By Diane A. Sears The world needs men. Men are the key architects of our bridge to the future. And our children are our future – our bridge to the future. Yes, men are necessary. Every day in their usual unassuming way, men offer each of us valuable life lessons. Life lessons about honor – that one’s word should be one’s bond. If you
by Elizabeth English and Ryann Roberts / @FortuneMagazine The mounds of taxpayer dollars spend putting people behind bars take away from America’s investment in education. It’s a fact that seems almost too mind-boggling to be true: The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prison population. In 2011, 716 out
Anyone interested in prison reform is aware the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Even though our country is large, only five percent of the world’s population inhabit the US. Incredibly, the country’s jails and prisons house 25 percent of all the inmates on the planet. An astounding one-quarter of all of the world’s prisoners are spending time behind bars in the U.S. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, every 33 adults in the U.S. are incarcerated in America’s jails or prisons.
A major contributor to these outrageous statistics, which have doubled since 1990 is the “war on drugs” that has transformed into “the war on indigent people.”
The reasons for incarceration discrimination do not end with economic status. People of color are disproportionately locked-up for minor offenses. A significant factor for this social ill is a lingering policy that has sent countless offenders to prison for years. A small amount of crack cocaine found in the pockets of poor blacks has sent them to prison for decades. However, middle or upper-class whites will endure a mere “slap on the wrist” for cocaine offenses.
More people are behind bars because of drugs than murder, rape or any other violent offense and it is costing tax-payers more than $50 billion a year to keep this atrocity going.
There is only one entity that is benefitting from this out of control economic disaster. The prison industry.
Business moguls have gotten wind of the mass incarceration problem in the U.S. and are making profits off of a deteriorating situation.
MALONE, NEW YORK (USA)
Calendar Year 2014 marks the correctional institution’s second observance of International Men’s Day as part of the International Men’s Day “Healing and Repatriation” Initiative launched in 2012. Bare Hill Correctional Facility’s observance of 2014 International Men’s Day is being coordinated by an Incarcerated Father who has served since 2012 as the Empowerment Coordinator for International Men’s Day at the invitation of the Founder of International Men’s Day, Jerome Teeluckingsingh, Ph.D. The International Men’s Day “Healing and Repatriation” Initiative was inaugurated in 2012 by the United States Coordinator for International Men’s Day and Chair of the 2012-2022 International
— 24 JUNE 2014 — Bare Hill Correctional Facility located in Malone, New York will join institutions, organizations, and individuals in 80 nations in observing 2014 International Men’s Day on Wednesday, 19 November 2014. This year’s theme for International Men’s Day is “Working Together for Men and Boys”.
On February 5, 2014, Prison Legal News editor Paul Wright interviewed Noam Chomsky, 85, at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. Professor Chomsky is the foremost dissident intellectual in the United States, and for decades has been a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy, human rights abuses, imperialism and the media’s facilitation of same. He is also one of the world’s eminent linguists and has been a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955. He was arrested and jailed for anti-war activism in the 1960s.
The author of dozens of books on politics, media analysis, foreign policy and other issues, Professor Chomsky was also one of PLN’s earliest subscribers and has corresponded with Paul on various topics since the early 1990s. However, in his books, essays and interviews, Professor Chomsky has rarely addressed human rights abuses in the United States with respect to policing and prisons – until now.
While Professor Chomsky agreed to be interviewed by PLN, scheduling was difficult due to his extensive travel and speaking schedule. It turned out that the day of the interview was also the day a massive snowstorm hit Boston, and he did not come into work. He graciously agreed to conduct the interview at his home, and Paul and PLN advertising director Susan Schwartzkopf made an adventurous cab ride through the snowstorm to his house.
We extend our thanks to Professor Chomsky for this interview and to his assistant, Beverly Stohl, for making the necessary arrangements.
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PAUL WRIGHT: I think one of the things that’s interesting is I’ve been reading your work since I was in high school, and I would say that for at least 30 years now, 30-plus years, I’ve been reading your work and all the interviews that you’ve done, and very few people ever ask you about domestic issues.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Really?
PW: Yes. About domestic stuff, in terms of … you know, they ask you about human rights in other countries, but not about human rights in this country. I think you did one interview in the mid-90s which we reprinted in Prison Legal News.
NC: There are many. I don’t know what happens to them. There are so many, I can’t keep track. There’s several a day.
Today, a new project crossed my desk concerning the guys at Prisology — an up-and-coming prison reform organization created by noted prison law expert Brandon Sample and respected federal attorney Jeremy Gordon. This project concerns the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s approaching determination on reforms to federal drug sentencing and the potential retroactivity of any determinations. In
We have profiled every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
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