I spent three years teaching young men between the ages of 16 and 18 in a public high school run by the New York City Depart-ment of Education on Rikers Island, one of the world's largest penal colonies. Because Rikers is a jail, all of my students were awaiting trial. Most of them had been … Continue reading Incarceration in America
Articles
THE PRESENCE OF JUSTICE – How Biden Killed Prison Education
My friend Twist and I are both incarcerated. But I’m getting a college degree, and he, like most prisoners in recent decades, hasn’t been able to. From The Atlantic: JOHN J. LENNON - NOVEMBER 6, 2019 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/11/how-biden-killed-educational-opportunity-prisons/601120/ In 2010, I joined a creative-writing workshop taught by a volunteer at New York’s Attica prison, where I … Continue reading THE PRESENCE OF JUSTICE – How Biden Killed Prison Education
The Everyday Brutality of America’s Prisons (from The New Republic)
It's not just Alabama. Inmates across the country are living—and dying—in horrific conditions. By MATT FORD April 5, 2019 https://newrepublic.com/article/153473/everyday-brutality-americas-prisons Earlier this week, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division released a summary of its findings on the state of Alabama’s prisons. The accounts are stomach-churning: The New York Times noted that one prisoner had been lying dead for so … Continue reading The Everyday Brutality of America’s Prisons (from The New Republic)
Black kids go missing at a higher rate than white kids. Here’s why we don’t hear about them
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/03/us/missing-children-of-color-trnd/index.html?no-st=1573051465 Updated 4:11 PM ET, Sun November 3, 2019 (CNN)The chilling story of Jayme Closs, the 13-year-old Wisconsin girl who was kidnapped after herparents were killed last year, was national news. But people might be less familiar with the story of Arianna Fitts, a 2-year-old who went missing in 2016 before her mother was … Continue reading Black kids go missing at a higher rate than white kids. Here’s why we don’t hear about them
Minor Offenders Can Substitute Jail Time for an Art Class at Brooklyn Museum – (from HYPERALLERGIC)
IN BRIEF The new program allows people arrested for minor offenses, like shoplifting or painting graffiti, to avoid jail time and a court appearance by taking a two-hour course. https://hyperallergic.com/date/2019/10/24/ Hakim Bishara October 24, 2019 Titus Kaphar, “Shifting the Gaze” (2017), Oil on canvas, 83 × 103 1/4 (courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery and the … Continue reading Minor Offenders Can Substitute Jail Time for an Art Class at Brooklyn Museum – (from HYPERALLERGIC)
N.Y.C. Votes to Close Rikers. Now Comes the Hard Part.
By Matthew Haag October 17, 2019 The City Council approved a sweeping $8 billion plan to close the troubled jail complex and replace it with four smaller jails by 2026, an aggressive timeline that will prove challenging. Activists attended the City Council vote on closing the Rikers Island jail complex.CreditCreditNatalie Keyssar for The New York Time … Continue reading N.Y.C. Votes to Close Rikers. Now Comes the Hard Part.
Color and Incarceration (Harvard Magazine)
https://harvardmagazine.com/2019/09/elizabeth-hinton Historian Elizabeth Hinton probes the roots of a gathering crisis. by LYDIALYLE GIBSON SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 Elizabeth HintonPhotograph by Stu Rosner IN 2005, during her first year of graduate school, Elizabeth Hinton traveled from New York to California to visit her cousin in prison. In some ways, she understood what to expect: for most of her childhood, … Continue reading Color and Incarceration (Harvard Magazine)
CounterPunch Review of The New Plantation: Lessons from Rikers Island
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/30/prison-classrooms-reflect-white-supremacy/ AUGUST 30, 2019 Prison Classrooms Reflect White Supremacy by W. T. WHITNEY One story is that of a young man in the midst of bizarre, even outrageous interactions with a group of boys. He is inexperienced, but perseveres, learns, and overcomes what looks like a dead-end situation. The other story is about these imprisoned teenagers … Continue reading CounterPunch Review of The New Plantation: Lessons from Rikers Island
Why American Prisons Owe Their Cruelty to Slavery
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/prison-industrial-complex-slavery-racism.html#permid=sContainer&permid=102092349:102092349 Several years ago, my law office was fighting for the release of a black man who had been condemned, at the age of 16, to die in prison. Matthew was one of 62 Louisiana children sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for nonhomicide offenses. But a case I’d argued at the Supreme Court was part … Continue reading Why American Prisons Owe Their Cruelty to Slavery
Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html By Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner March 19, 2019 Can it really be true that most people in jail are being held before trial? And how much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs? These questions are harder to answer than you might think, because our country’s systems of confinement are so fragmented. The … Continue reading Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019
How the War on Drugs Kept Black Men out of College
TAMARA GILKES BORR - MAY 15, 2019 - From The Atlantic The War on Drugs locked up thousands of black men, and a new study finds that it may have also locked many out of the college classroom—and all the benefits that come with a college degree. There was a time when black men’s college enrollment was … Continue reading How the War on Drugs Kept Black Men out of College
