AP photo

After a number of e-mail messages from friends and family, I am forced to comment on today’s news that actress Lindsay Lohan began her 90 day jail sentence.  Because my family and friends are well aware of my work to dismantle the prison industrial complex (PIC), they are of course interested in my take on this matter.

I angrily told my sister earlier today that I didn’t want to be bothered with this issue and that I was most certainly NOT going to blog about it today.  I have obviously relented.  My reason is simple: it is a chance for me to once again reiterate that NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL OR PRISON.  NOTHING!

Just today, I offered a crazy PIC fact of the day that focused on the astronomical numbers of people who are substance abusing or using and caught up in the system.  This is no joking matter and it is not something to make light of just because the person who happens to be afflicted with the substance abuse problem is a rich white girl.

There is something perverse about the purient nature of the spectacle surrounding this Lohan situation.  There is something extraordinarily troubling about the number of people who seem to feel that the “spoiled little rich girl” got what was coming to her.  There is something in human nature that likes to see people suffer particularly when we ourselves feel the boot of oppression heavily on our necks.  I can understand that impulse and yet I would like to see people reclaim their sense of humanity and decency.

I for one don’t want to be included among the mainstream voices who feel that jail will teach Lohan some sort of “lesson.”  What lesson is that exactly?  that we continue to wage a pointless, costly, and destructive war on drugs…

Lindsay Lohan should NOT be in jail today and neither should the thousands of other currently incarcerated people who are substance using or abusing.  This is not the right way to handle such issues.  We need a public health approach to addressing substance use and abuse rather than a criminalizing and punitive one.  I am sure that the t-shirts are already being printed but add my name to the list of people who say: FREE LINDSAY LOHAN.

Note: Here is another example of the low-rent coverage of Lindsay going to jail.

I am honestly very conflicted about this article that I read yesterday in USA Today called Prisoner Workforce Feels the Pinch.

The article opens:

The nation’s unemployment crisis is now reaching far inside prison walls.

Since 2008, thousands of inmates have lost their jobs as federal authorities shutter and scale back operations at prison recycling, furniture, cable and electronics assembly factories to try to make up $65 million in losses.

The job cuts, prison officials say, mean a dramatic reduction in job training for inmates preparing for release, lost wages for prisoners to pay down child support and other court-ordered fines, and more tension in already overcrowded institutions.

I have always been a critic of the use of prison labor likening it to slave labor because of the tiny wages that prisoners garner for their work. I have also been uncomfortable with the idea of coercion and the sense that this labor can be forced. Finally, I really don’t like the fact that corporations rely on prison labor to deplete the wages of other workers on the outside.

But in corresponding with prisoners in the past, I have often heard from them that they really appreciate having jobs on the inside. Even the meager earnings afford extra funds sometimes for the commissary or to help support their families on the outside. Additionally others have suggested that some jobs have provided for some valuable skills like for example carpentry. Still others have mentioned that having a job while in prison is a good way to distract them from the day to day grind of prison life.

So I was very conflicted when I read the article about the fact that prisoners are losing jobs. Is this a good or bad thing? I just don’t know what I think about it.

Here is something that I did not know…

“California has desegregated three of its 30 men’s prisons, according to California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton. A fourth facility, Folsom State Prison, is in the process of integrating its housing units this year.” The prisons in California are still officially segregated??? Honestly, I didn’t know that this defacto policy was still in existence 56 years after Brown vs. Board of Education desegregated our schools (at least on paper).

News 21 is reporting about the state of the criminal legal system in California as part of a series called Behind Bars: The California Convict Cycle. Fourteen journalists are spending the summer covering the crisis in California prisons.

To watch some of their series on prison segregation click on this link.

Between 1996 and 2006, as the U.S. population rose by 12 percent, the number of adults incarcerated rose by 33 percent to 2.3 million inmates, and the number of inmates who were substance involved shot up by 43 percent to 1.9 million inmates.

Of the 2.3 million inmates in U.S. prisons, 65% — 1.5 million meet the DSM-IV medical criteria for alcohol or other drug abuse and addiction. Another 20 percent — 458,000 — even though they don’t meet the DSM-IV medical criteria for alcohol and other drug abuse and addiction nevertheless were substance involved; i.e. were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs at the time of their offense, stole money to buy drugs, are substance abusers, violated the alcohol or drug laws, or share some combination of these characteristics.

Source: Behind Bars II: Substance Abuse and America’s Prison Population

Please look out for these budding first-grade criminals. They are a menace and need to be stopped by being handcuffed at school. The Southern Poverty Law Center has decided to file a lawsuit against the school district for this action. This is the problem with organizations like SPLC who believe in human rights, dignity, and interrupting the school to prison pipeline. They are just so damn concerned about the traumatic effects of the criminalization of young people. Haven’t they gotten the message that a handcuffing a day keeps little Jimmy at bay?

One of the greatest joys that I have is that so many people from across the country have been so supportive of our work. We have the best volunteers and supporters out there. People are really committed to eradicating youth incarceration and to dismantling the prison industrial complex.

When one of our incredible volunteers decided to organize an art show and fundraiser for us, he put the call out asking that artists send us their graphic responses to the PIC. One of those artists from New Orleans, the incomparable Andrea Slocum, sent us this amazing drawing called “Cell Block.” She did so even though she had been in the hospital in the week prior to the deadline. Mad props and thanks to Andrea and all of the other artists supporting our work. Without art, we can’t create social change.

If you are in Chicago on August 28th, come to the opening event for Art against Incarceration, at Many People’s Church, 1505-07 West Morse from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. I hope to feature many more incredible visual representations on the PIC in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Cell Block by Andrea Slocum

In 2007 there were 1.7 million children in America with a parent in prison, more than 70% of whom were children of color. The number of incarcerated mothers has more than doubled (122%) from 29,500 in 1991 to 65,600 in 2007.

Source: Incarcerated Parents and Their Children: Trends 1991-2007 by the Sentencing Project.

For many years, I have been actively working to interrupt the school to prison pipeline for the youth in my community. Then I read cases like this and I just think… “they’re not even trying to disguise it anymore…”

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) The Richmond County School System’s Facilities and Maintenance Department is planning to start an inmate work detail at schools to save money this upcoming school year.

Facilities Director Benton Starks says the school system might hire six inmates and a guard. They could be assigned to such things as grounds work, moving certain items and cleaning stadiums. It could cost $65,000 for the inmates and guard and $10,000 for vehicle and equipment needs.

Starks says the detail would not be close to students or faculty and that there would be plenty of security.

He says it could offset the cost of day laborers hired in the summer to help move things from schools and save more than $16,000.

There is all kind of wrong in this article. First they are going to hire inmates in order to “save money.” This once again points to the exploitation of prisoners for their labor. It also depresses wages for other people who could take these jobs. Finally, Mr. Starks assures the public that the inmates “would not be close to students and faculty and that there would be plenty of security.” Just appalling!

Source: Richmond Co. May Add Inmate Workers to Schools.

Source: New York Times

Prison Boom

The U.S. government detained approximately 380,000 people in immigration custody in a variety of about 350 facilities at an annual cost of more than $1.7 billion (source: www.detentionwatchnetwork.org).

Read the article Ties that Bind to better understand how private prison companies are and stand to benefit from the draconian “papers please” Arizona law (S.B. 1070).