Pentridge Prison Memorial

*Ricky Morris* 29/10/2005-18 Years Later "Thinking Of You And Missing You" Gone But Never Forgotten.

It all started back in May-05 when I decided to do a website on the memory of my brother 'Ricky' and that's when it all began for myself a journey I never imagined. From that date forward to this I have received a lot of information and spoken to all sorts of people from high up to general people whom either knew nothing or some that knew it all.

Today I still speak to a few who have supported me through this journey, without them I'm not sure where I would be today with all of this. Some say "go get them Cheryle" some just show there sympathy for all that has happened and wish me well with it all.

Its been a hard road after 18yrs, I bring all this memory up for some people and for myself I learn the truth about my brothers death, hard yes, heartbreaking yes, pissed off yes, lots of looking back at the early days when Ricky was inside I use to think "what could I have done to make it all different"?

And there has been lots of "If only I did this or done that" but as I have learnt now I cannot blame myself for the time I couldn't be there for him. Lots of issue's raised their ugly heads but I have had to deal with them one by one during this time. I after all this time can see a bit clearer and now all I can say is I have to move forward and fight for what Ricky would have wanted and get out of my sad-anger stage.

Grieving is one of the hardest things I've have had to go through and in this case really hard as a lot of things didn't add up, corruption within the system, so many lies and yet still looking for answers to all of this shit. I guess I have received the answers but they weren't the ones I was looking for.

When I started all this I went full forward and not to mention at high speed. I contacted so many people and received so much information it was a great help, but some wouldn't tell as they are still in the system today, although a couple gave me some info that was enlightening. A few that were on the inside at the time contacted me and either sent their wishes whilst others just bragged about there time there and it followed with the typical macho stuff, some I contacted were rude and didn't want any part of it (this showed me who the real dogs were).

I came to accept that it was a hard thing to drag up after so long and to some it was an horrific time and their avoidance in this matter was okay to be left until - if they ever felt comfortable to get back to me with anything, I wont hold my breath.

3 months into this I went bang and hit a wall I was so full of anger and hatred towards the system it wasn't a nice feeling. I was so angry with Robert Wright for starting the protest, I was so sad and in pain as I learnt what my brother had been going through and had been through whilst on the inside... Dirty mongrel screws I hope they suffer today for what they had done back then. I say this to the negative ones who were actually in the unit on the day but then again I say it to any screw who mistreated any prisoners back in the Pentridge, Jika-Jika days "any prison actually".

As sad as it is there were some that had committed suicide or became drunks or just left the system after the Fires back in "87". Those who were there and played their part the best they could no longer stand that dreaded day, tormenting their head. Along another line I have learnt that not all are the same, there a few and far between whom really did the job.

On a positive note, some were around but they had to keep their mouth shut in order to keep their jobs, a few have said to me "it should not have happened Ricky shouldn't have been in such a unit" but as usual there is always one story after another, lies-truth-fear-regret-and lots of sorry's.

Somehow I will get the summary of the 'coroners inquest' files added to my site for all to read if you haven't read it yet. I need to do it in a PDF file this I will do, just not sure when.

I have done a few pages of a journal from prisoners that they did back in '88'. Oh, and there is some truth in that. Once completed, I have 7 pages to type out and shall add it to my site as well.

It's been a difficult past 6 months for me, as a person who suffers with depression I could only imagine what I have endured with all of this. Thank you to all who have supported me and whom are still here with me today to help me get to the end of my journey. Credits are in my thank you page.

Where am I going with it all? Well after having a meeting with a fellow friend whom is going to help me and contacts he has, *we have a plan* its going to take a bit and a few walls to break through. The system can forget that day as much as they want but hey "I WONT!"

The day it will all come alive will be the 29-10-07, this will be the 20yr anniversary.

Please be sure to drop in to my guest book and remember all those who lost their life on this day back in '87'. For Ricky he never got to spend his 18th birthday outside so please help me by acknowledging him on Saturday 29th October for the 18th yr of his death.

Time of deaths 4.15 to 4.35... R.I.P

I will be adding more please keep checking back or send me your email addy and I'll inform you of updates as they come..

Pentridge Memorial

It all started back in May-05 when i decided to do a website on the memory of my brother 'Ricky' and that's when it all began for myself a journey i never imagined. From that date forward to this i have received a lot of information and spoken to all sorts of people from high up to general people whom either knew nothing or some that knew it all. Today i still speak to few who have supported me through this journey, without them i'm not sure where i would be today with all of this. Some say "go get them Cheryle" some just show there sympathy for all that has happened and wish me well with it all.

By Cheryle M posted 31 October 05

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Sister Helen Prejean and her friend and collaborator, the actor Susan Sarandon, tell Alex Hannaford why they will never give up their mission to abolish the death penalty.

A few months ago, 65-year-old Sister Helen Prejean travelled from her home in New Orleans to the Texas town of Huntsville, an hour north of Houston, to pay her last respects to a man she had only known for a few years. James Allridge, 41, had been sentenced to death in 1987 for the murder of a convenience-store clerk in Fort Worth. He had spent 17 years on death row.

"There is no touching, there are no hugs allowed there," she says. "The thing about this contrived, artificial event is that it's not like visiting someone in hospital. James Allridge was fully alive. The only thing that told me he was about to die was my mind and my watch, ticking away on my wrist."

Prejean first visited Allridge at Huntsville's redbrick prison, known as the Walls on account of its imposing fortress-like surround, on August 6. "He was the most gentle, insightful, loving man, and he really thought that because he had changed so much he could challenge the clemency process. He thought they wouldn't kill him." A film made by Allridge's defence counsel, containing interviews with former prison guards who testified that he was no longer a danger to society, was sent to the Texas Board of Paroles and Pardons. They were unswayed, and voted 6-0 in favour of proceeding with the execution.

Allridge was executed by lethal injection on August 26, and his story now forms part of Prejean's second book, The Death of Innocents, published by Random House next month. At Allridge's request, Prejean returned to Huntsville to witness the execution. Before he died, she says, he spoke to the witnesses gathered in the small room beyond the glass partition. "He sounded like he was making a little speech to friends," Prejean says. "He turned his eyes to his victim's family and said, 'I'm so sorry I have destroyed your life.' Then he turned to Christa, a friend who had come over from Switzerland, and said: 'To the moon and back. I came into this world in love and I leave this world in love.' He was so poised."

Since beginning her ministry work in 1981, Prejean has witnessed six executions. Famously, she became a pen pal to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair in Louisiana (and who was executed in 1984). This experience, and their relationship, were related in Prejean's 1993 book, Dead Man Walking, subsequently made into a film by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

For the past 20 years, Prejean has continued to campaign against the death penalty, most recently against the execution of minors. The supreme court is currently hearing a case which will determine whether it is unconstitutional to implement the death penalty against juveniles. If the answer is yes, 75 could be freed from death row. (Between 1990 and 2003, the US executed more juveniles than the rest of the world combined. In the past four years, only four other countries have executed minors - Congo, China, Iran and Pakistan.) Prejean also founded a victims' advocacy group, Survive, based in New Orleans, which counsels death row inmates as well as the families of murder victims.

Prejean remains a close friend of Sarandon's, her collaborator on Dead Man Walking. When the actor first contacted her, more than a decade ago, Prejean had barely heard of her. "I didn't even know what she looked like, and she was suggesting turning my book into a mainstream film. It took her nine months to convince Tim Robbins." Robbins has since adapted the film for the stage, but before it reaches Broadway, Prejean has asked that the script be made available to US schools; the first performance will be at a high school in California.

It was Sarandon who first told Prejean about Allridge's case. "I stay with her and Tim when I'm in New York," says Prejean. "Susan showed me a note from James, and then in April this year she called me, saying he had been given an execution date. She had been writing to him for eight years. You get into the habit of writing to inmates, and when this happens you can't believe the state is actually going to kill them. And then she hit me with the bombshell - James had asked if I could be with him when he died." (Sarandon also visited Allridge shortly before his execution.)

The US occupies an uncomfortable position on the list of countries that still implement the death penalty. In fact, the list reads like a roll call of those nations America views - or once viewed - as hostile: North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Syria. Since 1976, when executions resumed in the US after a nine-year moratorium, 69 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged.

In 1996 a poll showed that 78% of Americans supported the death penalty. A 2004 Gallup poll found that this figure has now dropped to 64% - the lowest in 20 years. According to the Death Penalty Information Centre, public support for execution drops to below 50% when voters are offered alternative sentences such as life without parole.

"The disturbing thing," says Prejean, "is that although 38 states still have the death penalty on their books, over 80% of executions happen in the southern states where slavery was rife. In practice, the death penalty has always been a southern thing. Overwhelmingly, when a black person kills a white person, they are given the death penalty. There is no consistency. Look at the Green River Killer [Gary Leon Ridgway, who last year confessed to the murder of 48 women]. He didn't get sentenced to death. Who can decide who is the worst of the worst and who dies?"

In the Death of Innocents, Prejean recounts the stories of two death-row inmates she ministered to: Dobie Williams, a black man from Louisiana with an IQ of 65, and Joseph O'Dell, a 54-year-old white man from Virginia.

After witnessing Williams's execution, Prejean wrote an open letter to the Louisiana Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "For the first time, I believe, I befriended a truly innocent man on death row," she wrote. "A 38-year-old indigent black man, I believe, was railroaded to death, for the death of a white victim in a small, racist southern town."

Prejean says that O'Dell asked for one evidentiary hearing and a DNA test so that he could prove his innocence of charges of rape and murder. "This was denied and after his death they destroyed the DNA so we will never know," she says. "After the Pope got involved, the governor's office received 10,000 faxes from the people of Italy. Then when Joseph died, the mayor of Palermo made him an honorary citizen and his body was shipped over to Italy and buried there."

Prejean is hopeful that the supreme court will rule against the continued execution of minors; a judgment is expected next spring. "If you are under 18 in the US you can't buy alcohol or tobacco or serve in the military and, ironically, you can't witness an execution. I think the Supreme Court will rule it unconstitutional for the same reasons it ruled against executing the mentally retarded: these people have no culpability for their actions. The rest of the world is watching. The US and Somalia are now the only countries that have not signed up to the Convention on the Rights of the Child."

Speaking from her home in New York, Sarandon says she believes she will see an end to the death penalty in her lifetime. "I have to believe that. It is a very tough thing to participate in that system - for the guards, the jurors, for everybody - because there are so many people involved. And I think that the jury in James Allridge's case was affected. A number of them asked that his sentence be commuted to life because they had not been given all the information, such as his background, when sentencing him.

"The thing that frightens me about the state of our dear nation and our world is this pre-emptive strike philosophy, and of violence as a means of solving everything, whether it is directed against the individual or a country. It is the elimination of all moderation. The most horrific thing about the death penalty - besides the fact that it is arbitrary and capricious and only affects those who have no money - is what it does to society."

She says she has never seen the death penalty as an effective deterrent. "It is archaic - there is a reason why it is outlawed everywhere else."

Sarandon spoke to Allridge over the phone on the afternoon of his execution. "When his last meal came he was a little shocked. He had really convinced himself there was a chance. I don't think he ate anything but had a cigarette instead. I was terrified for him and felt so useless. One of my kids said to me once, 'People don't die, because energy doesn't die, so you'll always be here with me.' When I'm feeling positive, I agree wholeheartedly. When I'm not, I'm not so sure."

By Alex Hannaford 22 November 2004

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Jury Passes On Business Of Killing US: This drives the death penalty crowd in the legislature nuts. Yet another jury - another 12 men and women, tried and true, who had all attested to their belief in the death penalty - has refused to join in the killing business.

Ultimate Punishment Scott Turow has long juggled two careers‹that of a novelist and that of a lawyer. He wrote much of his first and best known legal thriller, Presumed Innocent, on the commuter train to and from work during the eight years he spent as an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago, and he has churned out another blockbuster every third year since joining the firm of Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal in 1986.

A Question of Innocence Rubin Carter: Day after day, week after week, I would sit in that filthy cell, seething. I was furious at everyone. At the two state witnesses who lied, at the police who put them up to it, at the prosecutor who sanctioned it, at the judge who allowed it, at the jury who accepted it, and at my own lawyer, for not being able to defeat it.

Amnesty steps up campaign to abolish death penalty Human rights watchdog Amnesty International is urging people around the world to pressure countries to abolish the death penalty.

'LAND OF THE FREE' SET TO EXECUTE TWO PRISONERS BY FIRING SQUAD: Wanted: Willing executioners for two convicted murderers. Must be psychologically sound and familiar with .30-calibre rifles. No victims' relatives need apply.

TEXAS EXECUTES 300th PRISONER Keith Clay was executed tonight, becoming the 300th prisoner in Texas to die by lethal injection since the rogue state resumed the death penalty 20 years ago.

AUSTRALIAN COALITION AGAINST DEATH PENALTY " ... Our nation was built on a promise of life and liberty for all citizens. Guided by a deep respect for human dignity, our Founding Fathers worked to secure these rights for future generations, and today we continue to seek to fulfil their promise in our laws and our society.

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Please note the following article carefully.....it shows clearly the hateful, uncaring and anti-human rights attitude as reflected by the Governor of Texas (and most other elected Texas officials).

Bush rules out death sentence review US President George W Bush says has dismissed any chance of a review of America's system of capital punishment.

Amnesty urges Bush to shut death row Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has urged US President George W. Bush to take a "moral stand" and abolish the death penalty after the Illinois Governor dramatically emptied that state's death row.

USA - A NATION IN TURMOIL: As the year 2002 draws to a close, little if anything, has changed in the United States in regards to state-sanctioned killing. Various campaigns, calls for clemency, petitions, and international condemnation, have failed to humanize U.S. politicians.

Here come de Judge - Time to Leave [266]
There have always been examples of rulings and interpretations that have supported the saying "The law is an ass". This is increasingly the case, because even the best intentioned judges are now facing an avalanche of new technologies and social change. But, it is no good making excuses for the judiciary and continuing to accept their strange interpretations. We must recognise that not only judges but the whole legal system will struggle more and more. In the end the whole system will become a farce. This is the way empires end.

Personal Voices: America From Inside Federal Prison

I am about to witness my fifth presidential election from inside a United States prison.

I offer these thoughts to readers who may have an interest in knowing how the growing American prison population perceives the electoral process. Elections are the essence of democracy; they give each eligible voter an opportunity to be heard.

Unfortunately for me, as a federal prisoner, I cannot vote, and am thus marginalised as an American citizen. Whereas others are concerned with the state of the economy, or foreign policy, my primary interest in elections has been whether any political leader would implement policies enabling non-violent prisoners to earn freedom.

I do not expect such an issue to play much of a role in any campaign.

I began serving this term in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was approaching the end of his second term as president. I was only 23 then, and despite having no history of violence or prior incarceration, I was convicted for my participation in crimes related to the distribution of cocaine.

My sentencing judge thought a 45-year sentence was appropriate in my case. It was the starkest but only the first example of how our country's continuing move to the right would influence my life. Over the past 16 years I have had ample opportunity to observe and reflect on its impact on my life, and that of my country.

A first election behind bars

In the 1988 election, George Bush senior easily defeated Michael Dukakis, the erstwhile governor of Massachusetts, to become our nation's 41st president. Bush used the notorious Willie Horton television commercial, highlighting the case of a prier who committed a violent crime while on a "furlough" (weekend pass), to polarize voters by portraying Dukakis as a soft-on-crime liberal.

I still remember the fear that Bush's election team tried to instill in voting Americans.

The Bush campaign broadcast clips about the revolving-door prison system that would exist under a Democrat, suggesting that Dukakis would release heinous psychopathic predators back into society.

The propaganda worked. Under the first President Bush's administration, there began an unprecedented rise in prison population levels. One of Bush senior's first televised addresses to the nation in 1988 came with his declaration that the scourge of drug use was the greatest threat to our nation.

In an orchestrated drug transaction near the White House, President Bush held a bag of ominous white powder in his hands and promised to stop the flow of drugs into America. His new cabinet post of "drug czar" was filled by Bill Bennett, an ostensible pillar of moral virtues, who was charged with purging the nation of all recreational drugs other than nicotine and alcohol. When Bush senior took office, there were fewer than 700,000 human beings incarcerated.

As of this writing, the United States now imprisons more than 2.1 million people. This steep rise is partly a consequence of the "war on drugs." A majority of these prisoners are serving lengthy sentences for non-violent convictions related to the distribution of drugs. There is no evidence that the importation or use of illegal drugs has diminished.

From hope to disillusion

In 1992, from where I stood, Bush appeared invincible as a candidate for a second term. He enjoyed high popularity ratings as a consequence of the first Gulf war to eject Saddam's forces from Kuwait in 1991. But many American voters were concerned about the domestic economic recession. Bill Clinton, the former governor of Arkansas, rose to prominence by exploiting the growing impatience with Bush on this issue.

I was several years into my prison term by then, studying toward my undergraduate degree from behind the high walls of the United States penitentiary in Atlanta. I followed closely the media's coverage of Clinton's ascent, and the more I read about his background, the more inspired I became about the candidate from Hope, Arkansas.

Clinton campaigned on a platform that would balance fiscal conservatism with social progress. His particular focus, he promised, would be the creation of new employment opportunities for all Americans and the slashing of budget deficits. But as a long-term prisoner it was the possibility of a different attitude to prisons that inspired hope in me. I wanted, then as now, to earn my freedom.

Bill Clinton's younger brother, Roger, had served time in federal prison for his participation in the distribution of illegal drugs. Had Roger been convicted under the draconian drug laws ushered in during the Reagan/Bush years, as I was, he would have served substantially more time in prison for the same conduct.

I expected, naively perhaps, that candidate Clinton's personal experience would prompt him to support fresh policies that would offer non-violent prisoners the chance to earn their way to freedom.

Despite numerous, vituperative attacks on his personal character (for, among other things, having smoked marijuana) Clinton began to rise in the national election polls. While other Americans became encouraged with the new hope of a Clinton presidency, prisoners from across the nation became increasingly optimistic that some kind of relief would come.

On election night, every television room in the penitentiary was tuned into the election results. Convicts of every ethnic, educational, and socio-economic background were cheering as the numbers accumulated for Clinton.

After several hours, I retired for the night, ecstatic. A couple of months later, I remember tears of joy welling up in my eyes as I watched it become official at the televised inauguration. For the first time in several years, I began to feel as if I might be welcomed back into the American embrace.

Over the next eight years, Clinton's presidency created millions of new jobs; budget deficits turned into a huge budget surplus. But under the relentless pounding from the Republican right he was defensive. He governed according to the polls. From my perspective, he provided management rather than leadership. And for prisoners, he implemented policies that actually lessened our access to programs that would enable us to earn freedom.

Indeed, under Clinton's watch, funding dried up for prisoners trying to educate themselves. I was disappointed to see opportunities for college studies vanish, and a new crime bill that further reduced access for prisoners to judicial relief. Clinton was no friend to those in prison.

The biggest slap in the face came as Clinton left office. The United States Constitution makes it possible for the president, in an act of mercy, to commute the sentences of federal prisoners. Yet until the final days of his presidency Clinton had been parsimonious with his grants of executive clemency; in fact, his dismal record in this regard rivaled that of his conservative predecessors, Bush and Reagan.

In the final days of his term, Clinton abused his pardoning power by granting relief to political donors and those with connections to the White House. Even worse, after he left office and was powerless to act, Clinton publicly acknowledged that too many people are serving too much time for non-violent drug crimes.

Keep your head up

By the time of George W. Bush's inauguration in 2000, I had 13 years of imprisonment behind me. Despite his claim to be a "compassionate" conservative and his constant references to Christian values, I did not expect Bush junior's compassion to penetrate prison gates. In fact I expected the harshness of prison life to escalate.

After the 2000 election, I set free all hopes for relief from this lengthy sentence I serve. Now we are into the 2004 election season. I expect that John Kerry will continue to attack Bush for leading America into war when, perhaps, there was no imminent threat to the United States or to our allies.

The difficult US job market will be a hot topic, as will the Bush tax cuts and their contribution to the monstrous budget deficit problems that threaten economic stability in our country. I do not expect either candidate to talk about the 2.1 million people serving time in American prisons.

Our felony convictions have disenfranchised us; we are powerless and forgotten. It is as if we live in exile. But somehow, the election process still matters to us, and I will follow it closely and even eagerly.

I have been imprisoned for virtually my entire adult life. As such, I hope for a United States leadership that will advance the criminal justice system, [criminal law system], by recognizing the absurdity of confining non-violent people convicted of victimless crimes for multiple decades. After all, I am still an American. I long for a return to the land of the free and the home of the brave.

By Michael Santos, openDemocracy.net posted April 6, 2004

Prisoners must get right to vote, says court

UK: The government will be forced to lift a ban on prisoners voting dating back to 1870 after the European court of human rights ruled yesterday it breached a lifer's human rights.

Related:

Fighting for Florida: Disenfranchised Florida Felons Struggle to Regain Their Rights US: TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Gov. Jeb Bush looked out over a roomful of felons appealing to him for something they had lost, and tried to reassure them.

Abolish the Security Housing Units: MIM
March 6 -- Protesters took to the streets in cities across the state of California to demand California prisons shut down the Security Housing Units (SHU). Like other control unit prisons across the country, the SHU are prisons within a prison. They are solitary confinement cells where prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day for years at a time. The one hour a day these prisoner sometimes get outside of their cell is spent alone in an exercise pen not much larger than their cell, with no direct sunlight.

USA: Sobering Prison Statistics
US: If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 out of every 20 persons (5.1%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.

Helping Prisoners Find Their Way Home?
Antonio Pinder used to be scared of returning home from prison, stricken by fear that he would fall back into the life that landed him behind bars. He hadn't had a steady job before he was sent away 13 years ago, and he worried that he never would. A year out of prison, he is still searching for work.

US Prison system ending love affair with incarceration?
After 25 years of explosive growth in the U.S. prison system, is this country finally ending its love affair with incarceration? Perhaps, but as in any abusive relationship, breaking up will be hard to do.

CONS COMMIT CRIMES IN HASTE, NOW CAN REPENT AT LAWTEY - -- Gov. Jeb Bush, in a Christmas Eve address to prisoners at the nation's first ''faith-based'' prison, in North Florida.

CURE --- Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants
CURE --- is a nation-wide grass roots organization dedicated to reducing crime through reform of the criminal justice system.[Criminal Law System.]

The Truth About Private Prisons
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest operator of prisons for profit, is celebrating its 20th anniversary throughout this year "at both the company's corporate Nashville office and at all of the more than 60 prisons, jails and detention centers under CCA ownership and/or management."

CCA PRIVATE PRISONS: REPORT GRASSROOTS LEADERSHIP
New National Study of Corrections Corporation of America Warns Investors and Legislators of Risky Investment. Report explores continuing operational and financial problems; questions CCA's long-term viability as states reassess prison policies.

Finally, States Release The Pressure on Prisons?
US: After decades of massive prison growth, America may be ending its love affair with incarceration. Policymakers around the country, some of whom previously supported ratcheting up punishments, have begun to rethink the wisdom of unbridled prison expansion, and are advocating alternatives to simply "locking them up and throwing away the key."

California Parole System Deemed 'Broken'
SACRAMENTO, Calif: California spends $1.5 billion annually on parolees who mostly fail and are sent back behind bars because they are no better prepared for life on the outside than the day they entered prison, according to a report.

People with Mental Retardation in the Criminal Justice System
Based on the 1990 census, an estimated 6.2 to 7.5 million people in the United States have mental retardation. Various studies have suggested between 2 percent to 10 percent of the prison population has mental retardation.

USA: With Cash Tight, States Reassess Long Jail Terms
OLYMPIA, Wash., Nov. 6 - After two decades of passing ever tougher sentencing laws and prompting a prison building boom, state legislatures facing budget crises are beginning to rethink their costly approaches to crime.

A STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTS: PRISONS & IMPERIALIST WAR
After a war waged by the U.S. military against Vietnam which took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and more than 58,000 GIs, the U.S. finally withdrew in 1975. It had suffered its first official major military defeat by a united people struggle led by the Vietnamese, along with a mass U.S. anti-war movement.

Report on State Prisons Cites Mental Illness
NEW YORK: Nearly one of every four New York State prisoners who are kept in punitive segregation [solitary confinement], confined to a small cell at least 23 hours a day are mentally ill, according to a new report by a nonprofit group that has been critical of state prison policies.

High court keeps alive case of prisoners held in solitary
NEW ORLEANS: The nation's highest court refused Monday to kill a lawsuit brought by two prisoners and an ex-prisoner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary who spent decades in solitary confinement.

US: Mentally Ill Mistreated in Prison More Mentally Ill in Prison Than in Hospitals (New York, October 22, 2003) Mentally ill offenders face mistreatment and neglect in many U.S. prisons, Human Rights Watch. "Prisons have become the nation's primary mental health facilities. But for those with serious illnesses, prison can be the worst place to be."

Shut down the Security Torture Units
San Francisco: October 18 In solidarity with other prison activist organizations, MIM, RAIL, the Barrio Defense Committee (BDC) and the Prison Reform Unity Project held a four hour rally in San Francisco demanding the Security Housing Units (SHUs) in California prisons be shut down.

Solitary Confinement: Mental illness in prisons
As noted earlier, inmates [prisoners] with mental illness are over represented in our toughest prison settings. Symptoms of mental illness (i.e., delays in response time, paranoia, difficulty interpreting the actions of others, command hallucinations, and so on) can make complying with prison rules difficult.

Post-Incarceration Sentences
Pat: "The 1990s brought a new front in the war on drugs, featuring a new layer of the Prison Industrial Complex, which has the effect of ensuring that people coming in contact with the criminal punishment system remain within the grasp of the Prison Industrial Complex even beyond prison walls."

Inside Prison, Outside the Law
Every year, tens of thousands of prisoners in state and federal custody are attacked. The exact number who die is difficult to determine: According to the nonprofit Criminal Justice Institute, in 2000, the most recent year for which figures have been compiled, 55 prisoners were murdered, 39 died "accidentally," and 118 died for unknown reasons.

Day Seven of the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health:
PASADENA, CALIF: On the seventh day of a hunger strike by six psychiatric survivors to oppose human rights violations in the mental health system, the American Psychiatric Association faces a direct and unprecedented challenge from a Scientific Panel of 14 academics and clinicians.

Supreme Court Justice Criticises Sentencing Guidelines
San Francisco, August 9, 2003, Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said today that prison terms are too long and that he favours scrapping the practice of setting mandatory minimum sentences for some federal crimes.

US prison population 2.1 million
The US prison population grew more than twice as fast last year as in 2001, bringing the total number of people held behind bars in the United States to more than 2.1 million, a record, according to a government report.

McKean Federal Prison: An Alleged Model
McKean, a federal correctional institution [? prison], does everything that "make 'em bust rocks" politicians decry--imagine, educating inmates [prisoners]! And it works. [Allegedly works.]

Prisoners Justice Day Press Release (Montreal)
On August 10th, 1974, Eddie Nalon bled to death in a solitary confinement unit at Millhaven Maximum Security Prison near Kingston,Ontario when the emergency call button in his cell failed to work. An inquest later found that the call buttons in that unit had been deactivated by the guards.

Notebook of a Prison Abolitionist
In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass recalls how as a slave he would occasionally hear of the "abolitionists." He did not know the full meaning of the word at first, but he heard it used in ways that he found appealing.

Study Warns of Rising Tide of Released Prisoners
Washington: More than 625,000 former prisoners will be coming back into U.S. society this year, part of a record flow of prisoners who will face crushing obstacles in finding work and housing and repairing long-fractured family ties, according to a newly released study.

Incite Statement Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex
We call social justice movements to develop strategies and analysis that address both state AND interpersonal violence, particularly violence against women.

Second International Conference on Human Rights & Prison Reform
**This second gathering will be much smaller and more in depth in participation. A report on the human rights violation of discrimination in regard to prisoners will be produced. This report will be given to the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights which will be having its annual meeting near our conference and is the"think tank" for the human rights agenda of the United Nations.

Judged Forever- The Orange County Register
US: California's largest job-placement program for parolees will be shut down May 31 after an Orange County Register investigation found that ex-convicts were sent to questionable jobs [?] and that the state was charged for placements that did not occur. [? According to the ruling-class]

California Family Visiting Case
US: CALIFORNIA: Today (5/03/08) in Superior Court around twenty friends and family members of inmates from CSP Solano showed up to show their support in the Gordon vs. CA Department of Corrections (Case #322862) which deals with the subject of bringing back Family Visits to all inmates.

Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds
An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department.

Justices question prison visitation policies
WASHINGTON: In a case that could affect the visitation rights of millions of prisoners, Supreme Court justices on Wednesday struggled with the question of whether inmates have a constitutional right to visits with friends and family.