prison-industrial complex
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Everyone Knows Why Inmates Are Dying in Alabama Prisons. No One Knows How to Fix It
Alabama runs the most violent prison system in America. Inmates in Alabama’s prisons are killed at nearly nine times the national rate. Families have been devastated. The state doesn’t seem to have answers. A study by a criminal justice and civil rights organization concluded that money won’t fix it. Even Donald Trump’s Justice Department called…
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Alabama Woman Incarcerated for 17 Months Doesn't Know How She Ended Up Pregnant
Days away from giving birth, an Alabama woman sitting in jail for more than 17 months claims to have no recollection of having sex, leaving her searching for answers as to how she wound up impregnated. On December 5, 2017, the Alex City Outlook reports that 26-year-old Latoni Daniel was arrested and charged with capital…
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Fed Up With the Criminal Justice System, Man Acts as His Own Attorney and Gets Acquitted After Serving 13 Years for Murder
Philly native Hassan Bennett had always maintained his innocence, but unfortunately, our faulty criminal justice system ensured it would take him four trials and 13 years to finally prove it. The Washington Post reports that on September 22, 2006, Bennett was accused of orchestrating the murder of his friend Devon English, 19, over a $20…
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Texas Prison System Slashes Price of Inmate Phone Calls by 77 Percent, Contractor to Set Up Video Phones
Perhaps not coincidentally during a #NationalPrisonStrike2018, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on Friday voted to drastically slash the cost of calls from prison inmates by more than 75 percent, a boon to the cash-strapped black and brown communities that feed the prison industrial complex. Angela Davis put it best: “Mass imprisonment generates profits as…
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Joe Arpaio’s Infamous and Inhumane Tent City Jail Officially Shut Down
In 1993, now-former Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio opened his infamous Tent City outdoor jail, supposedly as an answer to the problem of overcrowding in Phoenix’s jails. Tent City was a source of controversy for the entirety of its existence, and this weekend, it finally closed for good, just 10 months shy of its…
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Hillary Clinton, Jeff Sessions and America’s Secret Slave System
Contrary to popular belief, slavery was never outlawed in the United States. This statement is not a debatable, half-twisted analysis or a cynical opinion. It is a fact. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution does not outlaw slavery; it only prohibits slavery in certain situations. It is entirely constitutional to turn drug dealers, gangbangers and…
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Housing an Inmate in a Calif. Prison Costs More Than Tuition for a Year at Harvard University
There are 130,000 inmates in California’s prison system, and under Gov. Jerry Brown’s spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, the cost of housing them is expected to reach a record $75,560, which is more than the annual cost of attending Harvard University. Brown’s plan includes a record $11.4 billion for the…
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When Incarcerated People Die, Blame the Prison-Industrial Complex
Early Wednesday morning, Aaron Hernandez joined the long list of incarcerated people, including Sandra Bland and Kalief Browder, who allegedly committed suicide while in prison, or soon after being released. We should not be mistaken about who or what is to blame: prisons and jails. The prison-industrial complex and the various ways it promotes the…
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NJ Governor Commutes Sentence of Marine Facing Mandatory 3-Year-Term for Gun Charge
Marine Sgt. Hisashi Pompey is a decorated Marine who served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, but six years ago, during a trip to New Jersey, his life changed forever. One Friday night, Pompey had just wrapped up training some Marines in Fort Lee and headed to a nightclub with a friend. That…