The top six resources are the recommended ones for May 22nd.
1. Article from San Francisco Guardian about trans women in prison
2. Six minute video clip from the video "Cruel and Unusual" about incarceration of trans women
3. Executive summary of this big report on LGBT youth in the juvenile courts, 7 pages long
4. This is a copy of the Comic Book "Hard Life" which was distributed at our last session.
5. Fact Sheet: How the Criminal Justice System is Anti-Queer.
6. Fact Sheet: How the Criminal Justice System is Anti-Women.
Other resources if you are particularly interested in this topic:
Summary of the Amnesty International report "Stonewalled" about US police abuses of the LGBT community. Can be read or listened to on the website. It has short case information and recommendations and covers a broad range of issues.
This is a video about the issue of shackling pregnant women in prison.
This is a series of pieces written by formerly incarcerated women.
This is a recent piece about incarcerated mothers that is worth reading.
This is an article about the big increase of women in prison.
Corrupting Justice: A Primer for LGBT Communities on Racism, Violence, Human Degradation & the Prison Industrial Complex, [PDF] American Friends Service Committee. 2005.
This is a brand new report from ICJIA titled "Victimization and Help-Seeking Behaviors among Female Prisoners in Illinois."
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Presentation on School-to-Jail pipeline
From the Advancement Project, "Zero Tolerance, High-Stakes Testing, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline." Below, please find the link to the PowerPoint presentation used in the webinar. The recording of the webinar will soon be posted to the websites www.fairtest.org and www.stopschoolstojails.org.
Notes on how the PIC impacts youth
Thanks Naomi!
How does the “War on Drugs” impact young people’s daily lives?
How does the “War on Drugs” impact young people’s daily lives?
- Young people are entered into cycle
- Takes from them—mom, dad, hope
- Street sweeps
- Mandatory minimums
- No financial aid for college with a drug conviction
- “street culture” is more appealing than school (i.e. school to prison piplining system
- racial profiling—police state—no hope, apathy
- no real information about effects of drugs/harm reduction
- way on drugs—the system’s legal ways to prison
- border cartels killing whole families
- what counts as (bad) drugs?
- $$ spent on enforcing drug laws, lack of funding for education
- labels young people as bad, dangerous
- takes away opportunities and resources
- find other ways to survive under the radar
- zero tolerance policy
Interesting article
Here is an article about the "toy jail" in the playground in NYC that was mentioned as part of Saturday's conversation.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Readings for April 24
Here's the readings for the fourth meeting of our group.
please pay particular attention to alternatives to incarceration on this page
please review the fact sheets on the war on drugs, policing sex work and cops in schools
Here is an article about how zero tolerance policies in school discipline are criminalizing young people across the country
A fact sheet from the Defending Justice Toolkit called "How the Criminal Justice System is Anti-Youth"
An "arresting" PSA about called Prison Playground.
This is for those of you who have a particular interest in the school to prison pipeline and have the inclination to read a longer report about the phenomenon which was put together by the Advancement Project.
And this one from Gary:
This is a link is to an issue brief by the American Constitution Society on life without parole sentences for juveniles:
Lots of information in a few pages.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Freed from prison, some juveniles have no place to go
original here
By Steve Mills, Tribune reporter
7:13 PM CDT, March 31, 2010
Nearly 10 percent of the inmates in Illinois' juvenile prisons have essentially completed their sentences — in some cases more than a year ago — but are stuck behind bars because they have no place to go, state records show.
Many of the youths are being held longer in one of the state's eight juvenile prisons because officials cannot find an appropriate placement in a transitional living program or other kind of facility. Others are still in prison because officials found the homes of families or friends to be unacceptable, or because families simply refuse to take them back, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Notes in the records tell sad stories. "Youth has no family that will take him," reads the comment in the case of one downstate boy who was sent to prison for aggravated robbery and was still there two months beyond his scheduled release.
"Placement denied 5X w/relatives," reads the status report on another case. The names of the youths were redacted by state officials because of their age.
As of Tuesday, 104 of the 1,107 inmates in the state's juvenile prisons, or 9.4 percent, were still behind bars even though their expected parole dates had passed.
The percentage has remained relatively steady since the department began tracking the figures in September 2005, though at times it has crept higher than 10 percent.
The issue underscores a persistent problem that Department of Juvenile Justice director Kurt Friedenauer has made a priority to tackle: a lack of aftercare for some of the state's most troubled youths.
"Our goal is not to keep kids for the sake of keeping kids," Friedenauer said. "Our goal is to prepare them for re-entry back to the community and for them to be successful there. But you have to have a (placement) to do that. … We simply do not have the financial resources to purchase the appropriate services."
A youth's administrative review date, or ARD, is a guideline for when he or she is expected to be approved for parole by the state Prisoner Review Board. But without a plan in place for where the youth will go upon release, youths either are held back from appearing before the board or are approved for parole pending a placement, according to Friedenauer.
Many youths kept beyond their ARD remain in prison for months. In some of the more extreme cases, youths have been held for close to a year, with a handful held for more than a year after their ARD. Two youths were held for 1,000 additional days, or nearly three years, according to the most recent figures available, which date to January.
The Department of Juvenile Justice is responsible for finding placements for nearly all the youths. A small number of cases involve wards of the state, and as a result the Department of Children and Family Services is responsible for finding homes for those youths.
Some cases appear complicated by family and friends whose homes are deemed unsuitable because of their own legal problems or because they do not have the means to accommodate a youth. The documents suggest that officials, over time, make several efforts to find homes for the youths, often approaching various relatives and friends to try to find an appropriate placement.
By Steve Mills, Tribune reporter
7:13 PM CDT, March 31, 2010
Nearly 10 percent of the inmates in Illinois' juvenile prisons have essentially completed their sentences — in some cases more than a year ago — but are stuck behind bars because they have no place to go, state records show.
Many of the youths are being held longer in one of the state's eight juvenile prisons because officials cannot find an appropriate placement in a transitional living program or other kind of facility. Others are still in prison because officials found the homes of families or friends to be unacceptable, or because families simply refuse to take them back, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Notes in the records tell sad stories. "Youth has no family that will take him," reads the comment in the case of one downstate boy who was sent to prison for aggravated robbery and was still there two months beyond his scheduled release.
"Placement denied 5X w/relatives," reads the status report on another case. The names of the youths were redacted by state officials because of their age.
As of Tuesday, 104 of the 1,107 inmates in the state's juvenile prisons, or 9.4 percent, were still behind bars even though their expected parole dates had passed.
The percentage has remained relatively steady since the department began tracking the figures in September 2005, though at times it has crept higher than 10 percent.
The issue underscores a persistent problem that Department of Juvenile Justice director Kurt Friedenauer has made a priority to tackle: a lack of aftercare for some of the state's most troubled youths.
"Our goal is not to keep kids for the sake of keeping kids," Friedenauer said. "Our goal is to prepare them for re-entry back to the community and for them to be successful there. But you have to have a (placement) to do that. … We simply do not have the financial resources to purchase the appropriate services."
A youth's administrative review date, or ARD, is a guideline for when he or she is expected to be approved for parole by the state Prisoner Review Board. But without a plan in place for where the youth will go upon release, youths either are held back from appearing before the board or are approved for parole pending a placement, according to Friedenauer.
Many youths kept beyond their ARD remain in prison for months. In some of the more extreme cases, youths have been held for close to a year, with a handful held for more than a year after their ARD. Two youths were held for 1,000 additional days, or nearly three years, according to the most recent figures available, which date to January.
The Department of Juvenile Justice is responsible for finding placements for nearly all the youths. A small number of cases involve wards of the state, and as a result the Department of Children and Family Services is responsible for finding homes for those youths.
Some cases appear complicated by family and friends whose homes are deemed unsuitable because of their own legal problems or because they do not have the means to accommodate a youth. The documents suggest that officials, over time, make several efforts to find homes for the youths, often approaching various relatives and friends to try to find an appropriate placement.
Roundup of pieces and interviews on The New Jim Crow
We've talked a lot about Michelle Alexander's new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness through the series, so I thought I'd put together a little collection of recent interviews and articles she's done recently. She's articulated a powerful analysis of the intersection of the history of white supremacy and mass incarceration, and is well worth paying attention to.
- Strapped for Cash, America Rethinks Criminal Justice Reform
- Her Blog archive on Huffington Post
- Interview on Democracy Now!
- Interview by the Black Agenda Report
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