Today at 5PM, help Drive Away CCA!

Join the motorcade from the private prison site to honk at Valdosta City Hall
and march at the Industrial Authority office.
I'll be on Chris Beckham's show on WVGA 105.9 FM this morning at 7:30 AM
to talk about it.
Update: audio of the interview.
Update 2: Here's video of the interview.
Here's
the case against a private prison:
Continue reading " Drive Away CCA Today!" »
From
Quakers
to
Catholics,
|
“Our
organizations advocate for a criminal justice system that brings
healing for victims of crime, restoration for those who commit
crimes, and to maintain public safety.”
|
religious groups oppose privatization of prisons.
Here is
the text of a letter
many of them sent to all 50 state governors,
joining the ACLU in opposing
CCA's recent
offer to 48 states to buy their prisons.
You can help
drive away CCA, 5PM this Tuesday, March 6th.
Or sign the
petition to the Industrial Authority
to reject the private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
-jsq
March 1, 2012
Dear Governor:
We the undersigned faith organizations represent different
traditions from across the religious and political spectrum. Our
organizations advocate for a criminal justice system that brings
healing for victims of crime, restoration for those who commit
crimes, and to maintain public safety.
We write in reference to a letter you recently received from Harley
Lappin, Chief Corrections Officer at Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA), announcing the Corrections Investment Initiative –
the corporation's plan to spend up to $250 million buying prisons
from state, local, and federal government entities, and then
managing the facilities. The letter from Mr. Lappin states that CCA
is only interested in buying prisons if the state selling the prison
agrees to pay CCA to operate the prison for 20 years — at minimum.
Mr. Lappin further notes that any prison to be sold must have at
least 1,000 beds, and that the state must agree to keep the prison
at least 90% full during the length of the contract.
The undersigned faith organizations urge you to decline this
dangerous and costly invitation. CCA's initiative would be costly
Continue reading "Faith groups urge state governors not to sell prisons to CCA" »
CCA inadvertently rehabilitated former prisoner Alex Friedmann
and gave him a new career, lobbying against prison privatization.
He says:
In my view, the worst thing
is that they have normalized the notion of incarcerating people for profit.
Basically commodifying people, seeing them
as nothing more than a revenue stream....
If you incarcerate more people and you put more people in
your private prisons you make more money.
Which provides perverse incentives against reforming our justice system.
And increasing the number of people we're putting in prison,
whether they need to be there or not, just to generate corporate profit.
I think that's incredibly immoral and unethical,
I think that's the worst aspect of our private prison industry.
This comes from the ACLU's
Prison Voices, Episode 1: Private Prisons:
Continue reading "ACLU podcast against private prisons —Alex Friedmann" »
Poilce are public employees, and the public has a right to video them doing their duty; so says a federal appeals court.
Pace Lattin wrote for Technorati,
Federal Courts Rule it is Not Illegal to Film Police
John S. Quarterman
The First Court of Appeals has reached a decision that would allow the
general public to video-tape police officers while they are working. This
decision comes right after several well-known public cases have come to
light involving citizens being arrested for video-taping police.
This specific case in question was Simon Glik vs.The City of Boston
(and several police officers), in which a teenage Simon Gilk was arrested
after videotaping Boston Police abusing a homeless man. While Mr. Gilk was
not interfering with the police, he was arrested on wiretapping charges.
The ACLU had sued on his behalf, even when the charges were dropped,
noting that there was a growing epidemic of citizens in the United States
being arrested by police for videotaping, even when documenting police
brutality and abuse.
The First Court Agreed with the ACLU that this should be legal, and wrote
that: "The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a
public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities,
fits comfortably within these principles [of protected First Amendment
activity].
The Atlanta Police Department already avoided this problem
by settling a previous case and making a policy that citizens can video police.
This appeals court ruling
now says anybody can, nationwide, because of the First Amendment.
Why has this become an issue lately?
Continue reading "Boston catches up with Atlanta: you can video police" »
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