"Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere"

MARTIN LUTHER KING
...Letter From the Birmingham Jail, 1963

"Peep Game" The NPSCTAPP Video Channel

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” HAILE SELASSIE

Vision Without Action Is A Daydream. Action Without Vision A Nightmare.

The National Public Service Council To Abolish Private Prisons made a concerted effort when choosing its name to erase any possibility of ambiguity regarding who we are and our mission statement. It is our unwavering organizational belief that as long as our government permits Private Prisons For Profit to operate as legal businesses, the American Criminal Justice System, in particular, will never have the capacity to develop -in theory or otherwise- a credibility that the people of this great nation can respect and feel morally comfortable with. This is not a complicated matter. In spite of the endless assortment of political debates and the countless number of discussions among independent committees appointed to research and examine the economic pros and cons of privatization, and in spite of all the "other" arguments created by design, to distract, divide, frighten and confuse the citizens of this country and prevent them from using humane common sense, one cannot ignore or pretend not to see the flashing red flag draped around the philosophical question standing at attention in the middle of the room. Arguably, the criminal justice system is not designed to be a "moral compass." However, it cannot ignore or deny the inherent components at the core of its foundation: equality, fairness, and the humane practice of justice. These are more than lofty concepts to be arbitrarily applied when convenience allows. Our justice system must offer unequivocal, resplendent and reliable standards of "right and wrong" ..."just and unjust" because the people cannot respect or pledge an allegiance to a justice system that fails to demonstrate the difference between "right and wrong" in its own application. The inherent and most fundamental responsibility of the criminal justice system cannot be shirked, avoided, taken lightly or "jobbed out." Like it or not, when an institution is the definitive symbol representing authority and judicial proceeding, your function must reflect a fundamental fairness, and above all else, it must be accountable to all of its citizens. If ever there was a reason for second guessing the process or the ability of the United States Government (Federal & State) to perform its duty when addressing the important task of corrections and rehabilitation in the criminal justice system, the cornerstone of that uncertainty sits squarely upon the shoulders that permit private prisons for profit to operate in the United States of America. Clearly, this immoral profit driven system is without parallel in its resemblance to the most heinous institution to ever exist upon American soil. Slavery.

Aristotle wrote, "It is the peculiarity of man, in comparison with the rest of the animal world that he alone possesses a perception of good and evil, of the just and the unjust"

INCARCERATING PEOPLE FOR PROFIT IS IN A WORD WRONG

All law emanates from the people, so that, when the laws thus enacted are not executed, the power returns to the people, and is theirs whenever they may choose to exercise it.

We are mindful that the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the constitution...we are also mindful that the federal and state correctional facilities originate from government design and, therefore, must be regulated and maintained by the government.

We must restore the principles and the vacated promise of our judicial system. Our government cannot continue to "job-out" its obligation and neglect its duty to the individuals confined in the corrections and rehabilitation facilities throughout this nation, nor can it ignore the will of the people that it was designed to serve and protect.

There is urgent need for the good people of this country to emerge from the shadows of indifference, apathy, cynicism, fear, and those other dark places that we migrate to when we are overwhelmed by frustration and the loss of hope.

My hope is that you will support the NPSCTAPP with a show of solidarity by signing our petition to send one million signatures to congress expressing the will of the people to abolish the private prison for profit industry. Ahma Daeus

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality"... DANTE

The Single Voice Project

"until all private prisons in America have been abolished and outlawed, “the promise” of fairness and justice at every level of this country’s judicial system will remain unattainable."
--Ahma Daeus

"Practicing Humanity Without A License"

My photo
"Kindness Is The Greatest Wisdom"

Man In The Mirror

No man can emancipate himself, except by emancipating with him all the men around him. My liberty is the liberty of everyone, for I am not truly free, free not only in thought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights find their confirmation, their sanction in the liberty and the rights of all men, my equals. -BAKUNIN

Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit

By IAN URBINA and SEAN D. HAMILL
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh. He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10. He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.

“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.

“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”



FLORIDA PRISONERS HEADED TO OTHER STATES

Oh My Gov
News.Knowledge.Networking
Future inmates of Florida may take an unexpected road trip after incarceration. According to a new bill signed by Governor Charlie Crist, prisoners may be shipped out of state to serve their time. The legislation comes during a moment of crisis convergence between a devastated economy and a burgeoning prison population, and while unfamiliar terrain may make escape more difficult for the Floridian exiles, the measure is a compromise that few seem comfortable about.

Michigan Offeres To House California Prisoners

REUTERS

In a letter on Monday to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Granholm formally offered to house California inmates, noting their "mutual interest in resolving budget and corrections problems, perhaps in one fell swoop."

"I believe this opportunity has great potential and could be mutually beneficial at a time when states need to rely on each other like never before," Granholm, a Democrat, wrote to her Republican counterpart.



LOCKED IN

GEO Group, other private jailers use all-star lobbyists to beat back regulation
By: Matt Pullle
TEXAS WATCHDOG
In the 2009 legislative session, the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison company, poured money into lobbying, selecting some of the priciest and best-connected hired guns in Austin. The reason was simple: The company had a lot of explaining to do before state lawmakers.

For at least three years now, the GEO Group has endured a rash of dangerous, embarrassing episodes that call into question the outfit’s ability to run prisons and jails. The state shut down one of its facilities, citing filthy conditions, while two riots broke out at its prison in West Texas. Then in April, a high court upheld a massive judgment against the GEO Group after an inmate was fatally beaten at another one of its prisons.

OUR REAL PRISON PROBLEM

NEWSWEEK
Dahlia Lithwick
Why are we so worried about Gitmo?

The United States, with 5 percent of the world's population, houses nearly 25 percent of the world's prisoners. As Webb has explained it, "Either we're the most evil people on earth or we're doing something wrong." We incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents—nearly five times the world average. Approximately one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail or on supervised release. Local, state and federal spending on corrections amounts to about $70 billion per year and has increased 40 percent over the past 20 years.

American Prisons For Profit

By: Pat LaMarche
Bangordailynews.Com
Good news, everybody: This week the government did not make cigarettes illegal.
Oh sure, Congress gave control over cigarettes to the Food and Drug Administration. And now the good-for-nothing, scratch that, good-for-dying tobacco companies can’t make outlandish claims such as “low tar” any more. In some other column we may explore the time-honored practice of allowing companies to lie on their packaging. But that would necessitate discussing some ridiculously big issues like corporate personhood — you know, where corporations have the same rights as people even though they aren’t people. For now we don’t have time to open that can of worms. Instead, we’ll talk about how many U.S. citizens already live in U.S. jails. After all, we’re the incarceration capital of the world.

Resolved: "Three Strikes" Could Soon Be Out

By: Ari Melber
The Stimulist
It is hard to defend government waste during a recession. After all the bailouts and bonuses, the public is sick of pricey handouts. Yet state governments still spend small fortunes on people like Paul Rivers.

Rivers robbed an espresso stand in 1994, swiping $337 from an attendant, and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole under Washington state’s “three strikes and you’re out” law. After a push in the 1990s, about 29 states now have such laws. They have not aged well.

UNSTRUCTURED FINANCE "The Financing of Detention"

Posted By: Jessica Silver-Greenberg
Business Week
The private prison industry has moved its sights, from bread and butter incarceration, to the new gold rush: immigrant detention. You might have thought that a seemingly left-leaning Obama administration would shut off the spigot of government dollars flowing to private prison contractors, especially given the spotty track record many of these firms have. But Obama is actually upping the ante, by funding a newly minted project called “Secure Communities.” This immigration policy started in December is based around databases. It deputizes local law enforcement to run a federal back-ground check on any local arrests. The aim is to target immigrants with serious crimes on their record, and deport them.

Female Inmate Alleges Forcible Sex

By: CHRIS MEAGHER
Santa Barbara Independent
Women Accuses Contractors Who Transported Her To Jail

Authorities believe two men working for a contracted prisoner transportation company forced a female inmate to perform sexual acts on them, while returning her to Santa Barbara County Jail in October of last year.

According to court records, Roland Ygelsias, 29, is facing a felony count of forcible copulation, a violent and serious felony. Prosecutors allege he forced a female inmate to give him oral sex during a trip transporting prisoners throughout California, while in a van with seven inmates in it, both male and female. Ygelsias, along with 28-year-old Miguel Jacobo, is also facing a misdemeanor count of sexual activity in a detention facility with a consenting adult who is confined.

Operator Of Private New Mexico Prison Sued By 7 Inmates

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the operator of New Mexico's newest private prison on behalf of seven inmates. The inmates claim their constitutional rights were violated during a December incident at the prison in Clayton run by Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group Inc.

A NATION OF JAILERS

ROGER HOLLANDER
this article presents us with the shameful data on imprisonment in the US and points to the racism and social dimension that gives context to the problem. For that reason alone it is worth reading. What the author omits, however, is too important to ignore: the prison-industrial complex. Among other things, privatization of incarceration centers has led to massive use of solitary confinement and other forms of human rights abuses that have further contaminated a penal system that was already overwhelmingly skewed towards punishment and vengeance over rehabilitation. The inherent justice between capital and labor that is the very essence of capitalist democracy (or state capitalism calling itself socialism) is magnified to the nth degree in our prisons, where the use of human beings literally as slave labor for the benefit of private capital is endemic. Capitalist relationships are by nature anti-human (things treated like people, people treated like things); and this is no more better demonstrated in the appaling and disgraceful penal system which makes the phrase “criminal justice” nothing more than an oxymoron)

Florida Legislature gives OK to ship inmates out of state

By: Steve Bousquet
Sending criminals to out-of-state prisons is a 'safety valve' for Florida's overpopulated prisons.

Florida, famous for shipping orange juice all over the country, may yet be known for a very different kind of export: criminals.

With the inmate population hovering around 100,000 and the state lacking money to build new prisons, the Legislature has given the corrections department the authority to ship inmates to other states for the first time.

''It's a safety valve,'' says the plan's sponsor, Sen. Victor Crist, a Tampa Republican who oversees prison spending. ``This is not a mandate. It's a passive safety net.''


Teamsters Union Endorses Richard Romero for Mayor of Albuquerque

Peter St. Cyr
What's The Word
Richard Romero opposed privatization of prisons and stood up to voice strong disapproval of the unethical action taken by Manny Aragon in becoming a lobbyist for private prison operator, Wackenhut, while simultaneously serving in the Senate;

Alabama Moving Inmates

WVUA 7 Tuscaloosa
Alabama's prison commissioner says the state will remove about 250 inmates from the private prison where two men recently escaped amid a string of security failures. However, Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen said Monday that money - not the threat of additional escapes - was behind the decision.

Private Prison Companies Happy with Obama

by Matt Kelley
The nation's two biggest private prison management companies are pretty happy with the signs they're seeing from the new President.

A column in The American Prospect this week by Business of Detention co-authors Renee Feltz and Stokely Baksh reviews the massive expansion of immigrant detention under the Bush Administration and questions whether President Obama is committed to changing things.

Private Prisons: Profits of Crime

By: Phil Smith, Coastal Post, Bolinas, California, USA
The most worrisome aspect of prison privatization is the inevitable emergence of a private `prison lobby` concerned not with social welfare but with increasing its dividends, not with doing good, but with doing well.

USDA COVERS-UP FOR STATE OF FLORIDA RODENT INFESTED WAREHOUSE

By: Larry M. Stone
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE REALLY EATING? RODENT FECAL MATTER COULD BE IN YOUR MEALS TONIGHT AND THE USDA AND THE STATE OF FLORIDA ARE AWARE OF THIS SITUATION. THIS BLOG EXPLORES THE COVER-UP AND CORRUPTION BEHIND THIS NATIONAL FOOD SAFETY ISSUE.

The Dreamer

Just Seeds

Just Seeds
Prison Portfolio Project

Click The Cage To Read "Silja Tavi's" Compelling "Women Behind Bars"

Click  The Cage To Read "Silja Tavi's" Compelling "Women Behind Bars"
Never Forget We Are More Than This Situation

Women And Prison

Women And Prison
Writer's Block...The Voices of Women Inside

Strength To Love

Strength To Love
"Human Salvation Lies In The Hands Of The Creatively Maladjusted"... Martin Luther King Jr.

Ask Yourself

Ask Yourself
CLICK THE BANNER

Sign The Petition

Sign The Petition
JOIN THE SYMPHONY OF ONE

BOSTON LEGAL'S "GUARDIANS AND GATEKEEPERS"

http://www.abc.com/ This dramatic second episode of Boston Legal's 5TH season highlights the moving court case of a young girl allegedly raped in a private "for profit" prison by one of the prison guards. To view this compelling episode, go to abc.com and follow the prompts. Click on "full episodes"... then click on "Boston Legal" and continue to follow the prompts to the episode titled "Guardians And Gatekeepers" This really is a compelling and provacative "must see" episode

Ahma Daeus' Favorite Quotes

  • "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" JOHN F. KENNEDY
  • "We must be the change we want to see in the world".........GANDHI
  • "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies".... M.L. KING JR.
  • "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty, the obedient must be slaves"
  • "The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free"..... HENRY DAVID THOREAU
  • "The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear" ................AUNG SAN SUU KYI
  • "When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, it becomes less & less important whether I am afraid"................... AUDRE LORDE
  • "The function of freedom Is to free someone else".............TONI MORRISON