Tag Archives: truth-out

Private Prisons: Just Bit Players in Mass Incarceration

[Rather than sharing articles like this one about private prisons, we are re-printing this article from 2015. Do not get pacified by tiny changes.]

A prison guard on duty outside as President Barack Obama tours the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Okla., July 16, 2015. (Doug Mills / The New York Times)

Social justice activists love to hate private prisons. The loathing is easy to justify. Making profit by locking people up and keeping them there is repulsive. Moreover, major private prison operators like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group have a history of tragedy and ruthless behavior. From the early days of CCA when cofounder Tom Beasley described marketing prisons as “just like … selling cars, or real estate, or hamburgers” to more recent revelations of locking up preschoolers, private prisons have plumbed the depths of immorality. And they have thrown money at the project, spending millions on lobbying for harsher sentencing laws to secure their bottom lines, even bribing judges to incarcerate juveniles. Continue reading →

Free Alabama Movement May Day Work Stoppage Interview

From Truth-Out.org

Free Alabama Movement May Day Work Stoppage Interview

Friday, 27 May 2016 00:00 By Ben Turk, Speakout | Interview

From May 1 to May 9, 2016, prisoners at multiple facilities across Alabama engaged in work stoppages, refusing to labor for the Alabama Department of Corrections. This strike was the second major work stoppage in prisons this spring. In April, prisoners in Texas refused to work for most of the month. The striking Alabama prisoners, along with revolutionary prisoners in other states, have also called for a nationally coordinated work stoppage and protest September 9 of this year, the 45th anniversary of the Attica rebellion.

At the end of the strike, we interviewed Free Alabama Movement (FAM) cofounder Kinetik Justice Amun to get a deeper understanding of the context and strategy of their work stoppage, as well as a better understanding of the state’s response and possible strategic lessons going forward. Kinetik has been held in solitary confinement at Holman Correctional since 2014 as retaliation for FAM’s work stoppage that January.

Continue reading →