September 04, 2008
An Open Letter to Gov. Sarah Palin on Women's Rights
An Open Letter to Gov. Sarah Palin on Women's Rights
By Lynn Paltrow, National Advocates for Pregnant Women
Posted on September 4, 2008, Printed on September 4, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/97457/
Dear Governor Sarah Palin:
Many Americans agree with your position regarding abortion -- they do this as a matter of faith, ethics, personal experience and sometimes politics. I am just wondering though, if you have thought about what would happen if you succeeded in getting your position -- that fetuses have a right to life -- established as the law of the land? Did you know that it not only threatens the lives, health and freedom of women who might want or need someday to end their pregnancies, it would also give the government the power to control the lives of women -- like you who -- go to term?
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Posted by lois at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)
Slavery Haunts America’s Plantation Prisons--Angola Prison
Slavery Haunts America’s Plantation Prisons
Wednesday, 03 September 2008
Black Agenda Report
by Maya Schenwar
Angola Prison
Angola Prison isn't "even really a metaphor for slavery. Slavery is what's going on." The plantation prisons of Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas are the closest approximation to America's peculiar institution - places where involuntary servitude is legal under the 13th Amendment. And like slaves, most Angola prisoners will die on the plantation, "due to some of the harshest sentencing practices in the country." Angola prisoners are paid anywhere from four to twenty cents per hour...and only get to keep half of that." The rest is put away for after their release - a day that most will never see.
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Posted by lois at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2008
Editorial: UK: Let the penal reformers build jails
Let the penal reformers build jails
02/09/2008
Telegraph (UK)
In truth, the prison reform group Nacro has never been much in favour of building new jails.
Over the years, the organisation has sought to rebrand itself from a do-gooder outfit known as the National Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders, preferring to describe itself as a ‘crime reduction charity’.
It has been consistently critical of the criminal justice policies of successive governments, not least because they have pushed the prison population up from around 50,000 in the mid-1990s to more than 80,000 today.
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Posted by lois at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)
UK: Prison reform charity Nacro joins bid to run jails
Prison reform charity Nacro joins bid to run jails
Group drops scepticism over privatisation to tender alongside security firm
* Rachel Stevenson and agencies
* guardian.co.uk,
* Tuesday September 02 2008 12:16 BST
A charity that works with offenders and campaigns for prison reform is forming part of a bid to run prisons in London and Merseyside.
Nacro has teamed up with the private security firm G4S, a drugs charity and a construction company on a proposal to operate and provide services to Maghull prison in Merseyside and Belmarsh West prison in south-east London.
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Posted by lois at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
Incarceration As Forced Migration: Effects on Selected Community Health Outcomes
Incarceration As Forced Migration: Effects on Selected Community Health Outcomes
Posted on: Tuesday, 2 September 2008, 03:00 CDT
By Thomas, James C Torrone,
Objectives. We estimated the effects of high incarceration rates on rates of sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies. Methods. We calculated correlations between rates of incarceration in state prisons and county jails and rates of sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies for each of the 100 counties in North Carolina during 1995 to 2002. We also estimated increases in negative health outcomes associated with increases in incarceration rates using negative binomial regression analyses.
Results. Rates of sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies, adjusted for age, race, and poverty distributions by county, consistently increased with increasing incarceration rates. In the most extreme case, teenage pregnancies exhibited an increase of 71.61 per 100000 population (95% confidence interval [CI]=41.88, 101.35) in 1996 after an increase in the prison population rate from 223.31 to 468.58 per 100 000 population in 1995.
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Posted by lois at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2008
NV: Judge: No typewriters for prisoners
Judge: No typewriters for prisoners
By BRENDAN RILEY Associated Press Writer
08/28/2008
CARSON CITY, Nev.—A ban on personal typewriters for Nevada prison inmates, who have used them for decades to prepare appeals of their sentences, has been upheld by a federal court judge.
U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks of Reno ruled that the state Department of Corrections ban on typewriters for inmates was constitutional and didn't block inmates from access to the courts.
"The ban on typewriters occurred because prison officials determined that possession of typewriters aid the ability of inmates to breach safety and security," Hicks said in his ruling Wednesday, adding, "It cannot be disputed that the state has a legitimate interest in maintaining security and order in its prisons."
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Posted by lois at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)
Calif. prisons prepare for gay weddings
Calif. prisons prepare for gay weddings
By LISA LEFF Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 08/28/2008 03:22:55 PM PDT
SAN FRANCISCO—Now that same-sex couples can get married in California, state prison officials are trying to figure out what that means for gay inmates.
No prisoners so far have sought to arrange weddings with same-sex partners since the state Supreme Court granted same-sex couples the right to wed as of mid-June, according to Michele Kane, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Nonetheless, department lawyers are drafting guidelines to bring the state's 33 adult prisons into compliance with the court's ruling that same-sex couples must be treated the same as opposite-sex couples under the California Constitution, Kane said.
What they have determined so far is that would mean allowing gay inmates to marry someone on the outside, but not a fellow prisoner—the same rules that apply to straight inmates, according to Kane.
"They will have the same marriage rights as other inmates—they will be able to marry non-inmates, but barred from marrying other inmates in prison," she said.
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Posted by lois at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2008
Tennessee: Pregnant Inmates at Jail Will No Longer Be Restrained
August 29, 2008
National Briefing | South
Tennessee: Pregnant Inmates at Jail Will No Longer Be Restrained
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pregnant inmates at Nashville’s jail will no longer be restrained, according to a policy change after an illegal immigrant said she was shackled during labor. Sheriff Daron Hall of Davidson County announced the changes this week, but he said pregnant inmates would still be restrained during trips to the hospital or to court if they presented a danger. Last month, a Mexican immigrant, Juana Villegas, was arrested on charges of careless driving and was held at the jail. Ms. Villegas said she went into labor July 5 and was taken to the hospital, where she was handcuffed to the bed by her right wrist and left ankle until shortly before the birth. The sheriff said her treatment followed the jail’s old policies, but he also said that in his opinion the old policy was “a little more than may have been necessary in every case.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/us/29brfs-PREGNANTINMA_BRF.html?_r=1&sq=Tennessee&st=cse&oref=slogin&scp=2&pagewanted=print
Posted by lois at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)
Two Million on the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide Accessibility, Digital Divide, Prison Libraries, Interface
Two Million on the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide Accessibility, Digital Divide, Prison Libraries, Interface
Volume 30, Number 1, Spring 2008
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Two Million on the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide
Brenda Vogel
Retired Library Coordinator, Maryland Correctional Education Libraries
As ASCLA librarians our close association with digitally disadvantaged library patrons gives us an insight into their information needs and a responsibility to stand up for them.
The digital world is alien to the vast majority of men and women who have been serving time in U.S. prisons from before the eras of the PC and the coming of the Digital Age.
Over two million people are incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails, of which sixty percent are minorities. Ninety-five percent of these people will be released at some time during their lives and become part of the migration of more than 600,000 ex-offenders returning from prisons and jails to American communities each year.
Posted by lois at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)