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
--Ahma Daeus
"Practicing Humanity Without A License"
Man In The Mirror
Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit
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.”
Jim Webb's courage v. the "pragmatism" excuse for politicians
There are few things rarer than a major politician doing something that is genuinely courageous and principled, but Jim Webb's impassioned commitment to fundamental prison reform is exactly that. Webb's interest in the issue was prompted by his work as a journalist in 1984, when he wrote about an American citizen who was locked away in a Japanese prison for two years under extremely harsh conditions for nothing more than marijuana possession. After decades of mindless "tough-on-crime" hysteria, an increasingly irrational "drug war," and a sprawling, privatized prison state as brutal as it is counter-productive, America has easily surpassed Japan -- and virtually every other country in the world -- to become what Brown University Professor Glenn Loury recently described as a "a nation of jailers" whose "prison system has grown into a leviathan unmatched in human history."
KIDS FOR CASH: The Dangers of Private Prisons Laid Bare
Posted By: Fiona Donson
Last month two Pennsylvania judges pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges which relate to the jailing of around 2000 children between June 2000 and January 2007. The children were sent to two private detention facilities in exchange for bribes worth more than $2.6 million; the private prison companies belonged to the Mid Atlantic Youth Services Corp. The case has become known as the “kids for cash” scandal and has raised questions about the close ties between the courts and private contractors, as well as the harsh treatment adolescents have received in the criminal justice system in the Pennsylvania and beyond.
Judge Rejects Returning Prison Care To State
SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to return health care in California prisons to state control today, ruling that a court-appointed overseer is still needed to restore basic medical treatment in the overcrowded and understaffed prisons. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson in San Francisco said that although health care has improved under federal management since 2006, he has "no confidence that such improvements would continue, or even be maintained," if the state regained control now.
Color Of Law
BLACKCOMMENTATOR . COM
The following is the second part of an ongoing Color of Law series. Cick here to read Part 1: Our House Is On Fire, Part 1: Now the Robber Barons Replace the Welfare Queens (and Rightly So)
At its worst, America’s criminal justice system represents the place where racism, greed and corruption intersect. At its best, it is inherently flawed, unjust, and unreliable, and little better than its worst.
Is Privatising Jails Really Worth The Risk?
Quite clearly, attractive is not what we want in a prison - and by "we" I mean for example Act's David Garrett, whose pursuit of the "three strikes and you're out" law seems to rely on keeping the prison system as unappealing as possible - which is to say in its present sorry, overcrowded and underfunded state. Otherwise, how could a life sentence with a 25-year non-parole period possibly be a deterrent?
LOST LIBERTY BLUES: PRISONS PROFIT & THE BANALITY OF EVIL
1. Ex Nihilo
Lamar Alexander is certainly one of the biggest non-entities in the history of modern American politics. You would have to range far and wide to find a more negligible, pointless, unproductive figure on the national level than Alexander, the senior U.S. senator from Tennessee; indeed, you'd be hard-pressed to find such a one on the smallest school board or city council in the remotest corner of the country.
Perhaps only George Walker Bush could match Alexander in the "coasting through life with corporate coddling" sweepstakes. Like Bush, Alexander was once a Republican governor who did almost no work in office, letting the Democratic leaders of the state legislature -- with whom he had some cozy business entanglements -- handle the nitty-gritty of governing while he whiled away the hours greasing wheels for his cronies and cutting sweetheart deals to enrich himself. [For details on some of these wheels and deals, see here, here, here, here and here.]
The National Imperative to Imprison Immigrants for Profit
Tom Barry
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)
There is a codependent relationship between the private prison industry and the federal government's immigration enforcement apparatus. Immigrant detention jumpstarted the two largest prison companies—Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group—in the prison industry.
The Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) contracted CCA in 1983 and GEO (then Wackenhut Services, Inc.) in 1987 to provide prison beds for detained immigrants. These INS immigrant detention centers were among the first private prisons in the United States.
Private Prisons Cost More & Provide Worse Service
PSA MEDIA RELEASE
“The last time a private company managed a New Zealand prison it cost taxpayers more and provided a reduced service,” says Richard Wagstaff.
Figures from the Corrections Department show that it cost the Australian company, that managed the Auckland Remand Prison from 2000 to 2005, $43,000 per inmate to run the prison while Corrections operating costs per remand prisoner were $36,000.
The Australian company, contracted by a National-led Government in the late 1990s, also provided a reduced service.
Jailed Moms Earn Time To Bond With Their Kids
BOSTON LEGAL'S "GUARDIANS AND GATEKEEPERS"
CHECK OUT THE CR10 VIDEO
http://vidsearch.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=26210031
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
Links We Recommend
- ARC
- Ella Baker
- Provisions
- Van Jones
- Hard2Hire
- Just Seeds
- Sister Song
- Prison Talk
- Openureyes
- Justice Now
- U.S. Congress
- Injustice Line
- Lee Gaylord
- Prison Activist
- Simple Justice
- Thousand Kites
- The Situationist
- Dissident Voice
- Why I Hate CCA
- All Of Us Or None
- Educate-Yourself
- Prison Legal News
- Critical Resistance
- Grits For Breakfast
- Women And Prison
- Books Through bars
- Women Behind Bars
- United States Senate
- Justice Reinvestment
- Convict Criminology
- Texas Prison Bid'ness
- Prison Policy Institute
- Grass Roots Leadership
- Prisoners With Children
- The Innocence Project
- The Sentencing Project
- People Against Injustice
- The November Coalition
- Slavery By Another Name
- Prison Moratorium Project
- Penal Reform International
- Write Your Representative
- The Justice Policy Institute
- Private Corrections Institute
- Peoples Law Office (Chicago)
- Prison Law Office (California)
- The Real Price of Prisons Site
- The Media Awareness Project
- Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc
- Criminal justice Policy Coalition
- The Real Cost Of Prisons Project
- The Private Corrections Institute
- Death Penalty Information Center
- The Council On Crime And Justice
- Abolish Prisons Social Justice Wiki
- Human Rights Watch Prison Project
- Yeshua's Second Chance Foundation
- iAbolish "American Antislavery Group"
- The Public Eye (Political Research Assoc.)
- Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
- Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition
- The Center On Juvenile And Criminal Justice
- The Coalition For Higher Education Act Reform
- FACTS: Families To Amend California's Three Strikes
- Architects/Designers/Planners For Social Responsibility
- Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities
- The Project On Law & Mind Sciences - Harvard Law School
- Informational Resources On The Second Chance Act of 2005
- California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty