The Prison-Industrial Complex Discussions - 12160 Social Network2024-03-19T02:34:55Zhttps://12160.info/groups/group/forum?groupUrl=the-prison-industrial-complex&feed=yes&xn_auth=noOur $39 Billion Incarceration Epidemic Explained in One Infographictag:12160.info,2014-05-29:2649739:Topic:14721922014-05-29T04:33:45.005ZTarahttps://12160.info/profile/Tara
<p>If someone asks you what America does better than the rest of the world, a few things may come quickly to mind: high tech, entertainment, energy and fast food, for example. But there's another answer that's less cheery: The U.S. leads the world in imprisoning people.<br></br> <br></br> For petty crime, drug offenses or violence, no other nation in the world puts more people per capita behind bars than we do. When you add up federal, state and local prisons, immigration detention centers, juvenile…</p>
<p>If someone asks you what America does better than the rest of the world, a few things may come quickly to mind: high tech, entertainment, energy and fast food, for example. But there's another answer that's less cheery: The U.S. leads the world in imprisoning people.<br/> <br/> For petty crime, drug offenses or violence, no other nation in the world puts more people per capita behind bars than we do. When you add up federal, state and local prisons, immigration detention centers, juvenile facilities, military prisons, and Native American-run facilities, the U.S. has <a href="http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie.html" target="_blank">2.4 million people locked up</a>, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. For perspective, that's 1.5 times as many people per capita as the Russian Federation imprisons. States take the biggest haul, with 1.4 million prisoners, followed by local jails and, bringing up the rear, the federal government.</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334351?profile=original"><img width="750" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334351?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>More Here: <a href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/05/28/America-39billion-dollar-incarceration-epidemic-infographic/">http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/05/28/America-39billion-dollar-incarceration-epidemic-infographic/</a></p> The American prison system is so massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations.tag:12160.info,2013-06-20:2649739:Topic:12329732013-06-20T21:22:40.375Ztruthhttps://12160.info/profile/adap2k
<p><a href="http://xrepublic.tv/node/3882">The American prison system is so massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations.</a></p>
<div class="lastUpdated">Thursday, June 20, 2013 4:45 PM</div>
<div class="feedEntryContent"><p>The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations. What is perhaps most unsettling about this fun fact is that it is the American taxpayer who foots the bill,…</p>
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<p><a href="http://xrepublic.tv/node/3882">The American prison system is so massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations.</a></p>
<div class="lastUpdated">Thursday, June 20, 2013 4:45 PM</div>
<div class="feedEntryContent"><p>The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations. What is perhaps most unsettling about this fun fact is that it is the American taxpayer who foots the bill, and is increasingly padding the pockets of publicly traded corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group. Combined both companies generated over $2.53 billion in revenue in 2012, and represent more than half of the private prison business. So what exactly makes the business of incarcerating Americans so lucrative? <a href="http://xrepublic.tv/node/3882">http://xrepublic.tv/node/3882</a></p>
</div> Detained immigrants released; officials cite sequester cutstag:12160.info,2013-02-27:2649739:Topic:11333882013-02-27T04:02:22.680ZCentral Scrutinizerhttps://12160.info/profile/H0llyw00d
<center><br></br><br></br> <font face="ARIAL,VERDANA,HELVETICA"><font size="+7"><img src="http://drudgereport.com/tat.jpg" width="450"></img> <br></br> 'SEQUESTRATION' LIBERATION</font></font></center>
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<h1>Detained immigrants released; officials cite sequester cuts…</h1>
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<h1>Detained immigrants released; officials cite sequester cuts</h1>
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<p><img src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-512d2ce1/turbine/la-pn-detained-immigrants-sequester-20130226-001/600" alt="Homeland Security Agencies Work To Secure U.S.-Mexico Border In Arizona" title="Homeland Security Agencies Work To Secure U.S.-Mexico Border In Arizona" border="0" height="400" width="600"/></p>
<p class="small"><span class="font-size-1">Immigration officials announced the release of hundreds of detained immigrants Tuesday. (John Moore / Getty Images / February 26, 2013)</span></p>
<div class="byline"><span class="byline">By Kathleen Hennessey</span><p class="date"><span class="dateString">February 26, 2013</span><span class="dateTimeSeparator">,</span> <span class="timeString">1:47 p.m.</span></p>
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<p class="small"><span class="font-size-2">WASHINGTON -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have released “several hundred” immigrants from deportation centers across the country, saying the move is an effort to cut costs ahead of budget cuts due to hit later this week.<br/><br/> Announcing the news Tuesday, <a class="taxInlineTagLink" id="ORGOV0000136156" title="U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/social-issues/demographics/immigration/u.s.-immigration-customs-enforcement-ORGOV0000136156.topic" name="ORGOV0000136156">ICE</a> officials said that the immigrants were released under supervision and continue to face deportation. After reviewing hundreds of cases, those released were considered low-risk and “noncriminal,” officials said.<br/><br/> The releases took place over the last week and were an effort “to ensure detention levels stay within ICE's current budget,” said ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christiansen, citing uncertainty caused by a budget standoff in Washington.<br/><br/> “All of these individuals remain in removal proceedings. Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety,” she said.<br/><br/> <a href="http://timelines.latimes.com/immigration-reform/"><strong>U.S. immigration law: Decades of debate</strong></a><br/><br/> Much of the federal government is braced to feel the pinch from $85 billion in across-the-board budget cuts due to start Friday. Both <a class="taxInlineTagLink" id="ORGOV0000004" title="Republican Party" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic" name="ORGOV0000004">Republicans</a> and Democrats have said they oppose the cuts, but the two parties cannot agree on a budget deal that would avert them.<br/><br/> ICE’s decision was praised by some who have long criticized the rise in detentions and deportations under the <a class="taxInlineTagLink" id="PEPLT007408" title="Barack Obama" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/barack-obama-PEPLT007408.topic" name="PEPLT007408">Obama</a> administration. Human rights and immigration advocates have accused the administration of ramping up arrests in response to political pressure.<br/><br/> “We have long advocated for expanded use of alternatives to detention, a step we knew would save taxpayers millions of dollars,” said Ruthie Epstein of Human Rights First. “It is a shame that it took the threat of serious budget cuts to prompt this move. Even so, ICE’s decision makes clear that the government can save money by reforming its approach to immigration detention.”</span></p>
<p class="small"><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-detained-immigrants-sequester-20130226,0,7739089.story" target="_blank">REST OF IT</a></span></p> Profiting From Human Misery... 'The United States, from 1970 to 2005, increased its prison population by about 700 percent'tag:12160.info,2013-02-18:2649739:Topic:11262732013-02-18T15:51:37.880ZTarahttps://12160.info/profile/Tara
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">By <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/chris_hedges/">Chris Hedges</a></span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">Marela, an undocumented immigrant in her 40s, stood outside the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, N.J., on a chilly afternoon last week. She was there with a group of protesters who appear at the facility’s gates every year on Ash Wednesday to decry the nation’s immigration policy and conditions…</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">By <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/chris_hedges/">Chris Hedges</a></span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">Marela, an undocumented immigrant in her 40s, stood outside the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, N.J., on a chilly afternoon last week. She was there with a group of protesters who appear at the facility’s gates every year on Ash Wednesday to decry the nation’s immigration policy and conditions inside the center. She was there, she said, because of her friend Evelyn Obey.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">Obey, 40, a Guatemalan and the single mother of a 12-year-old and a 6-year-old, was picked up in an immigration raid as she and nine other undocumented workers walked out of an office building they cleaned in Newark, N.J. Her two children instantly lost their only parent. She languished in detention. Another family took in the children, who never saw their mother again. Obey died in jail in 2010 from, according to the sign Villar had hung on her neck, “pulmonary thromboembolism, chronic bronchiolitis and emphysema and remote cardiac Ischemic Damage.’ ”</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">“She called me two days after she was seized,” Marela told me in Spanish. “She was hysterical. She was crying. She was worried about her children. We could not visit her because we do not have legal documents. We helped her get a lawyer. Then we heard she was sick. Then we heard she died. She was buried in an unmarked grave. We did not go to her burial. We were too scared of being seized and detained.”</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">The rally—about four dozen people, most from immigrant rights groups and local churches—was a flicker of consciousness in a nation that has yet to fully confront the totalitarian corporate forces arrayed against it. Several protesters in orange jumpsuits like those worn by inmates held signs reading: “I Want My Family Together,” “No Human Being is Illegal,” and “Education not Deportation.” </span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">“The people who run that prison make money off of human misery,” said Diana Mejia, 47, an immigrant from Colombia who now has legal status, gesturing toward the old warehouse that now serves as the detention facility. As she spoke, a <a href="http://www.catholicworker.org/">Catholic Worker</a> band called the Filthy Rotten System belted out a protest song. A low-flying passenger jet, its red, green and white underbelly lights blinking in the night sky, rumbled overhead. Clergy walking amid the crowd marked the foreheads of participants with ashes to commemorate Ash Wednesday.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><br/><span class="font-size-2">“Repentance is more than merely being sorry,” the Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps, the executive director of <a href="http://www.casaesperanzanj.com/">Casa de Esperanza</a>, a community organization working with immigrants, told the gathering. “It is an act of turning around and then moving forward to make change.”</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><br/><span class="font-size-2">The majority of those we incarcerate in this country—and we incarcerate a quarter of the world’s prison population—have never committed a violent crime. Eleven million undocumented immigrants face the possibility of imprisonment and deportation. President Barack Obama, outpacing George W. Bush, has deported more than 400,000 people since he took office. Families, once someone is seized, detained and deported, are thrown into crisis. Children come home from school and find they have lost their mothers or fathers. The small incomes that once sustained them are snuffed out. Those who remain behind often become destitute.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">But human beings matter little in the corporate state. We myopically serve the rapacious appetites of those dedicated to exploitation and maximizing profit. And our corporate masters view prisons—as they do education, health care and war—as a business. The 320-bed Elizabeth Detention Center, which houses only men, is run by one of the largest operators and owners of for-profit prisons in the country, Corrections Corporation of America. CCA, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, has annual revenues in excess of $1.7 billion. An average of 81,384 inmates are in its facilities on any one day. This is a greater number, the American Civil Liberties Union points out in <a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bankingonbondage_20111102.pdf">a 2011 report</a>, “Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration,” than that held by the states of New York and New Jersey combined.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">The for-profit prisons and their lobbyists in Washington and state capitals have successfully blocked immigration reform, have prevented a challenge to our draconian drug laws and are pushing through tougher detention policies. Locking up more and more human beings is the bedrock of the industry’s profits. These corporations are the engines behind the explosion of our prison system. They are the reason we have spent $300 billion on new prisons since 1980. They are also the reason serious reform is impossible.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">The United States, from 1970 to 2005, increased its prison population by about 700 percent, according to statistics gathered by the ACLU. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the ACLU report notes, says that for-profit companies presently control about 18 percent of federal prisoners and 6.7 percent of all state prisoners. Private prisons account for nearly all of the new prisons built between 2000 and 2005. And nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government are shipped to for-profit prisons, according to <a href="http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/">Detention Watch Network</a>.</span></p>
<p style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="font-size-2">Read More <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/profiting_from_human_misery_20130217/" target="_blank">Here</a></span></p> The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?tag:12160.info,2013-02-04:2649739:Topic:11127072013-02-04T16:00:54.110Ztruthhttps://12160.info/profile/adap2k
<div class="title"><div class="meta"><div class="post-info"><div class="author">By <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/vicky-pelaez" title="Posts by Vicky Pelaez">Vicky Pelaez</a></div>
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<p>Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United…</p>
<div class="title"><div class="meta"><div class="post-info"><div class="author">By <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/vicky-pelaez" title="Posts by Vicky Pelaez">Vicky Pelaez</a></div>
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<p>Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.</p>
<p>There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports.</p>
<p>What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?</p>
<p>“The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.”</p>
<p>The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”</p>
<p>According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.</p>
<p><strong>CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP</strong></p>
<p>According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex:</p>
<p>. Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years’ imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams – 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.</p>
<p>. The passage in 13 states of the “three strikes” laws (life in prison after being convicted of three felonies), made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences.</p>
<blockquote><p>. Longer sentences.</p>
<p>. The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances.</p>
<p>. A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.</p>
<p>. More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.</p>
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<p><strong>HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES</strong></p>
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<p>more</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289">http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289</a></p> Woman Imprisoned for Life for Minor Drug Offense; Banking Giant Immune to Justice for Massive Drug Launderingtag:12160.info,2012-12-19:2649739:Topic:10706612012-12-19T05:19:21.437ZTarahttps://12160.info/profile/Tara
<h1 class="node-title">Glenn Greenwald: Woman Imprisoned for Life for Minor Drug Offense; Banking Giant Immune to Justice for Massive Drug Laundering</h1>
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<div class="teaser"><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Justice is dead in America.…</div>
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<h1 class="node-title">Glenn Greenwald: Woman Imprisoned for Life for Minor Drug Offense; Banking Giant Immune to Justice for Massive Drug Laundering</h1>
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<div class="teaser"><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Justice is dead in America.</div>
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<div class="the_body body_story clearfix"><div class="story-date"><em><span class="field field-name-field-date field-type-date field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single">December 17, 2012</span></span></span></span></em> | </div>
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<div class="story-image-sourcing"><div class="story-image-source"><p>Asia-focused bank HSBC said on Tuesday it would pay US authorities a record $1.92 billion to settle allegations of money laundering that were said to have helped Mexican drug cartels, terrorists and Iran.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The US is the world's largest prison state, imprisoning more of its citizens than any nation on earth, both in <a href="http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php?area=all&category=wb_poptotal">absolute numbers</a> and<a href="http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2011/03/06/worlds-largest-jailer-by-far-its-not-even-close/">proportionally</a>. It imprisons people for longer periods of time, more mercilessly, and for more trivial transgressions <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?pagewanted=all">than any nation in the west</a> . This sprawling penal state has been constructed over decades, by both political parties, and it punishes the poor and racial minorities at <a href="http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=115">overwhelmingly disproportionate rates</a> .</p>
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<p>But not everyone is subjected to that system of penal harshness. It all changes radically when the nation's most powerful actors are caught breaking the law. With few exceptions, they are gifted not merely with leniency, but full-scale immunity from criminal punishment. Thus have the most egregious crimes of the last decade been fully shielded from prosecution when committed by those with the greatest political and economic power: the construction of a worldwide torture regime, spying on Americans' communications without the warrants required by criminal law by government agencies and the telecom industry, an aggressive war launched on false pretenses, and massive, systemic financial fraud in the banking and credit industry that triggered the 2008 financial crisis.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.alternet.org/glenn-greenwald-woman-imprisoned-life-minor-drug-offense-banking-giant-immune-justice-massive-drug" target="_blank">Full Article</a></p>
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</div> The Prison System Expands at Frightening Pace Following Declaration of War on Drugstag:12160.info,2012-10-30:2649739:Topic:10276612012-10-30T15:19:22.726Ztruthhttps://12160.info/profile/adap2k
<p>Sean Kerrigan, Contributor<br></br> Activist Post</p>
<p>In the early 1970s, the prison population in the United States was small and was steadily falling relative to the size of the population. Experts imagined that in a few decades, the prison system as we know it could be successfully dismantled, but that began to change after President Nixon began the War on Drugs in 1971, resulting in a huge influx of convicts.</p>
<p>The massive increase in prisoners has given rise to what some call the…</p>
<p>Sean Kerrigan, Contributor<br/> Activist Post</p>
<p>In the early 1970s, the prison population in the United States was small and was steadily falling relative to the size of the population. Experts imagined that in a few decades, the prison system as we know it could be successfully dismantled, but that began to change after President Nixon began the War on Drugs in 1971, resulting in a huge influx of convicts.</p>
<p>The massive increase in prisoners has given rise to what some call the Prison Industrial Complex. Like its cousin, the Military Industrial Complex, government policy and spending continues to make private involvement in the prison system very lucrative. Taxpayer money is transferre</p>
<p><a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2012/10/the-prison-system-runs-amok-expands-at.html">http://www.activistpost.com/2012/10/the-prison-system-runs-amok-expands-at.html</a></p> Brad Pitt's New Docu: Prison Industrial Complex (Makers Of Why We Fight)tag:12160.info,2012-10-24:2649739:Topic:10232392012-10-24T00:49:05.973Ztruthhttps://12160.info/profile/adap2k
<p>The House I Live In Official Trailer #1 (2012) Drugs Documentary Movie<br></br> <br></br> <object height="315" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/a0atL1HSwi8?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><embed allowfullscreen="false" allowscriptaccess="never" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/a0atL1HSwi8?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" wmode="opaque"></embed> <param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param></object>
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<p>As America remains embroiled in conflict overseas, a less visible war is taking place at home, costing countless lives, destroying families, and inflicting untold damage on future generations of Americans. Over forty years, the War on Drugs has accounted for more than 45 million arrests, made America the world’s largest jailer, and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Yet for…</p>
<p>The House I Live In Official Trailer #1 (2012) Drugs Documentary Movie<br/> <br/>
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<p>As America remains embroiled in conflict overseas, a less visible war is taking place at home, costing countless lives, destroying families, and inflicting untold damage on future generations of Americans. Over forty years, the War on Drugs has accounted for more than 45 million arrests, made America the world’s largest jailer, and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Yet for all that, drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever before. Filmed in more than twenty states, The House I Live In captures heart-wrenching stories from individuals at all levels of America’s War on Drugs. From the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge, the film offers a penetrating look inside America’s longest war, offering a definitive portrait and revealing its profound human rights implications.</p>
<p>While recognizing the seriousness of drug abuse as a matter of public health, the film investigates the tragic errors and shortcomings that have meant it is more often treated as a matter for law enforcement, creating a vast machine that feeds largely on America’s poor, and especially on minority communities. Beyond simple misguided policy, The House I Live In examines how political and economic corruption have fueled the war for forty years, despite persistent evidence of its moral, economic, and practical failures.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thehouseilivein.org/see-the-film/about-the-film/">http://www.thehouseilivein.org/see-the-film/about-the-film/</a></p>
<p>The House I Live In - Interview with the director Eugene Jarecki on BYOD at Sundance<br/> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27T5AP8pH2s&feature=relmfu">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27T5AP8pH2s&feature=relmfu</a></p>
<p>Brad Pitt, Danny Glover, John Legend and Russell Simmons are executive producers in Eugene Jarecki's hard-hitting new film. It deservedly won the grand jury prize for documentaries at Sundance Film Festival this year.</p> Amnesty International Denounces Torture in California Prisons --An interview with Tessa Murphytag:12160.info,2012-10-22:2649739:Topic:10220752012-10-22T16:03:01.913ZJustin A Hornehttps://12160.info/profile/Jamesx
<div>“California Department of Corrections/PBSP-SHU policies and practices, have violated our human rights and subjected us to torture – for the purpose of coercing inmates into becoming informants against other inmates, etc., for the state,” writes one prisoner held in solitary at California’s infamous supermax Pelican Bay State Prison. This excerpt of his letter to the internationally renowned human rights organization, Amnesty International, is featured in Amnesty’s new report on the use of…</div>
<div>“California Department of Corrections/PBSP-SHU policies and practices, have violated our human rights and subjected us to torture – for the purpose of coercing inmates into becoming informants against other inmates, etc., for the state,” writes one prisoner held in solitary at California’s infamous supermax Pelican Bay State Prison. This excerpt of his letter to the internationally renowned human rights organization, Amnesty International, is featured in Amnesty’s new report on the use of prolonged solitary confinement inside California’s ‘Security Housing Units’ (SHUs), entitled <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR51/060/2012/en/3af9a573-df33-4d9b-bfdb-5ef393df2b24/amr510602012en.pdf" target="_blank"><i>The Edge of Endurance: Conditions in California’s Security Housing Units</i></a>.</div>
<div><a href="http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2012/10/amnesty-international-denounces-torture.html#more" target="_blank">Read More Here</a></div> Private Prison Management Company Offering To Buy Prisons For 90% Occupancy Ratetag:12160.info,2012-09-13:2649739:Topic:9910562012-09-13T02:02:02.244ZTarahttps://12160.info/profile/Tara
<p><span>Private purchasing of prisons locks in occupancy rates</span></p>
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<p><span id="byLineTag">By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY</span></p>
<p><span>WASHINGTON – At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison <br></br>populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering <br></br>to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial <br></br>guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20…</span></p>
<p><span>Private purchasing of prisons locks in occupancy rates</span></p>
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<p><span id="byLineTag">By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY</span></p>
<p><span>WASHINGTON – At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison <br/>populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering <br/>to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial <br/>guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 <br/>years.</span></p>
<p class="inside-copy">The $250 million proposal, circulated by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to prison officials in 48 states, has been blasted by some state officials who suggest such a program could pressure criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the contractually required occupancy rates.</p>
<p class="inside-copy">"You don't want a prison system operating with the goal of maximizing profits," says Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and advocate for reducing prison populations through less costly diversion programs. "The only thing worse is that this seeks to take advantage of some states' troubled financial position.</p>
<p class="inside-copy">STORY: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-07/prisons-ethical-concerns-executive/53405290/1">Proposal to buy prisons raises ethical concerns</a></p>
<p class="inside-copy">Read More Here: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-01/buying-prisons-require-high-occupancy/53402894/1?AID=4992781&PID=4003003&SID=3avsj698wk49#.UDZ1EC-fLQQ.mailto">http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-01/buying-prisons-require-high-occupancy/53402894/1?AID=4992781&PID=4003003&SID=3avsj698wk49#.UDZ1EC-fLQQ.mailto</a></p>