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, whose 1,400-bed detention center in Lancaster is dedicated to housing immigrants either awaiting deportation or fighting their cases in court. The department received $34.7 million in 2008, up from $32.3 million the previous year.
Some smaller cities have seen their income rise much faster. Glendale received nearly $260,000 in 2008, triple what it got the previous year. In Alhambra, last year’s $247,000 was more than double the previous year’s payments.
For some cash-strapped cities, the federal money has become a critical source of revenue, covering budget shortfalls and saving positions.
Via / The LA Times y gracias to Nezua via the Twitter
San Diego to Clean Out It’s Jails With Help of ICE
11:04 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|san diego · 1 Comment
20 Nov 2008
My mentor Richie Perez said once that people of color are the raw material/human fodder for the machine that is the prison industrial complex. And when that machine gets clogged what do you do? You take a page from San Diego County, California and clean up with the help not of Joe the Plumber, but ICE.
San Diego County recently announced that it would soon be partnering with ICE and dedicating its energy to identifying immigrants in jail for deportation. ICE unveiled its new program – The Secure Communities Program – in March 2008. It gives jails access to ICE and FBI databases so that they can identify inmates who lack legal status or have a criminal history and then turn them over to ICE for deportation. Through this new initiative, ICE plans to eventually have a presence in every one of the 3,100 local jails throughout the U.S.
Disturbing Statistic : San Francsico Has More Blacks in Jail than in the City
7:35 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Justice|race|San Francisco · Comments Off
9 May 2008
The prison industrial complex is alive and well in San Francisco and it’s using blacks as the raw material. In recent years the black population in the city of San Francisco has been decreasing, with one exception, prisons.
More than 60 percent of all prisoners are African American, according
to a survey of the city jail’s population. And of the 282 female
prisoners, 67 percent are black.
About 42 percent of the jail population is in custody for drug
offenses, the study found.
A similar study in 1996 found that half of the jail population was
African American. A 2005 study put the number at 53 percent.
In contrast, 6.7 percent of San Francisco residents are black- a number that has been in steady decline, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
What is the reason for this alarming stat? Racial profiling.
And the Prison Industrial Complex Grows and Grows
9:29 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Justice|Politics|race · Comments Off
6 Mar 2008
Late last month a report released by the Pew Center reveals what many have already known, that prisons are growing with people of color as the human raw materials for this industry.
The United States, land of the free, home of the brave, now incarcerates more people than any other country on the globe. More than one in every 100 U.S. residents is incarcerated.
The 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.
Is there any doubt then what the U.S. thinks of its youth, especially it’s youth of color?
Hola!
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