PCARE

New Yorker article, "The Caging of America"

2012-01-24T23:08:00.001-05:00

Republican Presidential Candidates on Voting Rights for "Felons"

2012-01-21T15:48:00.003-05:00

During Monday night's republican presidential debate two of the candidates faced off on the issue of (former) prisoners voting rights.

Romney & Santorum clashed over whether or not those who have served their time are entitled to regain their voting privileges. While Santorum was for the restoration of voting rights, Romney, when pressed, stated that he did not believe past felons should be allowed to vote.

Romney was quoted as saying " "I don't think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote."

You can read the rest of the story and see the clip from the debate here.

More New Work

2012-01-11T13:47:00.001-05:00

This new chapter from Jennifer Asenas, PCARE member McCann, Kathleen Feyh, and Dana Cloud appeared in the most recent volume of the Communication Activism series. It details the authors' experience in Summer 2007 during a successful campaign to stop the execution of Texas death row inmate Kenneth Foster, Jr.

New Work from PCARE!

2012-01-10T16:15:00.002-05:00

Two exciting pieces of work from PCARE members are out as of a few weeks ago:

Captured Words/Free Thoughts - A poetry magazine published by Stephen Hartnett with contributions from incarcerated individuals from across the country.
"Turning Silence into Speech" - An article appearing in the most recent issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies co-authored by Hartnett, Jennifer Wood, and Bryan McCann.

Please read and share these pieces. Working with the incarcerated to share their stories and intervening in our own fields of study are crucial steps in challenging the prison-industrial complex.

The Random Horror of the Death Penalty

2012-01-08T11:51:00.001-05:00

The powerful title of this excellent New York Times editorial foreshadows what I believe is one of the best, most important articles about capital punishment I've read in some time:

The Supreme Court has not banned capital punishment, as it should, but it has long held that the death penalty is unconstitutional if randomly imposed on a handful of people. An important new study based on capital cases in Connecticut provides powerful evidence that death sentences are haphazardly meted out, with virtually no connection to the heinousness of the crime.

Militarizing the Police

2011-12-22T18:03:00.000-05:00

Recent confrontations between members of the Occupy Movement and municipal police have highlighted the sophistication of contemporary law enforcement weaponry. This recent Daily Beast article provides a horrifying dose of context. Since 2001, the federal government has poured billions of dollars into local police departments, furnishing them with military-grade arsenals justified by "the least likely terrorist scenarios." Not only does this program leave departments armed to the teeth, but also, apparently, encourages the worst kinds of militaristic fantasizing:

"A grainy YouTube video from one of Clark’s recent competitions shows just how far the police transformation has come, displaying officers in battle fatigues, helmets, and multi-pocketed vests storming a hostile scene. One with a pistol strapped to his hip swings a battering ram into a door. A colleague lobs a flash-bang grenade into a field. Another officer, holding a pistol and wearing a rifle strapped to his back, peeks cautiously inside a bus. The images unfold to the pulsing, ominous soundtrack of a popular videogame, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Though resembling soldiers in a far-flung war zone, the stars of this video are Massachusetts State Police troopers."

EC Joins Efforts to Block Lethal Injection Drugs

2011-12-21T09:15:00.001-05:00

Following Britain's lead, the European Commission has placed heavy restrictions on the sale of lethal injection drugs to American penitentiaries. This comes in the broader context both of a national shortage on key lethal injection drugs in the U.S., as well as an espoused desire by the European Union to see the death penalty abolished worldwide.

In addition to the obvious practical implications for executions in the U.S., I continue to wonder what impact this crisis will have on the rhetorical dynamics of capital punishment. Many abolitionists understandably worry that an emphasis on the method of execution simply leaves states scrambling for a more "humane" way to carry-out death sentences. However, this very scrambling may itself serve as a kind of "the Emperor has no clothes" moment when the state must actively account for the macabre corporeal deed they so often seek to sanitize.

Arrested by Twenty-Three

2011-12-19T16:39:00.000-05:00

Today's New York Times reports on a study finding nearly one third of Americans have been arrested by the time they reach twenty-three.

No Execution for Mumia

2011-12-07T18:18:00.001-05:00

A major development in what was once the most contested and high-profile capital case in the United States: Philadelphia prosecutors have decided they will no longer pursue the death penalty against Mumia Abu Jamal. Jamal has been on Pennsylvania's death row since 1982 for murdering a white Philadelphia police officer named Daniel Faulkner in 1981. He has always maintained his innocence. His case has been a catalyst not only for an international campaign to save his life, but also for broader movements against the death penalty, the prison-industrial complex, and other sites of economic and racial disparity. Efforts to save his life have always been met by equally, if not more aggressive campaigning by Faulkner's family and the Fraternal Order of Police to hasten his execution.

Jamal is a prolific activist and author in his own right.

More here.

Prisons and Immigrant Labor

2011-12-07T18:06:00.001-05:00

This past June, Alabama passed what is, by virtually all measures, the strictest immigration bill in the United States. While it was passed in the name of opening jobs for "native citizens," the law has had a disastrous impact on state agriculture--an industry disproportionately reliant on cheap, undocumented immigrant labor. As a solution, the Alabama Agriculture Department is considering using prisoners as a source of cheap, potential free labor.

Read more here.

Enlightenment Values, Violence, and the Status-Quo

2011-12-03T11:36:00.001-05:00

Critics of the prison-industrial complex, especially those versed in mass media and popular culture scholarship, must often reckon with the gross disparity between the violent world portrayed on television and movies, and the relative decline in violent crime over the past several decades. This review, appearing in The Hindu, of Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels of our Nature makes a valuable, brilliant argument about how we define violence and how that shapes even the most cosmopolitan notions about the world we live in. Here's an excerpt:

As Judith Butler puts it in Precarious Life, “To the extent that we commit violence, we are acting on another, putting the other at risk, causing the other damage, threatening to expunge the other.” Obviously, in societies where capital is what empowers, and states are committed to creating “wealth” by aiding capital, it is often not necessary or even desirable to opt for physical violence. Your boss needs to fire you, not to beat you up. The state needs to move those “tribals” out, so that their ancestral lands can be “developed.” Actually, it is you who — on being fired or “relocated” — might want to beat someone up, and would be rightly restrained by the police from doing so.

Pinker's book will be popular; it can be used to overlook or justify the violence of the status quo.

The Flaws of Eyewitness Testimony

2011-12-02T11:29:00.001-05:00

For several years now, experts have been commenting on the serious limitations of eyewitness testimony in criminal cases. The issue rose to national prominence following the recent execution of Troy Davis (see recent posts here and here). Here's an excellent article, rich with links, detailing just how flawed our eyes and memories can be.

Martina Correia, 1967-2011

2011-12-02T08:10:00.001-05:00

Readers of this blog will undoubtedly be familiar with the Troy Davis case. The State of Georgia executed Troy two months ago in spite of overwhelming evidence calling his murder conviction into question.

One of the reasons Troy's case was the the highly visible catalyst for mobilization it was the tireless involvement of his sister, Martina Correia. At the same time she was leading rallies, talking to journalists, and pursuing every other conceivable strategy to save her brother's life, Marina bravely fought her own breast cancer diagnosis. Eleven years ago, doctors told her she had six months to live. Succumbing yesterday, she survived long enough to pour every inch of herself into Troy's cause, as well as that of death penally abolition.

While I won't overstate my work with Martina, we attended a few meetings and conferences together, her presence in the anti-death penalty movement was palpable and inspiring. It still is. She is living proof that those most intimately connected to the structural violence of mass incarceration and state killing can, should, and indeed must lead the struggles for their abolition.

Race, State Violence, and the Occupy Movement

2011-11-27T11:43:00.001-05:00

Check out this recent article from San Francisco's Bay View newspaper. It's a challenging but important commentary on the strategies and communicative dynamics of the Occupy movement vis-a-vis law enforcement and violence.

The Case of Rodney Reed

2011-11-26T09:33:00.001-05:00

During the four years I lived in Austin, Texas and participated in the local anti-death penalty movement, one of the most troubling cases around which I organized was that of Rodney Reed. Consider this mise en scene: A black man (Rodney) convicted of raping and murdering the white fiancé (Stacey Stites) of a local white police officer (Jimmy Fennell) who is presently serving time for an unrelated rape/kidnapping conviction. The story that unfolds is every bit as provocative as this eerily familiar southern equation suggests. It is the ghost of Jim Crow on a stick; a Texas version of To Kill a Mockingbird.

You can learn more details about the Reed case from this excellent piece of investigative journalism from the Austin Chronicle. There's more concise information to be found at this activist website.

For everything unique about the Reed case, there are many more that are tragically familiar. Please take a moment to learn more about the case and sign this petition.

(If you have already signed a petition in the past for Rodney, please not that this one is a) NEW and b) part of an official national campaign around his case. In other words, please sign it!)

PCARE Meeting at NCA

2011-11-13T21:03:00.001-05:00

For those of you attending this week's National Communication Association National Convention in New Orleans, please attend our annual, largely informal, PCARE meeting!

Where: Sheraton Lobby
When: Friday, Nov 18, 5:00pm (NOTE: This is a change from the original posting, which incorrectly read 5:30pm)

We'll do our best to grab a comfortable and reasonably discreet spot. We'll also try to find a way to make ourselves visible to any newcomers.

See you there!

UN Investigatory Backs Ban on Solitary Confinement

2011-10-19T08:14:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, from the BBC:

"Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles," he said.

Execution in Oregon

2011-10-12T14:46:00.003-04:00

Gary Haugen is scheduled to be executed on December 6th. He will be the first man to be executed in the State of Oregon since 1997, when Harry Charles Moore abandoned his appeals. Gary was sentenced to the Oregon State Penitentiary almost 3o years ago, at the age of 19. He was sentenced to death a few years ago, after he and Jason Brumwell were convicted of murdering fellow inmate David Polin. He has abandoned his appeals voluntarily.

Voluntarily. What does "voluntary" mean in the U.S. prison system?
What sort of system do we have when "choice" is equated with "death"?
We spend $28,390 per year on each prisoner in the penitentiary. A 6 x 9 cell and diabetic diet of TV, anti-depressants, fried food, illegal drugs and gang culture is what most receive. Oh, and the exercise yard - that hour of outside air and light. Hardly rehabilitative.

No wonder Gary Haugen doesn't want to keep appealing. No wonder he doesn't want to go back to the general population. No wonder he doesn't want to live on death row any longer. No wonder.

Gary Haugen is a reminder of the work we all have to do:

the work of making prisons places where men and women who have a chance can find a way through the violence, fear, and victimage to hope and opportunity;
the work of standing by and standing up for children who need advocates (http://www.casaforchildren.org);
the work of dismantling the prison industrial complex and creating institutions that reflect our values and beliefs about human possibility;
the work of providing support and resources to victims and their families;
and the humble work of befriending.

Gary Haugen is giving up on this work while hoping to draw a little more attention to the need for it to continue. But many of us here, outside prison walls, are not so tired and defeated. We cannot give up.

Funeral Fund for Troy Davis

2011-09-25T13:00:00.000-04:00

Although the State of Georgia has yet to release his body, Troy Davis's family is solely bearing the burden of funeral expenses following his execution last Wednesday. If you are so inclined, you can make a donation via PayPal to help them cover these costs.

Troy Davis, Joe Hill, and the Politics of Mourning/Organizing

2011-09-22T10:27:00.000-04:00

As readers of this blog will undoubtedly know, the state of Georgia executed Troy Anthony Davis at 11:08 pm EST last night. His death is the tragic culmination of a massive grassroots campaign, led largely by Troy's family, committed to halting his execution. I won't belabor the details, but his case for innocence is positively overwhelming--so much so that as unlikely a figure as a former FBI director called for clemency.

Earlier in the evening yesterday, I attended a remarkable and inspiring event at the Reuther Library on Wayne State's campus. The Reuther is home to the nation's largest and most comprehensive archives on labor and urban studies. On this particular evening, Bill Adler led a discussion surrounding his new biography of IWW icon Joe Hill. Executed in 1915, Hill faced a Utah firing squad in spite of a virtually non-existent prosecutorial case against him. Adler dedicates a signifcant portion of his book to deconstructing the state's dubious claims, adding credence to the claim that Hill's was a political execution designed to silence his union activism with the IWW.

There are obvious differences between the Davis and Hill cases. Davis and his family only became politically active when his life was literally on the line, though they quickly came to recognize how their story was fundamentally linked to all the tragedies that unfold in the prison-industrial complex. Hill, on the other hand, remains the IWW's most important songwriter and, by most measures, patron saint. Both, however, are martyrs to a fundamentally broken criminal justice apparatus.

Troy Davis's case received unprecedented levels of international attention. If there is a silver lining in this dark cloud of state killing (or lynching), it lies in the possibility that death penalty abolitionists will orient their outrage and disappointment toward ending capital punishment. Such a hope is beautifully embodied in Joe Hill's "Last Will," written shortly before his execution:

My will is easy to decide,

For there is nothing to divide.

My kin don't need to fuss and moan--

"Moss does not cling to a rolling stone."

My body? Ah, if I could choose,

I would to ashes it reduce,

And let the merry breezes blow

My dust to where some flowers grow.

Perhaps some fading flower then

Would come to life and bloom again.

This is my last and final will,

Good luck to all of you.

Schools and Prisons

2011-09-08T12:28:00.002-04:00

My kids went back to school last week and this sparked some reflections on how lucky they are. The schools they attend are fairly well-funded, diverse, warm learning environments. Most of the children who attend these schools will go on to college, and they are treated from the start as creative, independent, valuable human beings by the staff and teachers.

This is not the case for a vast number of students across the country. Many schools, particularly those in urban or poverty-stricken areas, are run like prison training facilities, with rigid “zero-tolerance” policies, panopticon-like supervision, harsh “security” policies, and rote instruction meant only to prepare students for standardized tests or low-level service careers.

My kids are privileged. They are privileged by race and class, and one of them is privileged by virtue of gender. In their schools they are offered opportunities to explore their identities, and to become creative, thinking, agents. I feel so fortunate that my children will have these opportunities and that their schooling will be a positive, nurturing experience. But I also can’t help thinking about the millions of children who are trapped in the school to prison pipeline that Erica Meiners writes eloquently about in her book, The Right to Be Hostile: Schools, Prisons, and the Making of Public Enemies (Routledge, 2007).

I urge every parent/citizen to read Meiners’ expose. Whether your kids are lucky, like mine, or trapped in the type of oppressive environments that Meiners analyzes, her revelations will enrage you, and, just possibly, spur you to take action to transform the way we are “educating” millions of students.

Arizona DOC's New Fundraising Gambit

2011-09-05T11:18:00.000-04:00

We must always be attentive to the financial aspects of incarceration, on both the institutional and personal registers. Over the next few months, I am going to be sharing a series of posts about prison and political economies, on topics including the trend to privatization, prisoners’ labor, and the rhetorical pitfalls and possibilities of using economic rationales to advocate for prison and legal reforms.

Miles, guards, and cell doors aren’t the only barriers separating people who are incarcerated from their families and friends. The cost of visiting—whether wages lost by taking off work, or the price of travel—can be prohibitive for many.

Arizona has just added to the financial toll by instituting a $25 “background check fee” for anyone over 18 who wants to visit someone incarcerated in the state. (The New York Times article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/us/05prison.html?_r=1&ref=us)

To summarize, the state passed legislation allowing the Department of Corrections to issue this charge (and to charge a 1% fee on money deposited into prisoners’ spending accounts). The DOC requires visitors to pay the $25 via Western Union or to send a money order, and when payment is made the applications for visitation will be processed. The DOC is authorized to charge the fee one time per visitor.

These “background check fees” aren’t for background checks. All visitors already had to provide personal identification information, and Arizona’s Department of Public Safety already offers free background checks for people who submit their fingerprints. The fees are a ‘creative’ way to raise funds for prison maintenance and repairs. The state of Arizona has a $1.6 billion budget deficit this year, and according to Wendy Baldo, chief of staff for the state Senate, the DOC “needs about $150 million” that the state can’t provide.

The Times reports that an Arizona prison advocacy group called Middle Ground Prison Reform (www.middlegroundprisonreform.org) has filed suit against the DOC on the grounds that this fee is tantamount to a discriminatory tax on a single group, because it’s intended generate revenue “for general public purposes” but only takes money from people who are directly impacted by incarceration.

Barrett Marson, an AZDOC spokesman, claims that “no complaints [about the fees] have been reported from inmates.” Marson also claims that the fee “helps to ensure our prisons remain safe environments for staff, inmates, and visitors.” There are two important rhetorical themes that frequently recurr in discourse about prisons evident in Marson’s comments: silence and safety.

Construing the absence of complaints as an indicator of acceptance, or even endorsement, is a false and misleading supposition. It glosses over the ways in which prisons actively silence the people who are held within—the implicit threat of retribution for complaints is real, and the lack of access to communication channels is real. (Bryan recently posted about Facebook’s decision to shut down inmates’ pages, and this Times article about the Arizona fees does not feature any prisoners’ voices.) “They aren’t complaining” is not an acceptable justification for imposing yet another hardship upon incarcerated people and their families and friends.

And the operational definition of “safety” that Marson uses entails containment, separation, and control. This is a rhetorical attempt to obscure the harm done to incarcerated individuals, their loved ones, the communities they are part of, and the nation as a whole by the American prison industrial complex. Marson’s remark exemplifies the idea that the condition of safety will be derived from an updated, enlarged building of cells.

A more moral and inclusive definition of safety recognizes that the condition could result from a more merciful and flexible code of drug laws, action to quell institutionalized racism in policing and sentencing, and more community integration and support for people who break the law. As David C. Fathi, the director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, remarks in this Times article, “We know that one of the best things you can do if you want people to go straight and lead a law-abiding life when they get out of prison is to continue family contact while they’re in prison.” Making visitation harder by imposing fees like the one in Arizona is not a viable strategy for pursuing “safety.”

Middle Ground reports that this fee appears to be the first of its kind anywhere in the U.S., but given the number of states suffering from budget shortfalls and the high financial cost of incarceration, I don’t think it will be the last. As a community of activists and educators, we cannot afford be silent about such issues.

Please consider writing to the Arizona DOC and making a complaint about the fee. The Media Relations office for the AZDOC can be reached at media@azcorrections.gov and the director’s name is Charles L. Ryan.

Please consider supporting Middle Ground Prison Reform in their lawsuit against the DOC. You can join the organization or make a contribution by visiting this page: http://www.middlegroundprisonreform.org/join/index.html
Director Donna Leone Hamm can be reached here: middlegroundprisonreform@msn.com

2011-09-03T18:30:00.000-04:00

The new issue of Peace Review (volume 23, issue 3) is dedicated to prison issues and social justice. It includes articles by Helen Codd, Laura Magnani, Bonnie Kerness of the American Friends Service Committee, and, um, me. My article, "The Alternatives to Violence Project's Work for Peace Behind Bars," talks about the AVP organization's work in transforming conflict and my own experiences with it. It can be found here.

West Memphis Three

2011-08-19T13:23:00.003-04:00

Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the case of the West Memphis Three, most popularly represented in the Paradise Lost documentaries. The defendants apparently worked out a deal with prosecutors to enter a new plea of guilty, receive 18-year sentences, and be released for time served since their convictions. As CNN reports, this arrangement leaves individuals on both sides of the controversy unhappy.

Facebook Cooperating with Prisons

2011-08-18T13:09:00.002-04:00

The past several years have seen a great deal of moral panic surrounding prisoner access to illicit cell phones and/or social networking sites (by proxy). Cell phones, prison administrators argue, are used to coordinate crimes on the outside or escapes from the inside, whereas MySpace and Facebook pages enable the incarcerated to stalk their victims. As a response, Facebook recently agreed to work with California prison officials to dismantle inmates' pages.

In my experience, social networking has been a vital mechanism for opening the closed world of prisons to public scrutiny. Not only do sites like Facebook allow inmates to communicate about prison conditions, but can also function as mechanisms for organizing around individual cases. For example, in 2007, I was part of a large scale campaign that successfully halted an execution in Texas; social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube were indispensable organizing tools.

Incarcerated activist, author, and Facebook member Kenneth E. Hartman puts Facebook's recent gesture in a chilling historical context:

For the past quarter of a century, the playbook has been simple, direct, and frighteningly successful. Play the fear card, mention the word "victim," and shut down rational debate. It's unclear to me how anyone could "stalk their victims" through Facebook. This is a perfect example of dragging a particularly stinky red herring across the trail, something prison bureaucrats are wont to do.

I don't want to naively suggest that social media are never used to harm others; however, such tools are also capable of empowering public scrutiny of the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the very social networking site that is so widely credited with advancing the cause of revolution in Northern Africa and the Middle East is now complicit in closing public access to a human rights catastrophe on its own turf.

Drugs and Child Neglect

2011-08-18T08:45:00.003-04:00

The New York Times ran this important article today, highlighting the relationship between minor drug arrests and child neglect cases:

For these parents, the child welfare system has become an alternate system of justice, with legal standards on marijuana that appear to be tougher than those of criminal courts or, to some extent, of society at large.

This phenomenon also appears to have a pronounced racial dynamic, suggesting more entrenched assumptions about race and parenthood may be at play:

Over all, the rate of marijuana use among whites is twice as high as among blacks and Hispanics in the city, the data show, but defense lawyers said these cases were rarely if ever filed against white parents.

Atlantic article: The Brain on Trial

2011-08-10T16:22:00.003-04:00

Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience suggest the need to question assumptions about volition and "free will" in many criminal cases, and seems to support the idea of "customized sentencing" as well as medical intervention for some prisoners. I can't help wondering what Foucault would say about these conclusions!

Convictions in New Orleans Police Bridge Shooting Case

2011-08-06T08:58:00.002-04:00

A federal jury has convicted five current and former New Orleans police officers for opening fire on unarmed residents amid the chaos following Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times describes the horrifying scene back in 2005:

Several of the officers then chased Ronald and Lance Madison, two brothers, to the other side of the bridge, where Mr. Faulcon shot Ronald, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, in the back. Sergeant Bowen was convicted of stomping him on the back as he lay dying.

Much of the officers' defense relied on a familiar refrain regarding police violence: officers should not be punished for their instincts under such dire circumstances. Louisiana U.S. Attorney Jim Letten claimed the exact opposite is true, stating, “Who can we count on when our society is threatened... If we can’t depend on [the police], who can we depend on?”

Alternatives to Violence Project on NPR

2011-08-06T06:46:00.000-04:00

Peace Talks Radio, the anchor program of Good Radio Shows, Inc., recently devoted a one-hour program to the Alternatives to Violence Project. The segment features interviews with former inmates James Alexander and Carl Irons, and with Pat Hardy, director of AVP California. The program will be sent to more than 150 affiliate radio stations throughout the country (the station list is at http://www.goodradioshows.org/stations.htm).

The Alternatives to Violence Project is a volunteer organization that offers workshops on conflict transformation and nonviolence in prisons and conflict zones across the US and around the world. In AVP workshops, civilians and incarcerated people learn together.

For more on this organization, read Wendy Jason's excellent piece (in which I am quoted) for Change.org:
http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/the_alternatives_to_violence_project_a_path_towards_peace

Reflections on Norway

2011-08-04T15:26:00.000-04:00

As Bryan's most recent post explains, Norway is continuing to make international headlines not only for the tragic circumstances surrounding the loss of innocent lives but also for their "unconventional" approach to incarceration.

I have been fortunate enough to spend time in prisons both in the US and Norway. The differences couldn't be any more pronounced. The contrasts are numerous. Below, I articulate my perceptions of the three most distinct differences.

Appearance
In the US I had to drive for miles down long dusty roads before even reaching the prison grounds. The prisons were typically "out of sight out of mind." In Norway, the feel was very different. The prison I visited was nestled in this lovely little neighborhood. I noticed children riding their bikes by the prison as we entered. The level of fear that is palpable in the US simply wasn't present in Norway.

Inside the experiences continued to differ. In the US I walked through a metal detector, removed my shoes, and had to leave my keys and cell phone in a locker. The inside of the prisons had 100 year old barred cells or newer cement block rooms. In Norway, the prison staff (and the people in general) were not suspicious. They believed that we as researchers had no intention to manipulate or harm any one. The cells felt like college dorm rooms. They were private spaces for the incarcerated individuals to get away from everyone else in the prison. They each papered their walls with personal items (pictures, posters, etc). They had private showers. They were allowed to wear their own clothes. These perks are not allowed in the US prison system. As one correctional officer explained, Norwegians don't strip prisoners of their identities.

Attitude
The attitudes regarding incarceration and the prison system are starkly different. In Norway, being a correctional officer is a highly respected, sought after, and desirable profession. The job does not come with the stigma so often associated with COs here in the US. I would guess that part of the reason for the difference is that Norwegians don't see incarcerated individuals as distinctly different from themselves. They simply view people as people. In fact, several correctional officers in Norway emphasized that prisoners were people just like them, but they had made some mistakes. The social hierarchy that exists in many other cultures is far more muted in Norwegian society. In the words of one Norwegian prison employee, "just because someone has made a bad choice does not make him a bad person."

Aims
Simply put~ most US prisons are designed for punishment whereas Norwegian prisons seek to rehabilitate inmates.

Notably, there are prisons in the US that have a strong focus on rehabilitation (e.g., One private prison I visited in TX focused on behavior modification). However, these facilities are not in the majority.

In Norway, however, most of the programs offer various types of drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs. Additionally, prisoners live relatively "normal" lives. They are arguably more prepared to succeed on the outside since they are not completely isolated from the "world" while incarcerated. Many inmates are even allowed to go on "vacation" from prison (or furlough). They take unmonitored leave from prison to visit family and return after their time (usually a week) is up. This article highlights some of the other benefits afforded prisoners in Norwegian prisons. I personally did not encounter a rock wall, but many of the other examples were true to my own experience.

This post is full of personal reflections based on my research experiences. Overall, I truly believe that the Norwegians are doing something right, and I would certainly argue that we can learn something from them.

Norway's "Soft on Crime" Policies

2011-08-02T20:30:00.002-04:00

We're about two weeks removed from Anders Breivik's shocking wave of violence in Norway. Understandably, public discourse surrounding the bombing in Oslo and mass shooting at a Labor Party youth camp has been widespread and diverse. Many have speculated that Breivik's massacre--executed in pursuance of an extreme right-wing, Christian fundamentalist, anti-Islamic agenda--is symptomatic of a broader rise of nationalist right in Europe. Others, incredulously, have used the mass killings as an opportunity to advance precisely the kinds of xenophobic nonsense that motivated Breivik on his rampage.

Of interest to readers of this blog will be another trajectory of thought; several news outlets have suggested that Breivik's horrific crimes will prompt Norway to reappraise its "tolerant" criminal justice system. Norway, unlike the United States, approaches crime with an emphasis on rehabilitation (a concept the U.S. has all but abandoned in its prisons). The nation's facilities generally have no bars on their windows, resemble college dormitories more than traditional prisons, and are staffed by well-trained individuals responsible not just for keeping order, but for fostering productive relationships with the incarcerated. Indeed, this is the polar opposite of a culture reared on America's Most Wanted, Willie Horton, and other spectacular "tough on crime" discourses. Furthermore, a "life" sentence in Norway is, on average, 21 years; meaning Breivik will almost certainly not die in prison.

Few honest observers would argue that the American model is superior to Norways. While the U.S. rate of recidivism, or repeat offenses, falls somewhere between 50 and 60 percent, Norway's is a mere 20 percent. Nordic crime rates, though increasing in recent years, remain much lower than ours.

Nonetheless, western media outlets appear to be turning Norway's tragedy back on itself; surely, a nation that treats its criminals so leniently will take a second look at their policies in the wake of the horrors of July 22. One can only hope that Norway's own grace under tragedy, manifested in its leaders' and publics' determination to uphold their tradition of law and order, might function as an object lesson for a nation whose staggering prison population (the largest in the world) has resulted in prison system at war with itself.

Statement by Mumia Abu Jamal on the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike

2011-07-22T22:50:00.002-04:00

"Dying For Sunlight" (Pelican Bay Hunger Strike)

Recorded 7-17-11

Today, at the notorious California super-maximum prison, Pelican Bay, hundreds of prisoners are on a hunger strike. As of July 1, 2011 a number of men ceased eating state meals in protest of horrendously long-term confinement, government repression, lack of programs and the hated gang affiliation rules.

According to California Prison Focus, the health of some the men are dangerously deteriorating. Some have ceased drinking, as well as eating and haven’t urinated in days. Some are threatened by renal failure, which can result in death.

Why? The demands of the strikers seem relatively tame, which gives us some insight into the level of repression. The five core demands are:

1. Individual instead of group responsibility.
2. Abolition of the “gang-debriefing” policy, which endangers both those who debrief and/or their families.
3. An end to long-term solitary confinement.
4. Adequate food, and
5. Constructive programs, such as art, phone privileges and the like.

A sub-demand is adequate natural sunlight – sunlight. There are few things more torturous than dying by starvation. These men are killing themselves potentially for fresh air and sunlight, and about a third of California prisoners, 11 out of 33 prisons, have joined them.

Contact the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition to find out how to support this effort for human rights. On the web at: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com

From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu Jamal.

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

http://www.prisonradio.org/7-17-11DyingForSunlight.html

Petition: Pelican Bay hunger strike protesting solitary confinement

2011-07-20T21:13:00.000-04:00

I'd like to pass along a message from the National Religious Coalition Against Torture:

For nearly three weeks, prisoners in California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have waged a hunger strike to protest their conditions of confinement including long-term solitary confinement. They have been joined by prisoners from a dozen other California prisons. Many of these prisoners are held in long-term solitary confinement which is a form of torture. So far, state officials have not taken action to address the prisoners’ concerns about abusive treatment.

While the hunger strike is focused on the treatment of prisoners in California, inhumane conditions exist in prisons and jails across the country. In particular, tens of thousands of prisoners are held in prolonged solitary confinement – a situation which can cause long-term physical and psychological damage to prisoners.

Call for an end to the use of prolonged solitary confinement.

Please add your voice to the chorus of people of faith who are calling for a change in the treatment of prisoners. NRCAT has produced a new statement asking federal and state governments to end the use of prolonged solitary confinement. We are distributing this statement to people in all 50 states, with plans to deliver the list of endorsements to governors, state legislators, and prison officials as an appeal to improve the treatment of prisoners in all 50 states. Please sign the statement today!

Let's work to end the inhumane and barbaric use of prolonged solitary confinement.

Sign the petition at:

Visit the NRCAT website:
http://www.nrcat.org/

Prison Conditions and Inmate Resistance

2011-07-17T14:03:00.004-04:00

Two important stories on troubling prison conditions and inmate efforts to change them:

First, in Jamaica, HIV-positive prisoners are speaking out against what they describe has horrific conditions. One anonymous prisoner states, "If the doctor said allow him [the inmate's] parents or family or whoever to bring him fruits, or food, or whatever,whichever thing his system can contain, they don't approve it. The superintendent and the people that are in high place constantly try to turn it down."

Meanwhile, prisoners at the Bay Area "supermax" Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit are staging a hunger strike to protest living conditions in the facility. Yesterday, the hunger strikers rejected a proposal from the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.

Tennis at San Quentin

2011-07-11T08:35:00.002-04:00

So often the media focuses on negative stories of incarcerated individuals. We hear about prison riots, smuggling of contraband, and the occasional escape. We rarely, however, hear about some of the positive things that go on behind the bars.

Sports Illustrated recently ran a story about the tennis team at San Quentin State Prison. The author of the article, Marc Howard, went to San Quentin to play with and alongside the inmates.

My favorite quote in the article...
"Playing tennis in the notorious San Quentin sounds oxymoronic. But within the confines of a tennis court, these men are learning to play inside the lines. And tennis may be giving some of them the hope of finding a new direction in their lives."

I think one reason I appreciated this article was that the author didn't just end there. Instead, he took the time to write about the individuals on the tennis team. He acknowledge their skills and abilities. He didn't simply group them together and call them inmates or prisoners. He talked about them as people. Flawed people, but people.

Click here to read more.

On Mental Competency

2011-07-08T12:03:00.003-04:00

Gary Haugen waived his further appeals, thus “volunteering for execution” by the State of Oregon. Gary has been in Oregon’s State Pen since he was about 19 years old and was sentenced to death with a co-defendant for the murder of inmate David Polin in 2007.

Now graying slightly and facing the prospects of spending his 50^th birthday on Death Row next spring, having recently lost loved ones and family members, Gary has had his execution postponed by a State Supreme Court. The Court ordered a mental competency hearing and reinstatement of the legal advisors Gary had dismissed before Judge Guimond issued the execution order last month.

Gary Haugen is seeking execution. There are many people (they blog, too) who applaud the swift application of death as justice. As an abolitionist who would rather have a world in which people get a chance, where we work hard and do the little things we can to give people good chances, I don’t want to see Gary Haugen – or any inmate – executed.

At the same time, knowing Gary has made me acutely aware of the ways in which prison so often contributes to, rather than mitigates against, criminality. Death Row is toxic in other ways. Both strike me as the kind of place in which it is tough to be mentally competent. And it is hard to know how someone would be different if you’ve only even known them depressed or anti-depressed, dis-illusioned or delusional, living in a cage in one of the cloudiest, rainiest, and most hopeless cities in the U.S. What passes for mental competency on Death Row? I can’t help thinking of the pacified and passive men released from Nurse Ratchett’s ward in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Gary has given reasons for abandoning his appeals. Some are marked by a sense of grandeur, others are practical and purposive. From news articles and our correspondence, I think there are many reasons, including:

· A desire to call attention to the politics of the death penalty;

· A need to feel he’s done something meaningful;

· An effort to publicize the injustices and hypocrisies of the criminal justice system;

· A recognition of the suffering his existence causes to his victims’ loved ones;

· A sense of guilt and remorse;

· A fear of his own anger and hopelessness;

· A need to be seen as noble;

· An unwillingness to do the hard work of transformation;

· A difficult environment and fatalistic worldview.

So we await the results of the hearing and I cross out the words that seem obscene in my calendar: “Gary’s last weekend,” “Gary’s execution” and consider the re-writing. And then I think of the young woman whose husband is gone forever, who hears the same radio story I do, but differently.

Sister Helen Prejean reminds us of the importance of reaching out to victims, too. But I’m not sure how to do that – for it also seems obscene to ask the widow of my friend’s (alleged) murder victim to “friend” me on facebook. It occurs to me that our introduction may be on the occasion of Gary’s execution.

The prison-industrial complex in Hawaii

2011-06-28T12:16:00.003-04:00

Hawaii has long shipped its prisoners overseas to privately owned mainland facilities. This is particularly problematic for members of Hawaii's native islander population, who often live under crushing poverty and cannot afford to visit loved ones behind bars.

Taking steps to further implement this problematic policy, Hawaii has signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Corrections Corporation of America to house inmates in Arizona. Prison scholars and activists should be on the lookout for other states, based on financial hardship, to similarly outsource incarceration.

Going to prison for healthcare

2011-06-24T08:53:00.002-04:00

A North Carolina man robbed a bank for $1 in order to be arrested and sentenced to prison. His rationale? He felt it was the only way he could secure medical treatment for a variety of health issues. This is a fascinating and heartbreaking demonstration of the complex role the prison plays in the broader circuitries of civil society.

Jimmy Carter on the Global Drug War

2011-06-19T08:44:00.002-04:00

Check out this New York Times editorial by former President Jimmy Carter, in which he calls for a radical transformation in the way America deals with drugs.

The latest in the Protess case

2011-06-19T07:40:00.004-04:00

The legal and academic drama continues surrounding David Protess, former director of the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University. The work of Protess and his journalism students was instrumental in several exonerations in Illinois, including several death penalty cases. These exonerations, in turn, helped motivate then-Illinois Governor George Ryan to empty that state's death row in 2003. Whereas Protess's accusers claim they are defending the integrity of the academy and legal system, the now-retired journalism professor insists he is the victim of a politically-motivated witch hunt.

Yes Magazine - Beyond Prisons issue

2011-06-15T17:19:00.000-04:00

The current issue of Yes Magazine is available online and its focus is "Beyond Prisons." It contains articles on restorative justice, re-entry, arts, and many other interesting items. Find it here: http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/beyond-prisons

Protest and the signifiers of criminality

2011-06-09T08:53:00.002-04:00

For my money, one of the best blogs chronicling the so-called Arab Spring is 3Arabawy. This brief entry documents activists' response Egyptian officials' attempts to brand protestors as "criminals" and "thugs." Cairo's military government, of course, is not the first regime to re-cast grassroots activists as criminal threats in need of policing.

Blackwater takes suburbia?

2011-06-06T07:06:00.002-04:00

Just spotted this story in my local paper. A once-affluent neighborhood currently sustaining a sharp increase in crime has hired its own military-style security firm to patrol the streets in Hummers. The write-up is a borderline puff piece, ignoring the wide-ranging implications of militarizing suburbia.

Prison in Venezuela

2011-06-04T09:31:00.002-04:00

This is a positively fascinating article from yesterday's New York Times. It profiles a prison in Porlamar, Venezuela where inmates, by many measures, run the show. In one respect, the facility is a den of hedonism that promotes precisely the kinds of practices that led these men and women (who have plutonic and romantic contact with each other) to be incarcerated in the first place. On the other hand, the facility is significantly safer and more tranquil than others in the Latin American country. It would be interesting to see some recidivism figures.

Interesting book!

2011-05-29T16:16:00.000-04:00

Also at the AVP national conference, the keynote speaker was Laura Magnani of the American Friends Service Committee. Magnani is the coauthor of a book titled, "Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System," written with Harmon L. Wray. The book critiques the current prison system, traces the history of the penal system, offers strong ethical and moral assessments of it, and lays out a new paradigm of criminal justice based on restorative justice and reconciliation. The authors put forward a 12-point plan for change and invoke our responsibilities as citizens and as a nation to provide remediation rather than mere retributive incarceration, answerable to the common good and the justice of God. Speaking purely for myself, and with apologuies to my agnostic or athiest friends, I am increasingly finding a spiritual imperative in our prison work, so was delighted to encounter this book. (Also, I think such work can help those of us on the left to dialogue productively with our possible allies on the right who are also active in prison work...)

The Poetic Justice Project

2011-05-29T00:30:00.000-04:00

I'm at the annual national conference of the Alternatives to Violence Project in San Francisco. AVP is a wonderful volunteer organization that offers workshops in nonviolence in prisons and communities around the US and 50 nations. Tonight's entertainment was a terrific performance of "Off the Hook," a play about prison violence presented by actors of the Poetic Justice Project, a collaboration of formerly incarcerated writers, artists, musicians and actors. Tonight's play was written by Deborah Tobola with music by Shawn Collins. It was fantastic! Though many AVP members have been volunteering in prisons for years, it was still a revelation. But even better, in my opinion, is the fact that Poetic Justice performs in high schools and community settings and they are raising consciousness everywhere they go. Check them out!

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Three-Judge Ruling on California Prisons

2011-05-23T11:38:00.002-04:00

In 2009, a federal three-judge panel ordered California to dramatically reduce its prison population, citing that the nation's most expensive and overcrowded system had swelled to constitutionally dubious proportions. Unsurprisingly, the Golden State's government challenged the ruling all the way to the nation's highest court. Today, the justices, in a 5-4 ruling, upheld the ruling.

Craig Haney on Prison Reform

2011-05-22T19:03:00.002-04:00

Craig Haney, who conducted the legendary Stanford Prison Experiment, co-authored this article arguing for local control of prisons in California.

New Book on Central Park Jogger Case

2011-05-21T11:39:00.003-04:00

In 1989, five young men of color were tried and convicted of the brutal rape of a young white investment banker. The case sparked a profound wave of racialized hysteria, including full-page newspaper advertisements--financed by none other than Donald Trump--calling for the execution of the five suspects. In 2002, after another man confessed to acting alone in the attack, the state vacated the original convictions. This new book, written by Sarah Burns, details how the "same racist language that had been used to justify lynchings earlier in the century" helped create a climate of fear and irrationality around this case.

This Week in Civil Liberties

2011-05-17T11:55:00.002-04:00

Two troubling reports on the civil liberties front this week...

First, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, just ruled that police may forcefully enter a residence without a warrant based on "exigent circumstances" such as the smell of marijuana or the probably sound of folks destroying evidence. The Kentucky Supreme Court had earlier decided in favor of the defendants, arguing that the police created the exigent circumstance when they knocked on the door. Justice Ginsburg was the lone dissent.

At the state level, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that citizens have no constitutional right to resist unlawful (i.e. warrantless) entries by law enforcement. Critics argue that the 3-2 decision undermines a legal principle as old as the Magna Carta.

The Demise of Habeas Corpus?

2011-05-16T16:59:00.002-04:00

This article, written by three Cornell law professors, just appeared in the National Law Review. It reviews the disastrous consequences of the Clinton-era Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and warns against recent budget-driven arguments in favor of further curtailing habeas rights.

In the news...

2011-05-16T10:10:00.003-04:00

The struggle against the prison-industrial complex is often fraught with ambivalent avenues toward social change. Two recent articles speak to such tensions:

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (check out Megan Bernard's recent review on this blog), offers this powerful and challenging editorial on what she calls the "human rights nightmare" of mass incarceration. She argues that recent pushes toward reform, while encouraging in some ways, are also problematic because "the changing tide is best explained by perceived white interests." Drawing on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s iconic "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Alexander insists that such pragmatic paths toward reform too often come at the expense of broader, more principled movements for social change.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the State Senate has approved a bill that gives the Texas Forensic Science Commission broader investigative powers. This commission has carried special importance in recent years following several credible studies claiming that the conviction and 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for murdering his three children was founded on junk forensic science. Critics of this new legislation fear that it will allow Governor Rick Perry to block public scrutiny into this and other cases. While the bill grants greater powers to the commission, it also gives Perry complete control over appointments and closes public access to open investigations. In light of claims that the Governor has made many attempts to undermine inquiries that might exonerate Willingham, who was executed on Perry's watch, there is strong reason to believe that this silver lining contains a very dark cloud.

Former San Quentin Warden Turned Death Penalty Abolitionist

2011-05-12T12:40:00.000-04:00

Check out this fascinating and informative Los Angeles Times profile of Jeanne Woodford. She presided over four executions in her capacity as San Quentin's warden, but will now direct Death Penalty Focus, a California-based abolitionist organization.

While the appeal of someone like Woodford joining the anti-death penalty cause is obvious, it also raises some important questions. Last year, several prominent abolitionists signed an open letter to the World Congress Against the Death Penalty, encouraging the organization to mute its vocal support for Pennsylvania death row inmate and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal. Their rational? Supporting Abu Jamal jeopardized their attempts to cultivate relationships with conservative, mostly pro-death penalty organizations like the Fraternal Order of Police. Because Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering a Philadelphia police officer, a crime which many individuals believe he did not commit, the FOP has been outspoken for three decades in their desire to see Abu-Jamal put to death. By abandoning Abu-Jamal, these abolitionists wager, they stand a better chance of turning these organizations away from endorsing capital punishment on pragmatic grounds like cost, innocence, etc.

Thus, the courting of law enforcement by the anti-death penalty movement may represent a double-edged sword. On one hand, such counterintuitive support from a community with generally high public credibility is certainly appealing. However, at what cost to our movement's principles do we seek such alliances?

New Yorker article on death penalty mediator

2011-05-11T14:18:00.000-04:00

In the May 9, 2011 issue of the New Yorker, an article by Jefrrey Toobin discusses the work of Danalynn Recer of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center and the use of mitigation in death-penalty cases.

"The idea (is) to use the mitigation process to tell the life story of the defendant in a way that explain(s) the conduct that brought him into court. The work (is) closer to biography than criminal investigation, and it (has) led to the creation of a new position in the legal world: mitigation specialist." The article tells about Danalynn Recer’s work with Clive Stafford Smith and discusses the use of mitigation in the death-penalty cases of Scott Thibodeaux and Juan Quintero

I'm not sure how long the link will persist, but right now (5/11) you can find the article at:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/09/110509fa_fact_toobin

New book: Razor Wire Women

2011-05-11T10:16:00.000-04:00

"Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars, and Artists" is just out from SUNY Press, edited by Ashley Lucas and Jodie Michelle Lawston. In her review of the book, Erica R. Meiners, author of Right to Be Hostile: Schools, Prisons, and the Making of Public Enemies, says: “Jodie Michelle Lawston and Ashley E. Lucas have created a powerful call to action, a reminder that resistance is not futile. With powerful images, testimony, intersectional theorizing, and examples of educational and visual organizing, Razor Wire Women offers essential readings for organizers and scholars—both inside and outside of women’s prisons and detention centers. This is a central read for courses in women’s and gender studies, justice, and sociology, and for all invested in interrupting our nation’s expanding carceral nation.”

(In the interests of full disclosure, I have a chapter in the book about the journalism created by incarcerated women.)

The book can be found on Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/Razor-Wire-Women-Prisoners-Criminology/dp/1438435312

The authors have started a web page to promote the book and to encourage the conversations of prisoners, activists, scholars, and artists that began in the book. It is fairly new, but already has some great info and links and can be found at:

http://razorwirewomen.wordpress.com/

Educating Against the PIC

2011-05-09T09:40:00.000-04:00

I want to take a moment to draw your attention to an impressive group of activists, scholars, and educators fighting against the injustices of US's carceral system.

The Chicago PIC Teaching Collective (http://chicagopiccollective.com/) is working to spread knowledge of the Prison Industrial Complex more widely, and creating very helpful resources for educating folks about the crisis of prisons. Sharing information about how the system and its institutions function is a crucial step in exposing prisons as problems and this Collective's tools for outreach and illumination are a valuable part of that project.

The Chicago PIC Teaching Collective has just debuted a zine-- available for (free) download as a pdf on their website-- called "The PIC Is." Designed and illustrated by Billy Dee, the zine is being underwritten in part by the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. Take a look here:
http://chicagopiccollective.com/2011/05/05/introducing-the-pic-is-zine-an-illustrated-exploration/

I encourage you to visit their site, browse their resources, and find a way to use this zine in your prison-related teaching. The work that the Chicago PIC Teaching Collective has undertaken is important and inspiring- please support them in any way you can!

New Prison Film to Debut in Chicago

2011-04-28T12:31:00.002-04:00

To folks in or around the Chicago area, this new documentary, Exile Nation, looks powerful and fascinating. Check out this short Chicago Tribune article on the film. Also, here's the trailer:

Sex Workers and Victimization

2011-04-21T12:27:00.002-04:00

I just read this powerful article from the American Prospect. Reflecting both on the recent murders of four prostitutes in Long Island, as well as the notorious "Green River Killer," the author argues that our culture of stigma surrounding sex work renders those citizens who practice it uniquely vulnerable to violence. Not only are sex workers more likely to find themselves in dangerous situations, but law enforcement routinely neglects cases such as the one currently taking place in Long Island. The author advocates a broad reevaluation of how our culture operates at the nexus of sex, violence, and economics.

Media Reform, Media Justice, and the Prison-Industrial Complex

2011-04-11T13:55:00.001-04:00

I just returned from the National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) that was held in Boston this past weekend. It was a busy three days and I’m tired but inspired.

As I have argued elsewhere, media issues should be considered central for all activists working against the prison- industrial complex. There is a strong connection between the prevalence of media messages of fear and the public’s acceptance of mass incarceration in the U.S., and I believe it will be impossible to effect any real change in the criminal injustice system until and unless we change the media discourse around race, poverty, crime, and violence.

The NCMR brought together over 2500 activists, educators, writers, artists, filmmakers, and citizens inspired by the conference slogan: Change the Media, Change the World. Sponsored by the non-profit organization Free Press (http://www.freepress.net/), the NCMR is held periodically on an irregular schedule and I always find it invigorating and energizing. It is absolutely crucial for dissident movements to establish a sense of community so that individual activists can fight the feelings of isolation and marginalization that often plague those whose opinions and ideas are ignored or ridiculed in the mainstream culture.

The NCMR is by no means a radical utopia (I was particularly displeased by the inclusion of Nancy Pelosi as a featured speaker), but it always offers many inspiring moments, such as the speech by Malkia Cyril (http://conference.freepress.net/presenter/155/malkia-cyril) who emphasized the need for a deep connection between the media reform movement and the fight for media justice. For me, the term media justice invokes the battle against degrading images of people of color and the poor and working classes that continue to infest commercial media while serving to distract us from the real crimes promulgated by America’s corporations and their lackeys in the U.S. government.

“Divide and conquer” is an ancient strategy that the powerful still employ as an effective means of social control, and our media saturated society allows for more propaganda tools than ever before. But the NCMR reminded me that “divide and conquer” can be met by “organize and unite,” and that the fight for social justice has not been entirely lost yet.

To find out more about the National Conference for Media Reform and to watch videos from conference sessions go to: http://conference.freepress.net/home

New NAACP Study on Incarceration and Education

2011-04-10T16:38:00.003-04:00

In a new report (covered here in The Root), the NAACP argues that, as a nation, we invest more in incarceration than the education of youth. This is particularly harmful to the poor and communities of color. For those already engaged in the battle against the prison-industrial complex, this isn't news; however, it's refreshing to see a high-profile organization like the NAACP publicizing such crucial information.

Chicago Books to Women in Prison

2011-04-03T23:16:00.000-04:00

Here at home in Chicago, I help to run an all-volunteer prison book project (Chicago Books to Women in Prison). We were fortunate enough to be featured on the local ABC news affiliate in Chicago this past week. You can take a look at the video here:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=8046241

As a volunteer at CBWP (www.chicagobwp.org), I have come to believe that the small act of answering a person's letter and sending a bundle of books his or her way can have a real--if individualized--impact. I recognize that this perspective is up for debate, and I think there is an important conversation to be had about incremental activism, abolition activism, and interpretations of radicalism in prison-focused movements. (P-CARE has submitted a proposal to discuss this topic at the 2011 National Communication Association Convention- we'll keep you posted!)

I am working on a longer post reflecting on the political aspects of small-scale prison outreach projects, but in the meantime I want to raise the issue of *kindness*. One woman currently being held in Chowchilla, CA sent a recent book request and included a note: "When you don't have anything or anyone out there that cares it is always makes you appreciate when someone that does not even know you reaches out and shows you kindness." Women who write to us at CBWP tell us that the isolation of incarceration can be dehumanizing, and we hope that sending books can help people behind bars feel more connected to others. One reason that I endorse and engage in incremental action is because it can be a way to provide personal connections, however fleeting.

There is something powerful in activism on a human scale.

A Brief Review of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander

2011-03-30T16:53:00.000-04:00

Michelle Alexander is a civil rights lawyer who has dedicated her career to fighting racial injustice in the U.S. criminal justice system. In The New Jim Crow, she illuminates the racism that infects every stage of that system in an effort to influence public understanding about the War on Drugs and its devastating consequences for the entire nation. Ultimately, Alexander calls for an end to the War on Drugs because “there is no path to liberation for communities of color that includes this ongoing war” (220). She establishes the high stakes of this crises by defining contemporary mass incarceration as a form of racialized social control that creates an undercaste—“a lower caste of individuals who are permanently barred by law and custom from mainstream society” (13).

That definition is strengthened by her argument that mass incarceration is an echo of previous, vile forms of racialized social control in the United States: slavery and Jim Crow (the network of laws and social restrictions that enforced segregation). The book opens with a brief account of Jarvious Cotton, an African American who cannot vote. “Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy” (1). Disenfranchisement has taken different forms for different generations: Jarvious’s great-great-grandfather was enslaved, his great-grandfather and grandfather were intimidated and abused by the Ku Klux Klan, and his father was subjected to poll taxes and literacy tests. Jarvious himself was convicted of a felony and is on parole. Despite the different means used to exclude these men from democracy and society, the oppressive ends are the same.

Alexander is sensitive to the risks of making this argument by analogy; she reveals that she was skeptical of the similarities between Jim Crow and mass incarceration even as she worked as the Director of the Racial Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in Northern California (3-4). However, she carefully illuminates the broad influence that the criminal justice has over the lives of impoverished people of color. These populations are subjected to surveillance, supervision, and restrictions on their freedoms in the shape of police procedures, prosecutorial discretion, mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, conditions of parole, and laws limiting access to employment, public housing, and welfare for convicted felons. Prison time is only one dimension in which the U.S. criminal justice system exerts control over African Americans.

Alexander presents statistics and narratives to reveal the racial inequality of arrest rates, prosecution, sentencing, and incarceration for drug offenses; she reports, “In at least fifteen states, blacks are admitted to prison on drug charges at a rate from twenty to fifty-seven times greater than that of white men” (96). She warns against a reform strategy that targets legal decisions by insightfully critiquing the precedents established by the United States Supreme Court that make it nearly impossible to stage a legal challenge against systemic racism in the War on Drugs. Past rulings have barred people from alleging claims of racial bias in policing under the Fourth Amendment (Whren v. United States), severely limited grounds for challenging racial bias in prosecution (Armstrong v. United States),or sentencing under the Fourteenth Amendment (McCleskey v. Kemp). Alexander advocates for a holistic reform movement that fights against institutionalized racism and racist public perceptions of criminality. In her words, “all of the needed reforms have less to do with failed policies than a deeply flawed public consensus, one that is indifferent, at best, to the experience of poor people of color” (221).

Alexander spotlights two particularly provocative issues: the tendency for colorblindness to act as a veil over racist practices, and the presumption that a person must be innocent to deserve advocacy.

Alexander showcases the dark side of colorblindness by pointing out that overt symbols of racism like derogatory slurs, nooses , or Ku Klux Klan imagery are “widely condemned by people across the political spectrum; they are understood to be remnants of the past, no longer reflective of the public consensus about race” (211). Slavery and Jim Crow were overtly racist forms of social control, but criminalization allows mass incarceration to masquerade as a set of colorblind practices aimed at securing public safety. Alexander forcefully argues that the criminal justice system, and the War on Drugs that keeps it humming, are not at all colorblind in practice. The many cases of police officers exercising individual discretion to identify drug dealers by making traffic stops and conducting searches without any evidence beyond a targeted person’s race exposes the falsity of racial blindness (64-68, 129). “Throughout the criminal justice system, as well as in our schools and public spaces, young + black + male is equated with reasonable suspicion, justifying the arrest, interrogation, search, and detention of thousands of African Americans every year” (194). Drawing attention to the racial inequality evident in incarceration statistics and mandatory minimum sentencing laws is an important rhetorical move for undermining the myth of a “post-racial” America.

Alexander also warns about the propensity of civil rights advocates to believe that a person’s purity and innocence are prerequisites for advocacy. She notes, “Challenging mass incarceration requires something civil rights advocates have long been reluctant to do: advocacy on behalf of criminals. Even at the height of Jim Crow segregation—when black men were more likely to be lynched than to receive a fair trial in the South—NAACP lawyers were reluctant to advocate on behalf of blacks accused of crimes unless the lawyers were convinced of the men’s innocence” (214). Alexander rightly argues that if this bias in advocacy is allowed to persist, the injustices and oppression that are perpetuated in the name of “fighting crime” cannot be resisted in a meaningful way. “Criminals, it turns out, are the one social group in America we have permission to hate. In ‘colorblind’ America, criminals are the new whipping boys. They are entitled to no respect and little moral concern” (138). Advocates who would fight against mass incarceration must be willing to openly show respect and concern for the folks who have been caged, literally and metaphorically, as criminals.

The New Jim Crow also introduces a number of other topics relevant to concerns about racism and the U.S. criminal justice system, including the privatization and profitability of prisons, and public perceptions of affirmative action and black exceptionalism. The book would be appropriate for inclusion in an undergraduate or graduate course, and the chapters contain sufficient reiteration of major themes that excerpts are intellectually and argumentatively complete. The book is tightly argued and Alexander has a very powerful writing style that is well adapted to a general, public audience.

Please read and share The New Jim Crow: this book can fuel the conversations that we must have about prisons, race, and justice.

-Megan G. Bernard
Rhetoric and Public Culture
Northwestern University

New Sentencing Project Report on Crack Cocaine Sentencing Disparities

2011-03-28T12:46:00.003-04:00

Some great state-by-state analysis. Check it out.

Going to Prison

2011-03-23T19:37:00.002-04:00

A few hours ago, I returned to campus after bringing my Rhetoric and the Criminal Justice System class to the Indiana Women's Prison. We toured the facility for about three hours. I believe I can say unequivocally that my students were changed. All of them. One way or another I saw some sort of transformation take place, whether it was discovering a new sense of vocation or garnering the courage to open up about their own life's connection to the prison-industrial complex. As much as they thanked me for the experience, I'm grateful to them for moving me so.

There's a lot to talk about and I won't get into all of it. One particularly memorable moment was visiting the facility's mental health wing. The social worker in charge, a woman named Deborah, spoke to us for a good twenty minutes about the ins-and-outs of the facility. It was her discussion that convinced me this tour would be different than the public relations spectacle that was my tour of two Texas facilities several years ago. She unapologetically reflected on the abandonment of state mental health facilities in the 1970s, making damn sure my students knew that our nation's prison system is its mental health system. While I've heard my fair share of stories about rotten prison guards and other staff members, I was reminded that so much of what makes ours such a disastrous prison system is decided by individuals who rarely, if ever, set foot in such facilities. Indeed, today's exploding prisons are the product of the "tough-on-crime" feeding frenzy that predominated electoral politics in the 1980s and 1990s.

Without a doubt, the most powerful portion of these three hours was our discussion with five amazing women who call the facility home. Aside from the pieces of information they volunteered, we don't know why they were there. That said, I don't know all the things my own students have done and I'm not proud of every detail of my past. What we did know was that these were five women involved in one or more of the prison's volunteer programs. Some of them worked with the choir, whereas others participated in the prison's dog training program. They were lively, intelligent women who, obviously, had screwed up. One of them, now 30, had been there since she was 16. I am currently 30. That means this woman, who sent shivers down my spine with her testimony, was entering the system while I was fretting over getting my driver's license. A lot happens between 16 and 30. She has been enclosed in concrete and wire for all that time.

Now, let's be honest; no matter how polite the prison staff was, and they were lovely, we know these women were there for a reason. We were not going to get juicy bits about the ins-and-outs of the IWP (though they did have some choice words about the food). These women were exemplary inmates and we even overheard one staff member telling another than the women they chose would be "perfect" in this capacity. That said, I was astonished by the forceful critiques they leveraged against our unforgiving carceral society. They articulated, in ways that put my finest teaching and writing moments to shame, the utter inadequacy of the social safety net once someone leaves prison. They reflected on the punishing impact of incarceration on children, spouses, and parents. They were also sure to note that none of them are wealthy, for it is not the well-to-do citizen that does a full stretch behind bars.

Of all the things they had to say, I believe two will stick with me the most. Because this is a rhetoric class, we made sure to ask them their thoughts on popular and political representations of the prison system. While we've all encountered the cynical fellow citizen who rolls their eyes whenever you mention the words "television" and "prison cell" in the same sentence, I am so grateful these women have an opportunity to see how their world gets represented to the rest of us. They reflected on how fascinated the spectacle-consuming public is with the myriad gross exaggerations of a life that is, on most days, agonizingly banal. One woman also suggested that the unforgiving attitude many citizens harbor toward the incarcerated is a displacement of their own individual and societal guilt. Eat your heart out, Kenneth Burke.

They also spent a great deal of time reflecting positively on the programs in which they participate (two of the canines they were training for disability assistance were on hand). They associated the presence of such programs with the prison's low incidence rate relative to other Indiana facilities. As one woman put it, you don't do anything stupid because there is "something to be lost." Viewed one way, this may be a testament to the disciplining function of such programs. Indeed, I can name a wide range of prison scholars who would dismiss the choir or dog training as Foucauldian traps designed to discipline the incarcerated subject. Others would make a forceful argument for why more prisons should have such programs and, therefore, reduce both incidence and recidivism rates across the whole system. I believe there are kernels of truth in both these positions. Indeed, it is the gray area in the prison-industrial complex that makes it so damn compelling and frustrating. But there is another dimension to this simple statement on "something to be lost" that strikes to the very core of a nation that incarcerates one out of every hundred of its adult citizens. Who inhabits our prisons? Rarely are they people who feel they have something to lose. They come from poverty, racism, sexual abuse, addiction, and other vestiges of desperation that make one tragic choice seem perfectly rational amid an array of shitty options. One book I cannot get off my mind as of late is Erica Meiners's powerful Right to be Hostile. In it, she documents the deep structural connection between what passes for public education in many sectors of the country and the disproportionate level of incarceration among those very communities least academically served. Indeed, what remains to be lost and how on earth, in these times of austerity and corporate crime, can we give the most desperate among us the sense that they have something to lose?

In his book Fugitive Thought, Michael Hames-Garcia argues that "political prisoners" are "valuable and concrete theorists of justice." Indeed, I owe a wide range of my thinking on prisons, race, empire, etc. on the writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal, George Jackson, Angela Davis, and others. These brave, politically lucid souls have rightfully inspired movements. However, my students and I did not meet with revolutionaries today. These were not women consciously invested in dismantling the prison-industrial complex. I wonder if they could even accept a concept like prison abolition. Nonetheless, we witnessed brilliance while in their presence. Through their concrete, if unexceptional experiences, they theorized both justice and injustice. We can all learn a lot from them.

Prisons and Austerity in Michigan

2011-03-22T15:52:00.002-04:00

Since deciding I will be moving there next fall, I've taken a deep interest in the politics of Detroit. As recent census data reflects, the Motor City is in a world of hurt following a wide range of economic calamities. In response to this and other statewide financial issues, newly elected Governor Rick Snyder recently signed legislation authorizing the appointment of "emergency managers" to seize control of municipal affairs. These managers would hold the ability to dissolve union contracts, remove elected officials, and even dismantle local governments and school districts.

A recent article from the Michigan Messenger suggests this controversial bill may also increase the number of private prisons in the Great Lakes State. This is not surprising, as prison privatization has long functioned as an avenue for reducing cash-strapped governments spending on law enforcement. However, as the Sentencing Project convincingly argues, the perils of prison privatization are numerous.

David Protess Fired from Northwestern Journalism School

2011-03-18T14:58:00.002-04:00

Following the lead of New Jersey and New Mexico, Illinois recently abolished the death penalty. Governor Pat Quinn's decision to sign the abolition legislation was in large part due to decades of work by faculty and students at Northwestern University. Specifically, under the leadership of Professor David Protess, several Northwestern journalism students began investigating dubious death penalty cases in the Land of Lincoln. By the time then-Governor George Ryan commuted every death sentence in the state in 2003, thirteen innocent individuals had been freed from death row. Were it not for the grim truths of torture, discrimination, and generally shoddy police work, Ryan would not likely have made this controversial and historic decision.

Today, the Chicago Tribune ran a story detailing the circumstances of Protess's dismissal (note: he will no longer be teaching journalism classes, but retains his position with the Northwestern Innocence Project). He stands accused of withholding key evidence in the case of Anthony McKinney, currently serving a life sentence for murder, from prosecutors. Protess claims that all evidence that should have been shared was handled appropriately; everything else, he argues, was protected by journalistic privilege.

In a brief blog entry, journalist Liliana Segura places these events in a wider context. The Cook County District Attorney's Office has long targeted Protess and his students for aggressive investigations. Regardless of the weight of the current accusations, they do seem to come from folks who have long had it out for Protess.

The Executioner Has No Clothes

2011-03-17T10:16:00.002-04:00

Yesterday's Austin-American Statesman reports that Texas, the nation's busiest executionist state, has acquired a new drug for administering lethal injections. This change in policy comes in the wake of a global shortage of the traditional anesthetic, sodium thiopental. The new drug, pentobarbital, has also been used to euthanize animals.

This acquisition comes in the context of a broader national scramble among death penalty states to account for this drug shortage. In December, the pharmaceutical company Hospira announced they would discontinue the production of thiopental, claiming they never intended for it to be used in executions. Furthermore, the factory that produces the drug is located in Italy, whose federal government expressed reservations about a death penalty drug being produced within its non-death penalty borders.

Scholars of crime and punishment, ranging from Michel Foucault to Michael Meranze, have argued that there is an inherent gamble associated with state violence. Meranze writes of eighteenth century corporal punishments, "Public punishments required the approval, or at least the acquiescence, of the audience." The inherent instability of the publicly punished body led to what Foucault called a disciplinary regime of punishment. The punishing act as such became increasingly invisible, whereas the pedagogy of punishment saturated all sectors of society.

I believe this perspective on spectacle and punishment can help us understand the meaning and implications of the current scramble to replace thiopental. Lethal injection is widely heralded as the most "humane" form of execution. At the very least, it is a far more subdued ritual than the gallows, firing squad, electric chair, or gas chamber. Every executionist state now uses the method as its preferred or only form of execution. Indeed, the last several years of anti-death penalty activism have seen attempts to discredit lethal injection as cruel and unusual. Thiopental, importantly, is the first drug administered in a lethal injection. It renders the condemned inmate unconscious while the other two, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, cause paralysis and cardiac arrest. Without the initial introduction of a barbituate drug, both these pharmaceuticals would cause immense pain. However, because of the paralysis associated with pancuronium bromide, there is no way of knowing if the thiopental has been effective. In such an event, the inmate would experience an agonizing death but be completely unable to communicate this to the prison staff.

Reservations about its effectiveness notwithstanding, the availability of a drug like thiopental is absolutely necessary in rationalizing the state's prerogative of violence vis-a-vis capital punishment. So desperate are executionist states to retain their silent, "painless" ritual, some have resorted to the black market to maintain their supply of thiopental. Texas, on the other hand, has sought a new drug altogether. Either way, I believe we are seeing, once again, a crisis of legitimacy in the realm of state-sanctioned killing. As states scramble to find a method that will render the bodies they seek to kill unconscious, we are reminded, if only for a moment, of the macabre processes they hope such drugs will conceal.

Oprah on Prison Weddings

2011-03-17T07:16:00.002-04:00

A few days ago I watched an Oprah re-run that highlighted "shocking" weddings. In it, she talked about prison weddings and catholic nuns marrying Jesus.

In prison weddings clip, Oprah's crew followed Tracy and Joseph on their wedding day. Tracy was portrayed as a divorced mother of one and Joseph as a convicted felon.

There were two predominate thoughts that struck me while watching the segment, "Inside a Marriage Behind Bars."

Popular culture always seems drawn to prisons and prison culture. Unfortunately, this draw always takes a negative and/or grandiose slant.
Family members' everyday experiences of prison (from the outside) are rarely acknowledged by the popular press.

First, pop culture shows often highlight various issues in prisons. However, the shows typically avoid the day-to-day grind of the prison system in favor of focusing on rare and unique circumstances (e.g., prison weddings). In trying to remember some of the shows I've watched over the years I was able to recall programs and movies that focused on: prison weddings, prison escapes, violence in prison, and a slew of shows that sent kids to a type of "boot camp" so they wouldn't end up in prison. I'm hard pressed to remember shows that emphasize the day-to-day lives of most incarcerated individuals in America. Arguably, this is a problem as the public is grossly unaware of some of the real issues facing incarcerated individuals. Pop culture programs rarely highlight the "brokenness" of the system...rather, they focus on the "brokenness" of the people.

Second, the experience of the family members is rarely considered in conversations about incarceration in the US. In this particular segment on Oprah, the producers did elevate Tracy's voice. However, it wasn't the portrayal of her voice that struck me. It was discussion about her family members' voices that left a lasting impression. Tracy mentioned that her mother and sister were not supportive of her marriage. Her comments made me reflect on the effects of incarceration on the nuclear and extended family.

Some family members, like Tracy, might enter into relationships with individuals post-incarceration. Others, like Joseph's own family members were part of his life long before his life-sentence was secured. I wonder why the popular media pays so little attention to the voices of those individuals who dutifully visit their incarcerated loved ones week by week, month by month, and year by year. Instead the pop press highlights sad stories of daughters who want to confront their estranged, incarcerated fathers who took the lives of their mothers.

I am not trying to say that covering what is typically known as victim:"offender" mediation is a bad idea. But rather, I want to emphasize the other silent voices that are so often ignored: the mother of an incarcerated individual who did everything she could to keep her son out of prison, the wife of a prisoner who is now a single mother, the sister of an inmate who's brother has never been to any of her life changing events (e.g., graduation, wedding). Personally, I would like to hear more of these people's stories...the mother, the wife, the sister...I think it might give us a fuller perspective of the ills of incarceration that plague our country.

You can find the link to the full article here.
You can find a link to some video footage of the show/wedding here.

Georgia Prison Strike Update

2011-03-02T23:16:00.002-05:00

Some readers may be following the historic prisoner labor strike currently taking place in Georgia. Recently, guards at the facility were disciplined for physically retaliating against the inmates. Read more here.

More at Change.org

2011-02-24T13:35:00.000-05:00

Wendy Jason and the other dedicated reporters at Change.org have done a lot of great coverage recently on prison issues for this website. They cover a variety of topics, including: prison reform, death penalty, police abuse, prison conditions, criminal justice in the media, juvenile justice, alternatives to incarceration, etc.

You can read her article on the Alternatives to Violence Project at the link below. That's a nonviolent conflict transformation organization I've been associated with since 2006. We do weekend workshops in which people learn to deal with others in healthier ways. Most of the programs are held in prisons, but some also take place in schools, companies, or community settings. There are branches all across the country and the world. Here's where to read about more about the program:
http://news.change.org/stories/the-alternatives-to-violence-project-a-path-towards-peace

"Imprisonment of a Race" Conference in NJ

2011-02-24T13:16:00.000-05:00

On March 25, 2011, Princeton University is hosting a free conference titled Imprisonment of a Race. This one-day conference will focus on the prison system in both historical and present day contexts through the lens of race. Imprisonment of a Race will feature two panel discussions and a keynote conversation. Keynote speakers include Princeton Professor Cornel West and Michelle Alexander, Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State University and author of the recent book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." This event is open to the public, but registration is required. To register, go here: http://www.princeton.edu/africanamericanstudies/events/imprisonment/register/

To raise awareness of prison issues in advance of the conference, Princeton is also holding a documentary film series. Unfortunately, the film series is only open to Princeton ID card holders, but here are the titles, which were new to me: "Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment" (2004), "Eastern State: Living Behind the Walls" (2008), and "Concrete Steel & Paint," (2009).

New Post from Stephen Hartnett

2011-02-17T17:45:00.002-05:00

Dear PCARE friends:

For the past twenty years, an ever-growing network of educators, activists, scholars, and artists has argued that the prison-industrial complex is a monstrous failure. While wasting billions of tax dollars on ill-conceived “Get Tough on Crime” policies, including especially the so-called War on Drugs, the prison system has reproduced the worst racial stereotypes and militarized policing patterns. The readers of this blog are of course familiar with these critiques and can add details and nuances to such arguments. But what we need now are answers: practical solutions for moving the argument forward. And so I want to recommend three recent contributions that help us move away from critical work towards creative work, from dissenting against the flawed system toward assenting to a better world, from lashing out at what is broken to journeying toward what we know works.

First, let me direct our blog readers to Smart on Crime: Recommendations for the Administration and Congress, a new report by The Sentencing Project. The report contains common-sense proposals for reforming the worst abuses and excesses of the prison system. Written in clear prose, marshaling irrefutable evidence, and speaking in the tones of Washington D.C. policy reformers, the report offers the kinds of practical answers that we can use when meeting with legislators, the media, and other constituencies.

Second, let me direct readers to Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre, a wonderful new collection of essays edited by PCARE’s own Jonathan Shailor. As in his other works, this book offers a series of gorgeous case studies of how artists and educators have gone into prisons and used theater as a means of exploring, building, and supporting new routes to engaged citizenship.

Third, let me direct readers to Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives, a new anthology of essays, including works by Buzz Alexander, Robin Sohnen, Lori Pompa, Garrett Albert Duncan, Jonathan Shailor, Erica Meiners, Daniel Larson, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Travis Dixon, and Roze Braz and Myesha Williams. Five of these ten chapters include step-by-step advice for reproducing some of the most successful prison arts and activism projects in the country. The book also includes ten poems by imprisoned writers and ten beautiful color plates of images made by imprisoned artists.

Between Angela Davis and a Hard Place

2011-02-02T15:28:00.001-05:00

Friday morning, January 21st. For only the second time since I have known him, I visited my friend on Oregon's death row. We spoke about his story, his path to prison, the system and how hard it is to hold on to humanity within it. And we spoke about holding on.

Friday evening, January 21st. For only the second time since I have known her work, I heard Angela Davis deliver a presentation. She spoke at a private University, not even a few miles from the State Penitentiary where I had been that morning with Gary. She challenged us to "widen the angle of our vision" when thinking about justice and prisons.

In Are Prison's Obsolete? (a tiny little book that everyone should read -- on the train, on the can, between classes, in whatever small time one might make for big ideas), Davis writes:

“On the whole, people tend to take prisons for granted. It is difficult to imagine life without them. At the same time, there is reluctance to fact the realities hidden within them, a fear of thinking about what happens inside them. Thus, the prison is present in our lives and, at the same time, it is absent from our lives. To think about this simultaneous presence and absence is to begin to acknowledge the part played by ideology in shaping the way we interact with our social surroundings. We take prisons for granted but are often afraid to face the realities they produce.” (Davis, 2003, p. 15).

Through my relationship with a death row inmate, I have come to experience the realities of my life outside of prison differently as well as perceive the realities hidden within prisons such as the State Penitentiary, where he has lived since he was 19 years old, differently. The result is paradoxical and I am reminded of Davis’s assertion that we can, we must, hold such things in tension with each other and acknowledge the complexity. My life is richer and more joyous for the perspective our relationship has brought yet also much darker and more cynical for it. For he is not one of those innocents exonerated (138 and counting) nor already executed. His crime was horrific and brutal yet I cannot deny the way both society and the state have failed, time and time again, to provide any opportunity for stability, rehabilitation and restorative justice for those who loved his victims. And the latter begs the question of what might have come of this otherwise intelligent, compassionate man (or what might still become of him) were the systems into which he was placed different.

But, instead, as Davis again points out:

“The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs – it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.” (Davis, 2003, p. 16).

Follow the steps of these sisters and brothers on the blog. So many are doing the work in collective, communal ways – teaching classes, publishing poetry, activating communities. If you have not yet taken a first step, reach out. Contact any one of the numerous organizations in your state or region. Follow this blog and check out resources like the Prison Activist Resource Center (www.prisonactivist.org). Begin rethinking prisons, prisoners, and our civic responsibility to create a world that does not produce prisons and prisoners, in order to, as Audre Lorde put it, “sustain a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.”

PCARE's work on Change.org!

2011-01-26T21:20:00.002-05:00

Change.org's Criminal Justice blog, linked on our blogroll, is an excellent resource for news and commentary on the prison system. Recently, they covered the work of PCARE member Stephen Hartnett (whose volume of poems by his imprisoned students is also linked to the right).

Virgina Senator's Call for Sex Offender Castration

2011-01-26T10:43:00.003-05:00

Most prison scholars and activists are familiar with Foucault's seminal work, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

In it, Foucault explains that in the past, punishment was very much focused on disciplining the body. The public would 'enjoy the show' as lawbreakers were tortured & dragged through the streets for all see. A "public spectacle" he called it (1977, p. 7). However, Foucault went on to argue that this disciplining of the body decreased over time and incarceration became about incarcerating the souls of the individuals:

The old partners of the spectacle of punishment, the body and the blood, gave way. A new character came on the scene, masked. It was the end of a certain kind of tragedy; comedy began, with shadow play, faceless voices, impalpable entities. The apparatus of punitive justice must now bite into this bodiless reality. (p. 16-17)

In light of these writings more than 30 years ago... I find it interesting that some are now reigniting the debate on the appropriateness (and COST effectiveness) of castration for male sex offenders. Foucault seemed to suggest that the era of physical humiliation and punishment had come to and end long before 1977. However, here we are today in 2011 reading about a similar story of a proposal to "discipline the body" in a physically permanent way.

The Washing Post cite Hanger as saying:

"I don't think it's radical at all," said Hanger, R-Augusta. "It's just something that's not typically the thing you want to bring up in polite conversation, but again the whole subject area is not for polite conversation."

You can find the full story in this article in the Washing Post.

Jared Lee Loughner, the Death Penalty, and Us

2011-01-25T18:10:00.003-05:00

The Christian Science Monitor today ran an excellent article exploring the possible impacts the Tucson shootings will have on public discourse in the United States. The piece prominently features author David Schmid, whose Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture is required reading for anyone interested in what our fascination with the macabre says about us.

One of the central questions the article poses is how Loughner's trial will impact public discourse surrounding the death penalty. The past decade has not been kind to capital punishment, as questions of innocence, cost, and deterrence increasingly prompt states to reconsider the sanction's efficacy (my native state, Illinois, is one gubernatorial signature away from outright abolition). Will Loughner, much like Timothy McVeigh, catalyze a renewal of public support for capital punishment (which has been dropping over the years)? Or will Loughner's trial prompt us to see him as "a parable of despair and rootlessness that gnaw at the edges of the American experiment"?

Wherever this discussion goes, it will be a lengthy and painful one. History is littered with instances of sensationalism from media and "tough-on-crime" pandering from politicians, but might there be another way to make sense of Mr. Loughner?

I'm reminded of powerful words from one of my favorite death penalty scholars, Austin Sarat. He writes, "To oppose [capital punishment] is to carry the burden of explaining why the state should not kill people like Timothy McVeigh, of producing a new theory of responsibility and of responsible punishment, and of humanizing inhuman deeds."

In other words, we have our work cut out for us.

Join us on Facebook!

2011-01-24T19:34:00.001-05:00

PCARE also has a Facebook page. Join us for regular blog updates and other valuable info on communication and the prison system.

Prison Activism & The Arts

2011-01-24T17:58:00.004-05:00

Dear PCARE Friends:

At the 2010 National Communication Association convention in San Francisco, some of us hosted an evening of speeches, plays, poems, videos, and new media creations wherein we thought about ways of using the arts to help build an abolition community. Our colleague, Dr. Damien Pfister, filmed two of the presentations, which are accessible below:

1. Each One Reach One: This clip shows Bay Area actors performing a short play written by an incarcerated youth who worked with the Each One Reach One theater ensemble to think about questions of self-worth, caring for others, and finding happiness:

2. The Beat Within: This clip shows a Bay Area activist reading works from The Beath Within, a publication of poems, testimonials, and other works by both imprisoned and free authors:

Enjoy!

The return of the debtor's prison?

2011-01-24T17:05:00.006-05:00

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/01/24/Lawsuits-condemn-debtors-prisons/UPI-23431295891038/

We should absolutely hold fathers responsible for child support and care; however, the application of lengthy prison sentences for people financially unable to provide child support has de facto reincarnated the historic debtor's prison. Prison is not the solution to this issue. In this case, well-placed social disapproval for "dead-beat dads" (hiding assets and concealing income to avoid their financial obligations to their children) has masked fundamental class disparities in enforcement and legal representation between people of means and those living poverty. And, because those living in poverty lack proper legal representation and the available means to readily pay support, in certain cases the application of these laws criminalize poverty itself. In the US, federal debtor's prisons were abolished in 1833 (though it is still legal in six states in a limited capacity). Incarcerating solely for the failure to pay debt remains unconstitional. Furthermore, prison merely contributes to the cycle of poverty rather than providing justice or restitution for those in need of child support.

North Carolina's Racial Justice Act

2011-01-24T16:47:00.002-05:00

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

"Near the top of the to-do list for many GOP members of North Carolina's newly Republican-controlled legislature will be repeal of the state's Racial Justice Act, approved during the 2009 session in a series of party-line votes.

"The law allows judges to consider whether race played a role in the decision to seek or impose the death penalty, and it provides the authority to commute a death sentence to life in prison if evidence of racial bias is found."

Here is the article in its entirety.

For statistics on race and capital punishment, check out the Death Penalty Information Center. For some helpful analysis, visit Amnesty International.

Thinking About Prisons in a Global Perspective

2011-01-24T15:07:00.003-05:00

Dear Colleagues:

For those of you tracking the global reach of the prison-industrial complex, check out two recent reports from Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org):

1. "Where Darkness Knows No Limits": Incarceration, Ill-Treatment, and Forced Labor as Drug Rehabilitation in China; and

2. "An Alleyway in Hell": China's Abusive "Black Jails."

I am warry of the habitual China-bashing that comes from the risk-profiteers in D.C., but these reports illustrate how many of the issues we PCARE folks tackle here in the U.S. are just as relevant abroad.

Peace to all, SJH.

HRW Blasts American Prisons

2011-01-24T11:14:00.003-05:00

A new report from Human Rights Watch criticizes the United States for startling racial disparities in its prison system, as well as continued civil liberties violations in the "War on Terror."

For news coverage on the report, check out this Agence France Presse article. For the full report, follow this link.

Juvenile Justice in California

2011-01-23T10:55:00.002-05:00

The New York Times covers the ongoing debate surrounding California's imploding juvenile system.

From my prison notebook...

2011-01-22T18:08:00.000-05:00

I volunteer at a maximum security prison, visiting weekly to lead a class in creative writing, public speaking and discussion with men serving long sentences. Often, these discussions and personal observations lead me not to clear positions on policy, but rather to reflections and puzzlements. For example, yesterday the guys in my class talked about how disenfranchised they felt by the legal system. One man described how he had found himself sitting in the courtroom at his own trial, with the prosecutor, public defender and judge all talking about him, and he couldn't understand any of the words except his own name. Research has firmly established the challenges to fairness in the current system - reactionary mandatory minimums, sentencing disparities, corrupt prosecutors, inept public defenders, cynical plea bargains, educational disadvantage, etc., - so the men's stories are no surprise. But hearing their descriptions of encounters with the system, I am overcome by frustration and sadness. As I read a few years ago in a New York Times editorial, "In our legal system, justice costs money, which means lots of poor people have to get along without it."

Families of the Accused Reach Out

2011-01-22T10:56:00.002-05:00

Much public discourse on violent crime, especially involving the death penalty, focuses on the needs and experiences of victims' families. To be sure, these are people who need a wide range of support from their community and government officials.

But what about the families of the accused?

This excellent New York Times article takes up this important question in light of the Tucson shootings.

Lethal Injection Controversies Continue

2011-01-21T19:23:00.002-05:00

“The sole U.S. maker of a key execution drug has decided to permanently halt production of the drug, which could lead many states to face delay in carrying out the death penalty.”

More on this from the Wall Street Journal.

For more background on the national shortage of this lethal injection drug, check out this New York Times article.

Felony Disenfranchisement

2011-01-21T10:39:00.004-05:00

Virtually all states place major limits on the voting rights of convicted felons. In many cases, they cannot even vote after they have completed their sentence. Here is the story of a Texas man who is ineligible to run for elected office because of a fifteen year-old conviction for passing a forged check.

Private Prisons: Domestic and Global

2011-01-21T10:07:00.005-05:00

America's private prison industry has experienced unpredecented growth over the past decade. Every year since 2003, America's largest prison firm, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has reported record profits. Growth in the private prison industry has accelerated due to a number of political and economic forces. "Tough of crime" rhetoric, the push for austere "no frills" prisons, and economic trends toward privatization of public expenditures and services has created a welcoming environment for a private prison industry. At the same time, crackdowns on illegal immigration have created a niche market for private immigration detention facilities. In 2007 CCA paid close to $3.25 million in lobbying focused on immigration and national security. In 2008 Congress allocated 2.3 billion to the Corrections Corporation of American to expand immigration detention facilities. (Also see http://www.businessofdetention.com/)

Prison corporations such as CCA and Wackenhunt Correction Corporation have also begun to seek opportunities abroad. Prison industries have directly contributed the expansion of incarceration in developing nations by offering modernized industrial prisons as symbols of neoliberal economic development in the developing world. In making their case for global expansion, CCA and WCC have been some of the most fervent critics of the abuse and inefficiency in foreign prisons. For example, Julie Sudbury's research spotlights the growing connection between US prison firms and the emergence of global mass incarceration. She explains that by situating their arguments in neoliberal capitalism, the prison industry thrives by isolating the failures of state-run programs and offering for-profit alternatives, “a panacea that will solve the problems of overcrowding, corruption, and horrendous conditions in overstretched, under-resources penal systems” (p. 25). Private prisons, however, have exacerbated conditions and claims of efficacy are indicted by documented cases of staff shortages, inadequate health care, rampant violence, and sexual abuse (Nathan, 2000). Nonetheless, privatized prisons are now under construction or being considered in Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and the Netherlands Antilles. This is only a brief snap-shot of how globalization has influenced the imperatives of US prison corporations.

Prison scholars and activists should also begin to turn their attention to how private prison industries have developed strategies to export the American model of mass incarceration abroad. Prisons should represent the failures of social policy, not its advancement or modernization. Prison industries have taken advantage of disparate strands of public discourse to make a convincing and dangerous argument; one that requires unmasking.

References:
Nathan, S. (2000). The prison industry goes global. Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, Fall, 34-35.
Sudbury, J. (2005). Introduction: Feminist critiques, transnational landscapes, abolitionist
visions. In J. Sudbury (ed.), Global lockdown: Race, gender, and the prison-industrial complex. New York: Routledge.
Sudbury, J. (2004). A world without prisons: Resisting militarism, globalized punishment, and
empire. Social Justice, 31, 9-30.

How to Subscribe to the PCARE Email List

2011-01-21T09:26:00.004-05:00

If you want to stay adrift of discussions regarding the American prisons system, particularly as its relevant to the study of human communication, please subscribe to the low-volume PCARE listserv. Here are the instructions:

Prison-Communication Action Research and Education (P-CARE) listserv subscription information:

This listserv is developed by and for communication scholars, teachers and activists to share information about and discuss prison-related research, teaching, and activism. Anyone is welcome to subscribe and a subscription is necessary to post to the list. Postings are not edited. Therefore, we ask that postings adhere to these guidelines: 1) relate to prison issues, particularly those dealing with research, teaching, and activism; 2) disagreements, debate, and dialogue are encouraged and should be conducted respectfully; 3) spams are not welcome.

New subscribers can join by sending mail to

L-Prison-CARE-subscribe-request@lists.psu.edu.

No subject or message text is required. The system picks up the name and address from the e-mail headers.

Current subscribers can remove themselves from the list by sending mail to:

L-Prison-CARE-unsubscribe-request@lists.psu.edu.

Again, no subject or message text is required.

Thanks to Jennifer K. Wood of Penn State-New Kensington for maintaining the list!

Death Row Hunger Strike Ends w/ Concessions from State

2011-01-21T00:54:00.004-05:00

A prisoner hunger strike that began on January 3 ended yesterday after prison administrators conceded to most of the inmates' demands. This story is particularly noteworthy, because the three Ohio death row inmates involved in the strike were prominent figures in the infamous Lucasville Prison uprising of 1993.

For more, check out:

News of the hunger strike's resolution.

A recent Democracy Now! story on the hunger strike, with context on the Lucasville uprising.

Information on Staughton Lynd's book on Lucasville.

News on the State Budget Front

2011-01-20T12:09:00.002-05:00

Some troubling developments illustrating how state budget priorities impact those most directly affected by mass incarceration.

First, from my old home state of Texas:

"Funding for the indigent defense program was slashed from the more than $29 million allotted statewide this year to just more than $783,000 for the whole state during each 2012 and 2013, according to the bill. The fund helps provide legal representation to suspects who can't afford their own defender." (Full article: http://is.gd/phr2o0)

Meanwhile, in California:

"Gov. Jerry Brown's bid to abolish the state youth prison system could save hundreds of millions of dollars and quicken the pace of reform at county facilities. But the changes could remove important barriers that keep some juvenile offenders out of adult prisons." (Full article: http://is.gd/2UoWwV)

Indeed, the prison system is linked to a wide range of local, state, and federal policy matters; all of which require committed communication activism.

Welcome!

2011-01-19T10:38:00.004-05:00

In 2002, a group of communication scholars gathered at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association in New Orleans, LA. What they had in common was a deep disgust with alarming national incarceration rates, as well as the growing relationship between private corporations and state prison systems. Many had spent years teaching inside penitentiaries. Others brought experience at the grassroots level, organizing efforts to change local, state, and national penal policies. All were communication scholars anxious to use their work as academics to combat the nation's rapidly expanding prison system. They adopted the acronym "PCARE" to represent the composition of their talents and experiences: Prison Communication, Activism, Research, and Education.

Since 2002, the American prison population has continued to grow. In fact, the United States incarcerates a larger percentage of its adult population than any nation in the world. As a result, PCARE continues its efforts to encourage communication activism by our friends and colleagues. Mass incarceration is one of the great crises of our time and is inextricably bound to the troubling discourses of crime and punishment that permeate our schools, media, and communities. Additionally, our collective experience tells us that when we empower the incarcerated to communicate, their lives are transformed. Because of this, we believe communication scholars and practitioners have an important role to play in the struggle to fight our nation's race to incarcerate and work toward alternative responses to crime.

This blog is one part of our work. We have already published an article in the NCA journal Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies discussing the intersection between communication and incarceration. We also routinely intervene at academic and political conferences to promote the critical engagement of the American prison system. We plan to use this site to keep our colleagues and allies updated on both our collective work and important developments in the American penal system.

Numerous scholars have noted that mass incarceration is a relatively new phenomenon. Accordingly, it is by no means natural or permanent. Only by denaturalizing the prison's role in American politics and culture can we begin the difficult but profoundly important work of dismantling this prison-industrial complex.