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 Bard Prison Initiative – It has a Recidivism Rate of 4%!
This article can by found at the following link: https://www.npr.org/2017/03/27/518135204/college-classes-in-maximum-security-it-gives-you-meaning See the PBS film (produced by Ken Burns): Airs 11/25/19 and 11/26/19 - https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/college-behind-bars/#watch Inmates from the Eastern Correctional Facility listen as professor Delia Mellis leads a class on the Cold War. More than 300 students are enrolled in the Bard Prison Initiative each semester, … Continue reading The Bard Prison Initiative – It has a Recidivism Rate of 4%!
NEW YORK’S JAILS ARE FAILING!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/nyregion/nyc-rikers-norway.html?searchResultPosition=4 ULLENSAKER, Norway — From the outside, Romerike Prison looks like many correctional facilities in the United States: barbed-wire fences, guard stations and inmate cells scattered across acres of land. But inside is a different story. Hard plastic windows allow prisoners to look outside. Contemporary artwork lines the hallways. And when prisoners are released — … Continue reading NEW YORK’S JAILS ARE FAILING!
Available: A 415-Acre Island With Manhattan Views. What to Build?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/nyregion/rikers-island-closing-future.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage Thousands of detainees and officers would leave Rikers Island and move into jails across New York City. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Rikers Island, which has housed inmates in New York City for nearly a century, stretches almost 415 acres atop a former landfill in the East River. It is half the size of Central Park. And … Continue reading Available: A 415-Acre Island With Manhattan Views. What to Build?
How Private Equity Is Turning Public Prisons Into Big Profits
In recent years, corporations have privatized almost every part of the public prison system. Now, PE firms are swooping in, seeking lavish returns for investors. By Tim Requarth APRIL 30, 2019 https://www.thenation.com/article/prison-privatization-private-equity-hig/ A man imprisoned in Texas talks to his son via video screen during a family visit in 2015. (AP / David J. Phillip) When the … Continue reading How Private Equity Is Turning Public Prisons Into Big Profits
Anti-Prison Protesters Face Jail Time for Holding the DOJ Accountable — #FightToxicPrisons
Update: 12:00 EST: All charges have been dropped! Anti-Prison Protesters Face Jail Time for Holding the DOJ Accountable For media inquiries, please contact: Katie Nolan 410-960-4979 NOVEMBER 7, 2019 — Five people are in court today after arrests stemming from an October 1, 2019 protest outside of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), when dozens […]Anti-Prison … Continue reading Anti-Prison Protesters Face Jail Time for Holding the DOJ Accountable — #FightToxicPrisons
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.
