The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery?

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.

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.

What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?

"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."

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."

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.

CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP

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:

¥ 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.

* 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.

* Longer sentences.

* The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances.

* A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.

* More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.

HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES

Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else's land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery - which were almost never proven - and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads.

From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.

During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. "Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more.

All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month.

The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

PRIVATE PRISONS

The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton's program for cutting the cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.

Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one.

According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, "the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners." The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners.

In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for "good behavior," but for any infraction, they get 30 days added - which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost "good behavior time" at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.

IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits.

According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state's governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 - ending court supervision and decisions - caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering "rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

STATISTICS

Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country's 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.

BY VICKY PELAEZ posted 15 October 05

Related:

New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters
As Hurricane Katrina began pounding New Orleans, the sheriff's department abandoned hundreds of inmates imprisoned in the city's jail, Human Rights Watch said today.

Lockdown
Mumia, if the last nameless prostitute becomes an unraveling turban of steam, if the judges' robes become clouds of ink swirling like octopus deception, if the shroud becomes your Amish quilt, if your dreadlocks are snipped during autopsy, then drift above the ruined RCA factory that once birthed radios to the tomb of Walt Whitman, where the granite door is open and fugitive slaves may rest.

Ohio's Abu Ghraib
US: Before becoming an Ohio State Penitentiary physician, Dr. Ayham Haddad experienced a different side of incarceration as a political prisoner in Syria. After being arrested, tortured, and released, Haddad immigrated to the United States to begin a new life.

Two Million Imprisoned = Too Many
On August 13, thousands of people from around the nation are expected to march in a "Journey for Justice" to our nation's capitol. Times have certainly changed since the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, but this year's march still has everything to do with what many view as institutionalized racism.

Harmful, Undeserved Punishment
US: Nearly five million American citizens are denied the right to vote - one of every 50 citizens. That includes 13 percent of all African-American men nationwide, up to almost twice that percentage in particular states and the majority of adults - black and white -- in some inner city neighborhoods.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

[PRISONACT] FOR THE MILLIONS WHO CARE!
US: Washington: Hello. My name is Kay Lee and among other things, I am currently a coordinator for Prison Reform's first 'Call to Arms': A massive march which is scheduled to take off from Lafayette Park in Washington DC on August 13, 2005.

International conference: Prisoners and their families
NEPACS' third national conference looks at the importance of family relationships to an offender and the trauma and disruption to family life caused by a prison sentence.

Association for the Prevention of Torture
The Optional Protocol requires 20 ratifications to enter into force. All States Parties to the UN Convention against Torture should seriously consider ratifying the OPCAT as soon as possible. National Institutions and others promoting the human rights of people deprived of their liberty need to be informed of their potential role as national preventive mechanisms under the OPCAT.

US land of the free: 2,131,180 prisoners
US: WASHINGTON -- The nation's prisons and jails held 2,131,180 inmates as of June 30, 2004, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced this week. Two-thirds were in federal and state prisons, and the other third were in local jails. Jail authorities were supervising an additional 70,548 men and women in the community in work release, weekend reporting, electronic monitoring and other alternative programs.

The ABOLITIONIST
From the first issue's open letter: "When a prisoner suggested we entitle this quarterly newspaper The Abolitionist, we couldn't help but revel in the titleâs historical significance. The original Abolitionist was a monthly journal of the New England Antislavery Society that agitated for the immediate abolition of slavery back in 1835.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Unlock the Box:
Unlock the Box is a product of many years of struggle to shut down the Security Housing Units in California. During this time, the United Front to Abolish the SHU was created as a forum to coordinate the actions of everyone involved in this campaign.

State of the Prison System
US: According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 2.3 million men and women are now behind bars in the United States. Yes, the country that touts itself as the "land of the free" and the champion of freedom around the world incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country.

THE HIDDEN TRUTH ABOUT EXECUTIONS:
For death row inmates in Indonesia, execution usually comes on a deserted beach or remote jungle at the hands of a paramilitary firing squad. And, it rarely comes fast.

US incarceration rate climbs
The US penal system, the world's largest, maintained its steady growth in 2004, the US Department of Justice reported.The latest official half-yearly figures found the nation's prison and jail population at 2,131,180 in the middle of last year, an increase of 2.3 per cent over 2003.

Three-Strikes law mandatory sentencing
US: First of all, this is not about a simple baseball game. This is about the most important thing of all, the game of life. The Three-Strikes law (mandatory sentencing for three felony convictions) came into being through fear, manipulation and, yes, full-blown prejudice.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

He Did Time, So He's Unfit to Do Hair
She has managed to turn life in federal prison into a nifty career move. Her company's stock is soaring, and she has plans for not one but two television shows. It almost makes you wonder why the Enron types are fighting so hard to stay out of jail.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK:
US: The American media reports that thousands of Iranians cheered, whistled and clapped as a serial killer was publicly executed in Iran last week.US death row numbers don't change policy?
The number of prisoners on death row in the United States appears to be falling, mostly credited to a single Governor who commuted the sentences of all the death row prisoners in his state.

Despite Drop in Crime, an Increase in Inmates
US: The number of inmates in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell, according to a study by the Justice Department released yesterday.

DNA Evidence of Bipartisanship
Last week the U.S. Congress passed the Justice for All Act, which includes provisions of the Innocence Protection Act. As of this posting, the legislation has not yet been signed by President Bush. Attached is an analysis of the legislation prepared by the Justice Project.

Our Two Priority Bills sent to White House
US: The 8th National CURE Convention last June lobbied on Capitol Hill the Innocence Protection Act in the Senate and the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 in the House. On Sunday, October 10th, Congress passed both bills and sent them to the President to be signed.

THE LAW IS AN ASS:
US: A Californian man who beheaded a german shepherd dog he had named after his girlfriend, has been sentenced to 25 years to life under California's three-strikes law.

How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy
For starters, hundreds of thousands of people who are still eligible to vote will not do so this year because they will be locked up in local jails, awaiting processing or trials for minor offenses.

BIRTHDAY PROTEST BACKS INNOCENT MAN ON DEATH ROW:
Kids from 3 to 83 years old beat candy labeled "Justice" out of a big Texas-shaped piqata on Aug. 1 as dozens gathered in the Houston City Hall Park to celebrate the 30th birthday of Nanon Williams, an innocent person on Texas death row.

THE LAND OF BIBLES, GUNS, PATRIOTS AND THE 'WORLD ROLE MODEL' FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: The state of Alabama, USA, executed James Barney Hubbard. So what? ... you might say ... America executes prisoners almost every week!

Abu Ghraib, USA
When I first saw the photo, taken at the Abu Ghraib prison, of a hooded and robed figure strung with electrical wiring, I thought of the Sacramento, California, city jail.

On Solitary Confinement
There has been much written about solitary confinement by some of the world's leading psychiatrists, but very little written by victims of solitary themselves. I believe that the 32 years I have spent in solitary qualifies me for the task.

Appealing a Death Sentence Based on Future Danger USA-HOUSTON, June 9 - Texas juries in capital cases must make a prediction. They may impose a death sentence only if they find that the defendant will probably commit more violent acts.

Forensics? In proposing a new death penalty for Massachusetts last month, Governor Mitt Romney offered firm assurance that no innocent people would be executed: Convictions, he said, will be based on science.

The Two Million Signature Campaign
We are shooting for over 2,000,000 signatures on the LERA petition! That is one signature for every person incarcerated in the United States!

Restorative Justice Practices
Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America: Part NSW Community News Network Archive: US land of the free: 2,131,180 prisonersOne BY LAURA MIRSKY.

Maoist Internationalist Movement
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.

From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell If the president wasn't so forthright about his disinterest in the world, it would have been hard to believe him Wednesday when he said the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison "doesn't represent the America I know."

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.

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

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. He heard about it when a slave ran away or killed his master. He heard about it when a barn was set on fire or a slave committed an act his master thought wrong. For Douglass, these utterances and reports were "spoken of as the fruit of abolition." He adds, "Hearing the word in this connection very often, I set about learning what it meant."

Police 'had role in' Bali blasts

INDONESIAN [politicians,] police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said.

In an interview with SBS's Dateline program, on the third anniversary of the [CIA false flag] bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups. [CIA - Coalition of the Killing - NATO.]

While he believed terrorists were involved in planting one of the Kuta night club bombs, the second, which destroyed Bali's SariClub, had been organised by authorities.

Asked who he thought planted the second bomb, Mr Wahid said: "Maybe the police ... or the armed forces."

"The orders to do this or that came from within our armed forces, not from the fundamentalist people," he says.

The program also claims a key figure behind the formation of terror group Jemaah Islamiah was an Indonesian spy.

Former terrorist Umar Abduh, who is now a researcher and writer, told Dateline Indonesian authorities had a hand in many terror groups. [Or were complicit in State Terror for whoever but not for a song. How about and Australian grant of say $48 Million]

Indonesian Election: Australia $48 Million?

The threat from terror groups and failed states means Australia needs a high-tech, rapid deployment defence force, the defence minister says.

"There is not a single Islamic group either in the movement or the political groups that is not controlled by (Indonesian) intelligence," he said.

He says Hasbi was a secret agent for Indonesia's military intelligence while at the same time a key player in creating JI.

Embrace nuclear weapons: The Un-Australian?

[Bambang: "What should I say about JI?" Advisor: "better not admit that JI exist' s"... Bambang in English: "We have no evidence that JI exists..." Posted by: Terminator at December 2, 2004 04:50 PM]

Documents cited by SBS showed the Indonesian chief of military intelligence in 1990 authorised Hasbi to undertake a "special job".

A 1995 internal memo from the military intelligence headquarters in Jakarta included a request to use "Brother Fauzi Hasbi" to spy on Acehnese separatists in Indonesia, Malaysia and Sweden.

And a 2002 document assigned Hasbi the job of special agent for BIN, the Indonesian national intelligence agency.

Security analyst John Mempi told SBS that Hasbi, who was also known as Abu Jihad, had played a key role in JI in its early years.

"The first Jemaah Islamiah congress in Bogor was facilitated by Abu Jihad, after Abu Bakar Bashir returned from Malaysia," Mr Mempi said.

"We can see that Abu Jihad played an important role. He was later found to be an intelligence agent. So an intelligence agent has been facilitating the radical Islamic movement."

Hasbi was disembowelled in a mysterious murder in 2003 after he was exposed as a military agent and his son Lamkaruna Putra died in a plane crash last month.

Another convicted terrorist, Timsar Zubil, who set off three bombs in Sumatra in 1978, told the program intelligence agents had given his group a provocative name - Komando Jihad - and encouraged members to commit illegal acts.

"We may have deliberately been allowed to grow," he said.

Abduh also told the program his terrorist organisation, the Imron Movement, was incited to a range of violent action in the 1980s when the Indonesian military told the group that the assassination of several Muslim clerics was imminent.

Another [alleged] terrorism expert, George Aditjondro, said a bombing in May this year that killed 23 people in the Christian village of Tentena, in central Sulawesi, had been organised by senior military and police officers.

"This is a strategy of depopulating an area and when an area has been depopulated - both becoming refugees or becoming paramilitary fighters - then that is the time when they can invest their money in major resource exploitation there," he said.

By Dateline and I Told You So posted 14 October 05

Inside Indonesia's War on Terror

Don't say we didn't tell you so: very damming reports on TNI and POLRI in involvement in terrorism. Today - as you would almost certainly know - is the third anniversary of the first Bali bombing and our major report tonight provides an alarming twist to the ongoing terror campaign being waged in Indonesia. David O'Shea, a long-time "Indonesia-watcher", reports that where terrorism is concerned in that country - with its culture of corruption within the military, the police, the intelligence services and politics itself - all is never quite what it seems.

Related:

Embrace nuclear weapons: The Un-Australian?
The Un-Australian newspaper and its political leader john hoWARd have outlined terrorist justification for [false flag] terror attacks in Bali, London and New York and urged neo-liberals and the other 80 per cent of Australians to embrace the 'fear' of nuclear weapons in an article today headed :Embrace nuclear weapons: Bashir.

Daily Telegraph: Mercy for murderers
AUSTRALIA: THESE are the faces of the injured children in the illegal and degrading war on Iraq and Afghanistan - faces that the Australian government chose to forget.

Bin Laden my target, then where has he bin?
A 'prisoner' has allegedly told Indonesian police that OSAMA bin Laden, sent a bundle of 'Australian dollars' to fund last year's bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, but OSAMA gets blamed for everything!

It's just not cricket: Khan
The perception in the West remained that somehow Islam was connected to militarism and terrorism, that all Muslims believe that all suicide bombers go straight to heaven. No one mentioned that before [false flag operations of] 9/11 70 per cent of suicide bombings in the world were committed by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, who were Hindus.

Zarqawi: Everywhere and nowhere
AMMAN, Jordan - A remarkable proportion of the violence taking place in Iraq is regularly credited to the Jordanian Ahmad al-Khalayleh, better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and his al-Qaeda-linked organization in Iraq.

Lashkar-e-Tayiba - Blow Up or Beat Up
Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Tayiba has been branded a terrorist organisation by Australia, the US and Pakistan. It's been accused of being part of the al-Qa'ida network and of planning attacks in Australia.

Bashir: All lies
Bashir handed out as a trophy on a silver plate for George Dubya, and John HoWARd? Abu Bakar Bashir is a Preacher and a Teacher and not a terrorist leader as pro-government media are broadcasting.

INDONESIA: US to resume military ties
In the boldest statement on the subject to date, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has signalled that the US is ready to restore full military training ties with the Indonesian military (TNI). But the announcement coincides with new evidence of the TNI's involvement in the murder of two US nationals in 2002 and what is being dubbed the "biggest timber heist ever".

CIA informer tells court of Bashir's visits?
The key witness in the trial of Indonesian teacher and cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has told a Jakarta court that Bashir once inspected graduating troops at a terrorist training camp?

Sept 11 US false flag operation poses $130,000 challenge
A millionaire activist who believes the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 were and "inside job" is offering a $130,000 reward to anyone who can prove him wrong.

100's of thousands of Aussies cancel holidays in Indonesia?
Australians are being warned to avoid international hotels in Indonesia, particularly the Hilton chain, with intelligence pointing to an imminent terrorist attack. Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, David Ritchie, delivered the travel advice to the Hilton chain within minutes of its release yesterday.

Fool me twice 1-20 -Official release (BALI BOMBINGS/ETimor) Exposing the Australian government's lies about the East Timor massacres, the cover-up of the Bali bombings (including '93 WTC attack) and subsequent anti-terror legislation forced through parliament.

The Truth About Bali Bombings Part 1 REMIX Part One + Two: Que Bono. Who Benefited? The Bali Bombings were a direct US-Israeli response to the growing Peace marches and Anti War Movement in Australia that was ballooning at an alarming rate after 9-11 and after Bush announced he was waging illegal invasions. It also very quickly secured Indonesia's and Australia's subservience to the US and cemented involvement in the US led War on Terror, and subsequent illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Part TWO: Who really Benefited from the Bali Bombings?

PART THREE: The Investigation(s) Or lack thereof The Primary man at the centre of the Bali investigations got warned off the scent by US Ambassador to Indonesia..

Part 4: The Truth About Bali Bombings Eye witness Testimony and memorial dedication..

Indonesian police set-up Jakarta man?
"Who would blow themselves up when there is no war? Who would give up their life for no struggle? The CIA would! Why? Because the CIA are at war with the world, and they aim to cause terror and slam the Iron fist of fear into the community in the Asian pacific region."

See Links History From 2002:

AFP: The unlikely CRIMINAL
It was born of a bombing and it made its name after a far more devastating act of terrorism. But for most of the 25 years in between, little was known about the Australian Federal Police force or the work it did.

SMS was Keelty's first choice: Alleged bomber
Keelty: "It was just days before Australia's embassy was attacked on September 9"? But you couldn't believe SMS could you? If your life depended on it? What about inviting him to you birthday party? Would you believe answering his own SMS text message? Could you trust him with that?

EVERYONES ABC PROPAGANDA?
THE HEADLINE: New Indonesian President flags strengthening anti-terror laws

Liberal PR stunt, behind SMS attack warning
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty has revealed information about an SMS message warning of an attack on a western embassy in Indonesia came from an Australian businessman in Jakarta.

Community backs candidate wife's Bali claims
Federal Labor Party candidate Ivan Molloy says he supports the sentiments of his wife, a Queensland state politician, who blames the Liberal Party for the 2002 Bali bombings.

Liberal PR stunt, behind SMS attack warning
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty has revealed information about an SMS message warning of an attack on a western embassy in Indonesia came from an Australian businessman in Jakarta.

Howard and Downer to blame for Jakarta bombing: JI?
Alleged JI Members pushed back journalists at the site of a powerful blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The Federal Government has to be condemned for the bomb attack outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

Indonesian Election: Australia $48 Million?
The threat from terror groups and failed states means Australia needs a high-tech, rapid deployment defence force, the defence minister says.

Greens want Flood to front Bali inquiry
Greens Senator Bob Brown wants the author of a key report into Australia's intelligence agencies to appear before a Senate committee examining the Bali bombings.

FLASHBACK: BALI BOMBINGS? HOWARD'S ELECTION CAMPAIGNS?
Indonesian terror warnings on the eve of a federal election are nothing new to Australians. This week's terror campaign by the Howard government and its corporate media allies.

Black market should have been closed to people smugglers
A man charged over a people-smuggling voyage that ended in 350 deaths will face the second day of his committal hearing today.Khaled Daoed is charged with numerous offences over the sinking of the Indonesian fishing boat SIEV X three years ago.

Keelty foresees more terrorism
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty says terrorist groups will continue to find new ways to threaten countries.

US to keep military ties with Indonesia. Target Australia?
US President George W Bush says America plans to resume cooperation with Indonesia's armed forces.

The Daily Propaganda Bali bombings could have been worse?
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner, Mick Keelty, says the bombs that killed 88 Australians in Bali could have done a lot more damage if they had been built differently.

GI propaganda expert earns $200,000 a year: terror dope
A terrorism dope who is on capitalist drugs says the South-East Asian extremist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has raised $200,000 a year from supporters in Australia.

GI propaganda expert earns $200,000 a year: terror dope
A terrorism dope who is on capitalist drugs says the South-East Asian extremist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has raised $200,000 a year from supporters in Australia.

US Deputy Sheriff dismisses Indonesian comment that US king of terrorists
Deputy Sheriff to the US Prime Minister John Howard says he does not agree with comments by the Indonesian Vice-President Hamzah Haz that the real terrorist is the United States for attacking Iraq.

Keep the bastards honest: Publicity keeps an eye on ethics?
The Australian Federal Police commissioner says investigations into terrorist links to Australia are being made more difficult by public debate about the progress of inquiries.

GI divided: Australian experts
GI has descended into a disparate collection of cells working at cross-purposes, with deep divisions on strategy and no clear leader except to say the Indonesian Military could be involved, senior Australian counter-propaganda police believe.

GI killers uncovered
GI has cordial flavours ranging from Raspberry all the way down to Tropical Pineapple and a new generation of drinkers have joined the ranks.

Eye for an eye or blind toothless people?
Terrorists ALLEGED by the Daily Terror, 7 August 03, have claimed responsibility for the Jakarta bombing and are alleged to have sent a chilling warning that they will kill more Westerners if Bali bomber Amrozi is sentenced to death today.

Australian Terror cell here long before Bali
The Australian terrorist Captain Cook infiltrated Australia years before the Bali bombings in which 202 people perished. Aboriginal people attempted to remember Captain Cook not as a founding father but as a harbinger of dispossession and death, a sign of white amnesia. Another anniversary year-used to mark two hundred years since Cook had journeyed along the east coast of Australia and, for some people, discovered a continent.

Did the CIA blow up Bali?
In a nation where conspiracy theories and rice are two of life's staples, Indonesians appear to be changing their habits. You can still get rice with your Kentucky Fried, but conspiracy theories easy to find, at least as far as the Bali bombings are concerned.

Australia's Terrorism Wake Up Call [164] The horrific bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar in Bali, on October 12, 2002, considerably strengthened the hand of the CoW in pursuing the War on Terror. Here was an opportunity to harden the hearts of the Australian and US public against Islamic fundamentalists. It was also a chance for the Indonesian government to justify harsh measures in the war against terrorists and secessionists, such at those in the province of Aceh.

2nd Renaissance -10 The War on Witches [150]
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a Papal Bull that became the rationale for establishing the Inquisition in Germany. The following excerpt from the Bull sets out the official view of the danger of witches to the community. The Bull and this this passage provided the sole excuse for the torture and cruel executions that were, ultimately, to be the fate of up to fifty percent of the population of some villages.

First strike and you're out!
The ideology of a super loser? John Howard shocks the nation again. A nation who cannot believe Howard's stupidity following the Bali bombing. The Bali bombing which was in direct retaliation for his previous remarks towards a first strike on Iraq.

Civil and Democratic Islam websites communicating?
THE internet is becoming a virtual forum for people exchanges, with many sites specifically targeting Australia to stop the racial hate followers, and plan to continue to communicate with each other. Fantastic!

GI Strikes again! Plots plots and more plots
GI cordial's foiled plot to flood foreign embassies in Singapore, including the Australian high commission, would have used high sugar levels at the controls of cordial laden truck, a US interrogation of a key GI figure has revealed. The plot, uncovered by Singaporean authorities last December before it was fully planned, originally was intended for missions in Manila, not Singapore. The revelations, obtained by GKCNN through key summaries of the US interrogation of Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, demonstrate the new depth of GI members' commitment to the sugar cause.

Alarm over terror in 'Australia'?
ISLAMIC extremists linked to GI cordial fired weapons and conducted close-quarter combat training in remote forests all over Australia. Paint Bombs were the weapon of choice.

Australian accused of plot to bomb embassies
A spokesperson for Justice Action Mr.Sooth Sayer said " the arrest is most likely connected to the invasion of the mans privacy by the new powers of ASIO. These are extraordinary laws that were invented, using people as pawns to get unprecedented powers to use to lever John Howard's propaganda machine."

Preventing Prisoner Rape

Here in Adelaide we have recently formed an organisation called Preventing Prisoner Rape which is aiming to raise awareness about the issue of rape in prisons, to try to bring in appropriate law reform and changes to prison administration, and also to reach out and support prison rape survivors.

I'll just fill you in on a little of the history.

In the early 1990s I worked within welfare and education at Long Bay Prison and was horrified by some of the stories I heard from young guys there who had been subjected to assault.

The stories I heard facilitating groups with transgender inmates were also horrible. At the same time I was asked by Dulwich Centre, an independent counselling, community work and publishing house here in Adelaide (which had been involved in responding to the Deaths in Custody Royal Commission in partnership with Aboriginal Health) to put together a book about prisons - or more accurately alternatives to prisons.

This became the book 'Beyond the prison: Gathering dreams of freedom'. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I undertook research for this book and this took me to various places including New York City where I met Stephen Donaldson, one of the key early members of Stop Prisoner Rape in the US.

I have stayed in touch with the work of this grass roots organisation ever since and recently visited their headquarters in LA. Stop Prisoner Rape in the US has had amazing success in the last few years in making the issue of prison rape a national issue. So much so that a federal law has now been passed and every state government is required to take a 'zero tolerance policy' to rape in prison.

Stephen Donaldson (who has since died of AIDS -he acquired HIV through rape in prison) would be amazed at what has been achieved. There is now money and research and more importantly significant action being taken to address the issue of prisoner rape in the US.

I actually find it very inspiring what they have achieved. When I met Stephen the organisation was just operating from his apartment.

Anyway, there is a group of us here in Adelaide who are now determined to try to do something similar here in Australia. I want to let you know about what we are doing at present:

* We have developed a draft prisoner rape support package that we wish to make available to current prisoners or ex-prisoners who have experienced sexual violence in detention.

* We are seeking stories, documents, records, reports of prison rape from across Australia so that we can start to build a case that this is an issue that needs to be taken seriously and addressed in this country.

* We have approached a number of lawyers to see if they would be interested in investigating the possibility of introducing legislation inspired by that which has been and is being developed in the US.

* We are just beginning to make links with other groups committed to prison reform, prison action, prison abolition, prisoner support and so on.

* We have good links with the Stop Prisoner Rape people in the US who wish to support us in anyway that they can and we may arrange for one of their workers to visit and give a speaking tour in the future.

We would really value hearing from any of you about ideas, suggestions, stories, connections about this issue.

It was only yesterday that I heard of the work of Vickie Douglas from the Prison Reform Group in Tasmania and I had contact with Vickie I also hope to meet up with more of you in the future in person, or on the phone, or via email.

I know very little about the situation in Tasmania but look forward to learning more. I have considerable respect for all the work that you are involved in.

Warm regards,

David Denborough
On behalf of Preventing Prisoner Rape
Staff writer
Dulwich Centre Publications
Email: writings@compuserve.com

By David Denborough posted 25 May 05

Tasmania PAR banned from Risdon

Vickie Douglas founded Prison Action and Reform after the gross failures of the system took the life of her young son after he was raped.

Craig Annesley: Miscarriage of Justice

While doing the Order full-time, I was raped in gaol in March 1998, 2.5 weeks later I was taken to a Rape Clinic at Westmead. The Police attended and were to meet me 2 days after to take my statement. This second meeting never happened. I lodged a victim's compensation claim over this incident only to have it refused, as I was a convicted inmate at the time of the alleged offence? That is discrimination as far as I'm concerned.

Related:

Torture not acceptable on anyone: Community!
Australia: A former chairman of the National Crime Authority has spoken out in favour of torture for John HoWARd and the Neo-Cons no doubt, saying it should be used against terrorists and in domestic criminal situations but not against QC's?

PRISON ACTION & REFORM INC: Tas Prison Complaints
TASMANIA: Prison Action & Reform was formed in response to the five deaths in custody that occurred between August 1999 and January 2000. Chris Wever, Vickie Douglas, Rose Macaulay, Judith Santos and others came to together to fight for reform in an outdated, increasingly cash-strapped and uncaring system. Of the original members, three lost loved ones to the Tasmanian prison system.

Torture can never be justified
I am forwarding the following statement issued by AMCRAN in regards to a paper: "Not Enough (Official) Torture in the World? The Circumstances in which Torture is Morally Justifiable" written by Professor Mirko Bagaric, Head of Deakin Law School & Julie Clarke, Lecturer, Deakin Law School, in which they justify torture.

Tasmanian prison support visit
Prisoners from Risdon Prison and Prison Action & Reform (PAR) in Tasmania have requested support from the Australian Prisoners Union and Justice Action following the siege in the prison ending on May 9.

Torture okay: propaganda paper
Mean in Black John HoWARd and Pastor Peter Costello with Professor Mirko Bagaric, and fellow Deakin lecturer Julie Clarke, torture okay for them. Question?

Prison Action & Reform challenge the Attorney General
Members of Prison Action & Reform are furious with the latest lies from the Attorney General -- Judy Jackson, and demand that she produce evidence to support her ludicrous claims.

Tasmania PAR banned from Risdon
Vickie Douglas founded Prison Action and Reform after the gross failures of the system took the life of her young son after he was raped.

Chronology of a Tasmanian Prison System: A Documented Report
We believe that the people of Tasmania - both victims of crime and the general public - have the right to know that the Tasmania Prison Service is delivering a humane and just system of containment that is conducive to the reintegration of inmates back into Tasmanian society.

Risdon prisoners' seize prison to protest mistreatment
Apparently one prisoner had been mistreated and held in isolation in an SHU (Segregation Housing Unit) [Solitary Confinement] because, he'd had and altercation with a screw. SHUs cause severe mental harm - regarded as torture - and are a cruel, inhumane and degrading way to keep prisoners.

No Safe Place
In a brief four month span from August 1999, five men died in Tasmania's Risdon prison. Their deaths have put the state's corrections system in the dock and led to the planned demolition of a jail which even the State's Attorney-General now calls an "appalling facility".

Craig Annesley: Miscarriage of Justice
While doing the Order full-time, I was raped in gaol in March 1998, 2.5 weeks later I was taken to a Rape Clinic at Westmead. The Police attended and were to meet me 2 days after to take my statement. This second meeting never happened. I lodged a victim's compensation claim over this incident only to have it refused, as I was a convicted inmate at the time of the alleged offence? That is discrimination as far as I'm concerned.

Association for the Prevention of Torture
The Optional Protocol requires 20 ratifications to enter into force. All States Parties to the UN Convention against Torture should seriously consider ratifying the OPCAT as soon as possible. National Institutions and others promoting the human rights of people deprived of their liberty need to be informed of their potential role as national preventive mechanisms under the OPCAT.

Corrected or Corrupted
A psychiatrist from the prison Mental Health Team attached to Queensland Health made the comment that 25 per cent of inmates suffer from a diagnosed mental illness.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
We are excited to announce that ICOPA X1, the eleventh International Conference on Penal Abolition will happen in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006. Please pass this onto all networks.

Ex-Prisoner Locked Out of Prison
The NSW Department of Corrective Services (DCS) has revealed a policy which bans ex-prisoners from entering prisons.

Justice Action: Access to our community
NSW: Justice Action went to the NSW Supreme Court before the last Federal election on the constitutional right for prisoners to receive information for their vote. The government avoided the hearing by bringing prisoners' mobile polling booths forward. We pursued it after the election. This is the report.

Despite Drop in Crime USA Increase Prisoners

US: The number of inmates, [prisoners], in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell, according to a study by the Justice Department released yesterday.

The continuing increase in the prison population, despite a drop or leveling off in the crime rate in the past few years, is a result of laws passed in the 1990's that led to more prison sentences and longer terms, said Allen J.. Beck, chief of corrections statistics for the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and an author of the report.

At the end of 2003, there were 1,470,045 men and women in state and federal prisons in the United States, the report found. In addition, counting those inmates, [prisoners], in city and county jails and incarcerated juvenile offenders, the total number of Americans behind bars was 2,212,475 on Dec. 31 last year, the report said.

The report estimated that 44 percent of state and federal prisoners in 2003 were black, compared with 35 percent who were white, 19 percent who were Hispanic and 2 percent who were of other races. The numbers have changed little in the last decade. Statistically, the number of women in prison is growing fast, rising 3.6 percent in 2003. But at a total of 101,179, they are just 6.9 percent of the prison population.

Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University, said one of the most striking findings in the report was that almost 10 percent of all American black men ages 25 to 29 were in prison. Such a high proportion of young black men behind bars not only has a strong impact on black families, Professor Blumstein said, but "in many ways is self-defeating." The criminal justice system is built on deterrence, with being sent to prison supposedly a stigma, he said. "But it's tough to convey a sense of stigma when so many of your friends and neighbors are similarly stigmatized."

In seeking to explain the paradox of a falling crime rate but a rising prison population, Mr. Beck pointed out that F.B.I. statistics showed that from 1994 to 2003 there was a 16 percent drop in arrests for violent crime, including a 36 percent decrease in arrests for murder and a 25 percent decrease in arrests for robbery.

But the tough new sentencing laws led to a growth in inmates, [prisoners], being sent to prison, from 522,000 in 1995 to 615,400 in 2002, the report said.

Similarly, the report found that the average time served by prison inmates, [prisoners], rose from 23 months in 1995 to 30 months in 2001.

Among the new measures were mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which required inmates, [prisoners], to serve a specified proportion of their time behind bars; truth-in-sentencing laws, which required an inmate, [prisoners], to actually serve the time he was sentenced to; and a variety of three-strikes laws increasing the penalties for repeat offenders. In the three states with the biggest prison systems, California, Texas and Florida, the number of newly admitted inmates, [prisoners], grew last year, but the number of those released either fell or remained stable, Mr. Beck said.

Several states with small prison systems had particularly large increases in new inmates, [prisoners], led by North Dakota, up 11.4 percent, and Minnesota, up 10.3 percent. New York had a 2.8 percent decrease in new inmates, [prisoners], reflecting the continued sharp fall in crime in New York City, Mr. Beck said.

Over all, Mr. Beck said, the prison population is aging. Traditionally the great majority of inmates, [prisoners], are men in their 20's and early 30's, but middle-aged inmates, [prisoners], those 40 to 54, account for about half of the increase in the prison population since 1995, he said.

This is a result both of the aging of the general American population and of the longer sentences, Mr. Beck said.

But the number of elderly inmates, [prisoners], is still small, despite longer sentences and more life sentences. Those inmates, [prisoners], 65 and older were still only 1 percent of the prison population in 2003.

By FOX BUTTERFIELD posted 10 November 04

Related:

Race-Based Prison Policy Is Under Justices' Scrutiny
US: WASHINGTON, A California prison policy of temporarily segregating all new and newly transferred inmates by race came under attack at the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case that pits the justices' tradition of deferring to prison administrators against their dislike of government policies that classify people by race.

A Death in the Box
By the time Jessica Lee Roger was discovered on the floor of her prison cell on Aug. 17, 2002, it was too late. In the 24 minutes since guards had last checked her, she had tied a bed sheet around her neck and, after many attempts over three years in prison, finally strangled herself.

How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy
US: pundits blame apathy for the decline in voter turnout that has become a fact of life in the United States in the last several decades.

The Ex Factor: US prisoners and ex-prisoners voting rights
Prison-reform groups work to educate former felons on their voting rights. The red-faced man slows his shopping cart of empty beer cans and stares in disbelief at the white form just thrust into his hand.

Prison Mail Censorship
We all know what prison mail censorship is about and it's certainly not about security: Those In Charge want Those Who Are Not to think that prisoners are illiterate, less than salvagable beasts. If the system had its way, prisoners would scrawl their appeals in crayon on toilet paper. It's all about the illusion.

The U.S. system of 'justice' is a tragic joke
US: Police abuse, and sometimes kill, innocent persons at will. Cops plant evidence, they lie, they coerce confessions and they commit perjury. Many are, simply, criminals.

The Long Trail to Apology
Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.

Free-speech lockdown
As state prisoners, we have long been portrayed by advocates of the tough-on-crime movement as a faceless and heartless amalgam deserving extreme punishment and permanent incapacitation.

Abu Ghraib, USA
When I first saw the photo, taken at the Abu Ghraib prison, of a hooded and robed figure strung with electrical wiring, I thought of the Sacramento, California, city jail.

SACRAMENTO: Prisons to reform solitary confinement rules
US: Sacramento -- California corrections officials will revamp procedures used to keep thousands of prisoners isolated in tiny cells in some of the most remote lockups in the state, according to the settlement of a 10-year-old lawsuit brought by a jailhouse lawyer doing time at Pelican Bay State Prison.

Silencing the Cells: Mass Incarceration and Legal Repression in U.S. Prisons People without a voice are not people in any meaningful sense of the word. Silenced people cannot express their ideas; they can neither consent nor protest. They are reduced to being pawns in the schemes of the powerful, mendicants who must accept whatever is imposed upon them. In order to keep people in a state of subjugation, silencing their voices is essential. Nowhere is this clearer than in U.S. prisons.

USA: An ugly prison record
US: For a nation founded on slavery and genocide, Americans retain an astonishingly enduring faith in their continuing righteousness. They are sounding this note again as the prison torture scandal continues in Iraq.

From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell If the president wasn't so forthright about his disinterest in the world, it would have been hard to believe him Wednesday when he said the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison "doesn't represent the America I know." But being stripped, hooded and urinated on while your friend is forced to masturbate next to you? The only member of the Bush clan who knows about that kind of thing is Jenna.

Restorative Justice Practices
This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. Part one of this series includes inter- views with three justice practitioners of the southwestern United States:

USA: Problems, blame abound in prison system
A correctional officer, [guard], watches over the central exercise yard at Folsom State Prison. California built 21 prisons and tripled prison staff as the statewide inmate, [prisoner], population grew in the '80s and '90s.

Mistreatment of Prisoners Is Called Routine in U.S.
Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates, [prisoners], and human rights advocates.

A Catch-22 for Ex-Offenders
Tuesday, April 6, 2004 -- As the Bush administration focuses attention on ex-offenders with its modest program to help them return to the community, an eye-opening new study shows that the effort will require a lot more than re-entry programs.

A Quite Deliberate Failure: Reflections on the Politics of Crime
Though it is always difficult to predict the outcome of an election in the United States, it is quite a bit easier to make accurate pronouncements about the way in which an election campaign will unfold.

Personal Voices: America From Inside Federal 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.

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.

'Escape king' leaves dummies behind in jail break

Italy's "escape king", Max Leitner, has broken out of prison for a fourth time, staging his latest mystery jail-break with a Mafia arms trafficker.

Guards opened their cells on Friday morning to find only dummies made of rags and cardboard lying where the men should have been.

Italian media reports quote police as saying Leitner must have had outside help to make such a clean getaway.

Blushing prison officials in the northern Italian city of Bergamo refuse to say how the 45-year-old professional thief and his latest partner in crime managed to escape.

Caught only a year ago hiding in a cornfield, Leitner had famously escaped from an Austrian prison after a heist on an armoured car in 1990.

Later captured by Italian police, he was quoted by media as saying: "Austrian prisons are medieval. It's better in an Italian prison."

By Just Us 19 October 04

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome! & The Kathleen Folbigg Case

Kathleen Megan Folbigg, 37, is either Australia's worst female serial killer or her case is a serious miscarriage of justice in which an innocent mother has been wrongfully convicted of infanticide.

In the NSW Supreme Court on May 21, 2003 Kathleen Folbigg was found guilty of murdering her children Patrick, Sarah and Laura at Newcastle and Singleton between 1991 and 1999. She was also found guilty for the 1989 manslaughter of her firstborn Caleb and of inflicting grievous bodily harm on Patrick in 1990.

It took a jury comprising six men and six women just less than nine hours to reach its decision. Folbigg, who had pleaded not guilty to all charges, broke down in visible shock as the verdicts were read out. Justice Graham Barr sentenced her to 40 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years.

At Sydney's Mulawa Women's Detention Centre, Folbigg was placed in protective custody for fear that other prisoners would kill or seriously injure her as a result of the convictions. "Rock spiders" (Australian prison jargon for child killers and child molesters) live a tenuous existence within the prison community because they are despised by both male and female mainstream populations. They require the security of segregation within protective custody for some degree of safety from other prisoners. Folbigg remains isolated in segregation whilst serving her sentence.

Kathleen Folbigg's tragic family history also gave significant impetus to the Crown's contention that she was capable of wilfully murdering her four children. Abandoned by her natural mother as an 18-month-old toddler Folbigg was raised in a succession of orphanages and foster homes after her father, Thomas John "Taffy" Britton murdered his estranged de facto.

Britton confronted Kathleen Mary Donavan outside her home in the Sydney suburb of Annandale on January 9, 1969 and stabbed her 24 times. They had been living in a de facto relationship that had produced 18-month-old Kathleen prior to Donovan leaving during November the previous year. Britton was convicted of murder and received a life sentence. He served 12 years before getting deported to the United Kingdom.

Kathleen was sent to a church orphanage where she remained until she was adopted by a foster family from the Newcastle suburb of Kotara. Raised as Kathleen Marlborough, she was an adult before she learned the truth about her parents. The impact of those events is evidenced by a diary entry dated October 14, 1996 in which Kathleen Folbigg wrote, "Obviously I am my father's daughter".

That diary entry, made after three of her children had already died, was seized upon as a circumstantial link to her guilt. Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC claimed the entry indicated Folbigg was a violent murderous person like her father and suffered from an attachment disorder that prevented her from bonding with her four children. Although the damning memoir was ruled prejudicial and not disclosed to the jury, other parts of the diary were used.

The court was told that Kathleen met Craig Folbigg and the pair married in 1987. Their first child was born February 1, 1989. Caleb was 19-days-old when Craig was awoken by Kathy's screams, "My baby, something is wrong with my baby!". Caleb was dead. His death was diagnosed as SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

Eighteen months later Kathleen Folbigg gave birth to Patrick. He was four months old before history repeated itself but ambulance officers were able to revive the baby despite massive brain damage. Patrick lived another four months before he died. Doctor's diagnosed an epileptic fit as the cause of death.

October 14, 1992 the Folbigg's third child, Sarah, was born. Craig Folbigg testified that on the day Sarah died Kathleen had pinned the child to her in a bear hug while slapping her bottom. She then pushed the child onto him saying, "You f...king deal with her". Later that night he woke about 1.10am to find his wife and Sarah missing from their beds but went back to sleep. He was woken by Kathleen's screams. Sarah was motionless in her bed. SIDS was again diagnosed as the cause of death.

The Folbigg's fourth child, Laura, was born in August 1997 and survived for 19 months before she also died. After Laura's death the marriage collapsed and Kathleen left Craig and moved into a flat. After Kathleen left, Craig Folbigg found his wife's diary and handed it to police.

Kathleen denied any involvement in the deaths of her children but in April 2001 she was charged with four counts of murder and one count of inflicting grievous bodily harm.

The Crown successfully argued that Folbigg suffocated her four babies over a ten-year period, because she had a low threshold to stress and had resented their intrusion into her life, despite any conclusive evidence to support that theory. Tedeschi told the jury that Folbigg smothered her babies "in a flash of anger, hatred and resentment".

Folbigg's defence team retaliated to those accusations by claiming that 19-day-old Caleb, 8-month-old Patrick, 10-month-old Sarah and 19-month-old Laura all died from SIDS. They argued Caleb died from a floppy larynx, Patrick, an epileptic fit, Sarah, an inflamed uvula and Laura died of the heart disease myocarditis.

A panel of international experts disagreed and unanimously testified they had never heard of four children in the same family dying of SIDS. It was claimed the odds of it occurring within the same family was a staggering one in one trillion. Despite those odds a disturbing similarity has emerged between the Folbigg case and 258 similar British cases of infanticide where parents convicted of killing their children will have their cases re-opened.

The process began after the British Court of Appeal overturned the conviction of Angela Cannings on December 10, 2003.

Cannings was jailed for life in April 2002 for the murder of 7-week-old Jason in 1991 and 18-week-old Matthew in 1999. She denied murdering the boys claiming they were victims of SIDS. Her appeal was based on several factors but principally that the expert evidence relating to SIDS was misleading. She joins two other British women also freed after being accused of killing their children.

Sally Clark had been jailed for life for murdering her two baby sons but was cleared by the Court of Appeal in January 2004. A June 2004 jury at Reading Crown Court also cleared 35-year-old pharmacist, Trupti Patel, of murdering her 3 babies.

In Australia Kathleen Folbigg steadfastly maintains her innocence while her murder convictions continue to ignite speculation about what causes mothers to kill their own children. It is the inherent danger of miscarried justice that continues to exist while mystery and uncertainty surrounds SIDS and its possible causes.

Those inherent dangers are compounded if unexplained infant deaths result in authorities wrongly targeting innocent mothers, who have lost children to SIDS as evidenced by the recent British cases.

By Bernie Mathews posted 30 September 04

Related:

Experts in child abuse cases face inquiry
UK: The government launched an official inquiry into the quality of expert medical evidence in child abuse cases last Thursday, as the implications of the miscarriage of justice in the Angela Cannings case continued to perplex ministers.

Folbigg, convicted until proven innocent
Convicted August 2003 for the manslaughter of her eldest child Caleb, and the murder of her next three children, Patrick, Sarah and Laura. Disturbing similarities between the case of Kathleen Folbigg and that of Sally Clark (nb. Other Meadows cases Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Margaret Smith, Julie Ferris, Maxine Robinson) using "Meadows law" one cot death is tragic, two suspicious, three murder." The Attorney-General in England is reviewing more than 250 cases where a parent may have been wrongly convicted. In other words, Professor Meadows evidence has been totally discredited. There is a furore in England, but no mention in Australian press?

Cot deaths and justice
Did you kill your babies?' A whisper came from the crumpled figure in the dock: 'No.' The whisper grew louder: 'No, no.' It was as if we were witnessing torture in Reading Crown Court. It is hard to imagine a crueller inquisition than that which faced Trupti Patel: a mother loses three babies in cot death and then goes through the hell of being accused of murdering them.

Accused of abuse, but never tried
Parents have lost access to their children without a criminal trial. Mothers Sally Clark and Trupti Patel found themselves in the dock accused of murdering their babies partly on the strength of expert testimony by Sir Roy Meadows. But other families have been forcibly separated thanks to Sir Roy's testimony without police charges ever being brought.

Folbigg may have been innocent
On the other hand, some people simply lied or got it wrong because the system failed, The prosecution is not equal to the defence, professional opinions can be flawed and juries can determine the wrong evidence.

Cot Death Mothers: The Witch Hunt
John Sweeney investigates when mothers, grieving the loss of a child after cot death, are wrongly accused of murder.