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mass incarceration

Violence and the Prison Nation

Tue, 04/30/2013 - 15:14 — Against The Grain

By Against the Grain Radio

If the problem is violence against women, is the solution the criminal justice system? Many anti-violence activists look to the police, prisons, and stepped-up criminalization for help and protection.  Beth Richie says that's a misguided approach, one that feeds the buildup of the prison nation. Richie describes the contours of the prison nation and the threats it poses to women on the margins.

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Eric Holder's Ploy to Divert Attention from Obama's Expanded Prisons Budget

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 23:56 — Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Attorney General Eric Holder claims to have just discovered racial disparities in prosecution and sentencing in the United States. That’s like Robert E. Lee claiming to be surprised at the existence of slavery. Holder is making noises like a prison reformer to divert attention from the fact that Obama’s budget calls for increased funding for prisons, in the midst of austerity. It’s a con game.

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“Operation Ghetto Storm”: The New Face of U.S. Fascism

Tue, 04/16/2013 - 17:48 — Ajamu Baraka

by Ajamu Baraka

The pace quickens in the killing of Black people in the U.S. Operation Ghetto Storm, a new report by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, clocks the rate of extrajudicial executions of African Americans at one every 28 hours – up from last year’s report titled Every Thirty-Six Hours. The murder of Blacks is integral to “the government’s overall strategy of containing the Black community in a state of perpetual colonial subjugation and exploitation.”

Political Prisoners, Mass Incarceration and What's Possible for Social Movements

Mon, 01/28/2013 - 23:46 — Sundiata Acoli

by Sundiata Acoli

What can social justice movements do to resist and, ultimately, topple a state that is built on mass incarceration? The author, a political prisoner, says “at this moment it seems very possible for social movements to succeed in reducing prison populations. But any reductions under the present policy would only postpone the next incarceration binge to some more cost-efficient time.”

How Ghetto Politics Has Outlived the Ghetto, and Still Holds All Of Us Back

Wed, 10/17/2012 - 12:20 — Bruce A. Dixon

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

The class of cultural, business and political hacks who pass themselves off as “black leaders” never tire of celebrating the sixties. But they have nothing to say about the seventies, eighties or nineties when the prison state and drug war engulfed the black lower classes and the gains of the New Deal and Great Society rolled back, all during their watch. They're ghetto politicians, and ghetto politics have failed.

Something Demonic is Going On in Buffalo’s County Jail

Tue, 08/21/2012 - 22:40 — Chris Stevenson

 

by Chris Stevenson

Suicide seem epidemic at the Erie County Holding Center, where persons awaiting trail in the Buffalo, New York, area are confined. The corpses are piling up so rapidly, the place ought to be called Buffalo’s Death Row.

GA Prison Hunger Strike Continues, Families Protest, State Officials Stonewall, Feds Refuse to Intervene

Wed, 07/18/2012 - 13:28 — Bruce A. Dixon

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Georgia prison officials, who denied the existence of a hunger strike its first four weeks, finally acknowledged that some prisoners are on their 36th day without food. But they refused to meet with families and citizens who came to its Forsyth GA headquarters early this week. And despite the fact we have a black president and attorney general, and an open-and-shut case of conspiracy to violate civil rights, the feds seem not interested.

Obama Stingy on Pardons

Wed, 07/11/2012 - 06:02 — Dr. Boyce Watkins

 

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

Clarence Aaron got three life sentences for a drug deal he wasn’t present at and for which he was not paid. The truth is, “there are thousands of men, mostly black and brown, who received several life sentences for very simple crimes, while their foreign ‘connects’ who imported billions of dollars worth of drugs were given very light sentences.” Aaron’s only hope is a presidential pardon. However, President Obama “is on track to be the least forgiving president in US history.”

Hunger Strikes Reportedly Continue in Multiple Georgia Prisons, Prisoners Await A Movement Outside Prison Walls

Wed, 07/04/2012 - 12:48 — Bruce A. Dixon

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

The ongoing hunger strikers in Georgia's Jackson State prison have reportedly been joined by others in Augusta and Macon. But the 37 rounded up as alleged leaders of the December 2010 strike are still officially not named by the state are believed to have been on 24 hour lockdown the last 18 months, with many suffering brutal beatings and denied medical attention. Why has the state not revealed their identities? Why are there still thousands of children and illiterates in Georgia's prisons? Why do prisoners still work without wages, and why does Bank of America still extract monthly tolls from their accounts? Why has so little changed?

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Stop-and-Frisk Goes to Frisco

Tue, 07/03/2012 - 22:20 — Glen Ford

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The “progressive” Chinese-American mayor of “liberal” San Francisco is considering instituting stop-and-frisk – which no doubt is already informally practiced by his city’s police. Mayor Ed Lee’s intention to endorse legal apartheid puts him in the historical American mainstream, since “stop-and-frisk never stopped in the United States.” The practice stretches, unbroken, from slavery times. “If the laws are applied unequally, then there is no law, and the police are nothing but an occupying army enforcing martial law” – selectively, against Black and brown people.

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Georgia Prison Hunger Strikers Endure, Call GA Governor at 404-656-1776, and Fast on Monday July 2

Wed, 06/27/2012 - 00:55 — Bruce A. Dixon

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Since July 11, at least ten, and possibly more prisoners at Jackson GA have refused food, vowing to fast till death if they cannot receive medical care, visitation and fair, transparent status reviews. The state of Georgia is adamant, reportedly threatening the prisoners with death where they are rather than even hospitalize or closely monitor their deteriorating condition.

Starving For Change: Hunger Strike Underway In Georgia's Jackson State Prison, Day 15

Tue, 06/26/2012 - 09:40 — Bruce A. Dixon

by BAR manging editor Bruce A. Dixon

18 months ago, black, brown and white Georgia prisoners staged a courageous protest demanding wages for work, educational opportunities, transparency in probation reviews and more. State officials unleashed a wave of exemplary brutality that continues to this day, away from the eyes of the public. It's time to turn our eyes where they belong --- at the crimes committed with our money and in our name, in our prisons and jails. And think about a fast on the outside, July 2, in solidarity with the hunter strikers inside Georgia's prisons.

Freedom Rider: Criminal Injustice System

Wed, 05/30/2012 - 01:08 — Margaret Kimberley

 

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

If police states are ranked by the number of persons imprisoned, then the U.S. is the world’s worst and biggest police state. The system runs on greed and racism. “Being ‘tough on crime’ is a metaphor for keeping black people under control.” It is a place where being a “big black guy” means conviction, and where “prosecutors routinely overcharge defendants with long sentences, and force innocent people to plead guilty in order to avoid decades behind bars.”

Private Prison Corporations Are Slave Traders

Tue, 04/24/2012 - 21:23 — Glen Ford

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Crime has been going down for nearly a generation, and the states have finally put the brakes on prison growth in response to the fiscal crunch. But Wall Street prison profiteers see the crisis as an opportunity. The Corrections Corporation of America has offered to buy nearly all the nation’s state prisons. “To ensure their profitability, the corporation insists that it be guaranteed that the prisons be kept at least 90 percent full.”

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Mass Black Incarceration: Damn Right, We Charge Genocide

Tue, 02/14/2012 - 21:38 — Glen Ford

A Black Agenda Report commentary by Glen Ford

The United States resisted signing the international treaty against genocide until 1988 – because it was guilty of the crime, and not necessarily finished. Mass Black incarceration, in both its past and present forms, provides much evidence of U.S. genocidal intent. The bodies have been piling up for forty years – although mainly warehoused, rather than deceased. “The criminalization of genocide was intended to be much more than a kind of legal epitaph for the dead; it was designed, like all laws, to prevent the crime.”

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