Rev. Peter Laarman: A safe society is first and foremost a just society. In that respect we have an awfully long way to go. Let’s not waste any more time.
School to Prison Pipeline
By
Anthony Samad: This new public discourse around the “school to prison pipeline” is not new at all. It was a predictable outcome of social control planning where the prison industrial complex started forecasting how many prison beds would be needed based on fourth grade test scores two decades ago.
Fixing California’s Mass Incarceration Mess
By
Dick Price: As California grapples with a prison system so broken that the U.S. Supreme Court has mandated reductions in the number of prisoners it holds, the three-part “Smart Justice: Rethinking Public Safety in California” discussion begun this past week is examining both consequences and possible solutions to the state’s mass incarceration mess.
Sheila Kuehl on Prop 30
By
Sheila Kuehl: The approach adopted by this measure is like holding a gun to your head and shouting “Stop me before I hurt somebody!”
Sister Giant: A New Age for Politics
By
Dick Price & Sharon Kyle: Marianne Williamson, the spiritual activist and best-selling author, plans to bring a new consciousness to politics with the two-day Sister Giant conference she is organizing for November 10 and 11.
Dollars and Detainees: Examining For-Profit Detention – August 15th
By
A recent report published by The Sentencing Project, Dollars and Detainees: The Growth of For-Profit Detention, details how harsher immigration enforcement and legislation led to a 59 percent increase in the number of detainees being held by the federal government between 2002 and 2011. It specifically examines how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the [...]
Stop and Frisk Policy Not Preventing Crime
By
Bruce Reilly: The NYPD is stopping more Black and Latino people than actually live in the city, harassing nearly 700,000 people last year alone.Statistics show that the more you Stop and Frisk, the less crime goes down.
Mass Incarceration: Points of Agreement on the Right and the Left
By
Diane Lefer: When a community sees daily injustice and doesn’t see the rule of law equally applied, it becomes morally and ethically easier to choose to live in a lawless way.
The Cooler Bandits: The New N-Word Is Felon
By
The Cooler Bandits follows four friends struggling to re-enter society after 20 years in prison, only to confront their future in the old neighborhood.
From Behind Bars to Law School
By
Bruce Reilly: I came to New Orleans knowing but a few criminal justice activists, legal professionals, and some friends of friends. It was good to have folks who knew I had spent twelve years locked in prison.
Blacks and Obama
By
Sharon Kyle: Even though blacks in America are suffering more than most during this economic crisis, they are least likely to complain that the Obama administration policies are not benefiting them.
Prison-Based Gerrymandering
By
Sharon Kyle: Prison-based gerrymandering may result in the loss of both federal dollars and political representation for struggling inner-city districts.
Our Fellow Felons
By
Hannah Petrie: Even though the rates of drug-dealing and drug-using occurs equally among different races – (think weed here) whites deal to whites, blacks deal to blacks, Hispanics to Hispanics – it’s the people of color who get busted. And once you’re labeled a felon – and denied access to employment, housing, and other rights — your chances of returning to a straight and normal life are extremely low. It is a system designed to keep felons felons.
Private Prisons Spend Millions to Put More People in Jail
By
Andrea Nill-Sanchez: In Arizona, 30 of the 36 legislators who co-sponsored the state’s controversial immigration law that would undoubtedly put more immigrants behind bars received campaign contributions from private prison lobbyists or companies.
America’s “Shoot ‘Em Up, Lock ‘Em Up” Mentality Is Its Undoing
By
David Love: The land of the free is home to only 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. And we spend more than all nations combined on “defense”. We are addicted to shooting em up or locking em up. But we can’t provide healthcare to all.
More Black Men in Prison Than Were Enslaved II
By
Prison Based Gerrymandering Vote ecently we ran a piece written by Dick Price entitled, “More Black Men Now in Prison System Than Were Enslaved“. Tens of thousands read it. Many left comments. The popularity of his article and the comments posted lead to this follow-up. The article Dick wrote was a recap of a talk [...]
Portantino Proposes Alternative to Early Release Prison Reform Efforts
By
Anthony Portantino: Assemblymember Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) has introduced legislation that shifts the prison reform debate from an early release and sentencing reform emphasis to stopping the revolving door at California’s prisons.
U.S. Native Prisoners of War
By
Jessie Daniels: My father identified as Native American. In his view, Native Americans had it “much worse” than black Americans and still do. I argue that rather than trying to rank order oppression and which group “had it worse,” it’s important that we see these as connected.
African-Americans Have Seven Times Greater Chance of Imprisonment
By
Sherwood Ross: It is far more likely that in the late twentieth century, in contrast to earlier time, patterns of discrimination reflect unconscious biases rather than blatant attempts to oppress African Americans.
Where Have All the Black Men Gone?
By
Michelle Alexander: They’re missing in churches, missing from their families, missing from college campuses, and absent from work. Black women can’t find a man to marry. Black children don’t know where to find their fathers. Where are those guys?
Stop Wasting Money on Executions
By
Capital Punishment is Too Expensive California remains on track to spend over $1 billion on the death penalty in the next five years, in the midst of the worst financial crisis in nearly a century. Incredibly, even as state officials announce that they must fill a deficit of $21.3 billion this year, and contemplate drastic [...]
Juvenile In/Justice and Proposition 6
By
It’s called the “Safe Neighborhoods Act.” Who could object to that? But Proposition 6 will require that more kids be tried as adults. It will classify more kids as gang-related felons, even if they are not gang members. For many, it will take away the possibility of early parole based on education, training, and good [...]
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
By
by John MacMurray — Before we begin, please keep the following numbers in mind: $7.00 and $10.00. Then hold onto 92 and 164. They all relate to public education, and we’ll explain them in a minute. By making public education the focal point of California’s ongoing budget mess, Republican legislators in California and other states [...]
The Great Writ Preserved
By
In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court gave the Bush administration a black eye in its controversial war-on-terrorism policies. The Court held that the Guantanamo detainees have a right to pursue habeas corpus challenges to their detention. The alternative procedures to habeas review crafted by the government under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, the [...]
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
The Ghost of Geronimo
Marcus Daniel: What’s most immediately stunning about the decision to call the mission to hunt down Bin Laden “Geronimo,” is its sheer stupidity and insensitivity. How could this happen? What fool suggested this code word?