Time To Say Goodbye.... to My House mate...and time to say good bye to 1 in every 31 people..in the American correction system

The Podcast, online radioshow and MP3 File is found here.

Dear friends,

Tonight is Time to say Goodbye. My house-mate, an intern who was only going to stay one month, but wound up spending several months, is spending the last night tonight as my house mate. One of the first house mates I ever had who I (and everyone one else in our house) never had one single argument with ever. Not even one argument. Amazing. This is devastating for me and a personal tragedy for me. 'Fuck', describes my sentiments a bit *happy laughter*..., but even better I say: 'I wish you well where ever you go, cool house mate.' :)

Fuck. You know what? Cool, non-argumentative, non-power tripping, happy, kind, pleasant, house mates (like my house mate who is leaving) are hard to find. Ouch. The pain.

On a national and international level...it is also time to say goodbye....to 1 in every 31 Americans...who are in the American corrections system. The Prison Industrial System in the United States is an abomination and it brings me even more pain to know that so many people must suffer in prison. Read more below.

I am not affiliated with the International Socialist Organization but I encourage you to attend their Public Forum on Saturday, March 14th, 2009 titled Institutionalized Racism & The Struggle for Black Liberation.

Love for the people,
-T


T. Love
Black man f.l.u.f.f.
You can also find this as an Mp3 audio recording and on my podcast or click here to subscribe to the Itunes subscription: http://tinyurl.com/link2itunes

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The below excerpt was copy and pasted from this website: http://isoseattle.blogspot.com/2009/02/public-forum-3pm-saturday-march-14.html

PUBLIC FORUM:

3pm, Saturday, March 14
Yesler Community Center, 917 E Yesler Way

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

Gloria Briggs, parent and employee at the African American
Academy, activist in Educators, Students and
Parents for a better Vision of public schools (ESP Vision)

Jesse Hagopian, teacher, activist in Educators, Students and
Parents for a better Vision of public schools and more
Read Jesse's latest article on commondreams.org.

Bonnie Wilson, PTA member and activist in Educators, Students and
Parents for a better Vision of public schools (ESP Vision)

More speakers TBA

Obama's election dealt a historic blow against racism. An African-American has been elected president in a country built on slavery. Yet there are still more Black men in US Prisons than there were slaves in 1840, and over 50 years since Brown vs. Board, the nation's schools are more segregated than ever. Despite this, the city of Seattle is making plans to build a new jail while at the same time it is closing public schools that disproportionately affect minority and low income families.

How can we take advantage of a new era in US politics to organize a challenge to the institutionalized racism which continues to plague our city and nation?

What kind of movement would it take to end racism?

Join us for this urgent discussion on the future
struggle for black liberation in the U.S.

Sponsored by:
Haymarket Books

Seattle International Socialist Organization
Educators, Students and Parents for a Better Vision of Public Schools
Public Health Against Institutionalized Racism at the University of Washington

To endorse this event or for more info, please contact info@seattleiso.org.

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I, T, do not agree with some of the dumb and oppressive opinions of the Pew Center regarding their ideals that prison is necessary for 'certain criminals' (I do agree with the 'Visions Statement of Critical Resistance' to abolish prison found far below) but I included the Pew Center's fact-based research anyway as it shows why the Prison Industrial System is out of control. The below excerpt was copy and pasted from this website: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=49398).

1 in 31 U.S. Adults are Behind Bars, on Parole or Probation

Release Type: Pew Press Release

Pew Contact: Jessica Riordan, 215-575-4886 | jriordan@pewtrusts.org; Andrew McDonald 202-552-2178 | amcdonald@pewtrusts.org

Washington, DC - 03/02/2009 - Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States. The vast majority of these offenders live in the community, yet new data in the report finds that nearly 90 percent of state corrections dollars are spent on prisons. One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections examines the scale and cost of prison, jail, probation and parole in each of the 50 states (please see the 50 state factsheets), and provides a blueprint for states to cut both crime and spending by reallocating prison expenses to fund stronger supervision of the large number of offenders in the community.“Most states are facing serious budget deficits,” said Susan Urahn, managing director of The Pew Center on the States. “Every single one of them should be making smart investments in community corrections that will help them cut costs and improve outcomes.”

In the past two decades, state general fund spending on corrections increased by more than 300 percent, outpacing other essential government services from education, to transportation and public assistance. Only Medicaid spending has grown faster. Today, corrections imposes a national taxpayer burden of $68 billion a year. Despite this increased spending, recidivism rates have remained largely unchanged.

Research shows that strong community supervision programs for lower-risk, non-violent offenders not only cost significantly less than incarceration but, when appropriately resourced and managed, can cut recidivism by as much as 30 percent. Diverting these offenders to community supervision programs also frees up prison beds needed to house violent offenders, and can offer budget makers additional resources for other pressing public priorities.

One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections provides a detailed look at who is in the corrections system and which states have the highest populations of offenders behind bars and in the community. Key findings include:

• • One in 31 adults in America is in prison or jail, or on probation or parole. Twenty-five years ago, the rate was 1 in 77.
• • Overall, two-thirds of offenders are in the community, not behind bars. 1 in 45 adults is on probation or parole and 1 in 100 is in prison or jail. The proportion of offenders behind bars versus in the community has changed very little over the past 25 years, despite the addition of 1.1 million prison beds.
• • Correctional control rates are highly concentrated by race and geography: 1 in 11 black adults (9.2 percent) versus 1 in 27 Hispanic adults (3.7 percent) and 1 in 45 white adults (2.2 percent); 1 in 18 men (5.5 percent) versus 1 in 89 women (1.1 percent). The rates can be extremely high in certain neighborhoods. In one block-group of Detroit’s East Side, for example, 1 in 7 adult men (14.3 percent) is under correctional control.
• • Georgia, where 1 in 13 adults is behind bars or under community supervision, leads the top five states that also include Idaho, Texas, Massachusetts, Ohio and the District of Columbia.

The report also analyzes the cost of current sentencing and corrections policies. The National Association of State Budget Officers estimates that states spent a record $51.7 billion on corrections in FY2008, or 1 in every 15 general fund dollars. Adding local, federal and other funding brings the national correctional spending total to $68 billion.

While total correctional spending figures have been available before, new data collected by the Pew Center on the States for the report provides the first breakdown of correctional spending by prisons, probation and parole in the past seven years:

• In FY 2008, the 34 states for which data are available spent $18.65 billion on prisons (88 percent of corrections spending), but only $2.53 billion on probation and parole (12 percent).
• For eight states where 25 years of data were available, spending on prisons grew by $4.74 billion from FY 1983 to FY 2008, while probation and parole spending increased by only $652 million. This means that while prisons accounted for one-third of the population growth, they consumed 88 percent of the new corrections expenditures.
• The 34 states that were able to provide data reported spending as much as 22 times more per day to manage prison inmates than to supervise offenders in the community. The reported average inmate cost was $79 per day, or nearly $29,000 per year. The average cost of managing an offender in the community ranged from $3.42 per day for probationers to $7.47 per day for parolees, or about $1,250 to $2,750 a year.

“...our research shows that prisons are housing too many people who can be managed safely and held accountable in the community at far lower cost,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project, which produced the report. “New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened and expanded, not scaled back. Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn’t. It will fuel the cycle of more crime, more victims, more arrests, more prosecutions, and still more imprisonment.”

One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections provides states with a blueprint and specific case studies for strengthening their community corrections systems, saving money and reducing crime. Research-based recommendations include:

• • Sort offenders by risk to public safety to determine appropriate levels of supervision;
• • Base intervention programs on sound research about what works to reduce recidivism;
• • Harness advances in supervision technology such as electronic monitoring and rapid-result alcohol and drug tests;
• • Impose swift and certain sanctions for offenders who break the rules of their release but who do not commit new crimes; and
• • Create incentives for offenders and supervision agencies to succeed, and monitor their performance.

Launched in 2006 as a project of The Pew Center on the States, the Public Safety Performance Project seeks to help states advance fiscally sound, data-driven policies and practices in sentencing and corrections that protect public safety, hold offenders accountable and control corrections costs.

The Pew Charitable Trusts applies the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Our Center on the States identifies and advances effective policy approaches to critical issues facing states. Online at www.pewcenteronthestates.org.






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All State Fact Sheets

Alabama	Alaska	Arizona	Arkansas
California	Colorado	Connecticut	Delaware
District of Columbia	Florida	Georgia	Hawaii
Idaho	Illinois	Indiana	Iowa
Kansas	Kentucky	Louisiana	Maine
Maryland	Massachusetts	Michigan	Minnesota
Mississippi	Missouri	Montana	Nebraska
Nevada	New Hampshire	New Jersey	New Mexico
New York	North Carolina	North Dakota	Ohio
Oklahoma	Oregon	Pennsylvania	Rhode Island
South Carolina	South Dakota	Tennessee	Texas
Utah	Vermont	Virginia	Washington
West Virginia	Wisconsin	Wyoming

ASSOCIATED REPORT:
One in 31 (report)

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http://www.criticalresistance.org/article.php?id=51

Our Vision

Our THE CRISIS OF THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX Prisons and policing are destroying us. In the past two decades, the number of people in prison in the U.S. has risen 400%. The system is filled with 68% people of color. One in three Black males born today will end up in a cage. And an additional 4 million former prisoners in the U.S. are left without hope or resources - barred employment opportunities, disenfranchised, and often prohibited from getting federal loans, applying for public housing, or getting services. In neighborhoods where people are most affected by mass imprisonment and policing, we see the direct effects of our society's $50 billion per year investment in prisons and policing: schools are closing, homelessness is rampant, basic health care remains out of reach, and poverty remains an entrenched reality in the richest country on earth. The prison industrial complex, or PIC, affects everyone. There have been huge increases in police and court powers over all our lives. Poor people of color continue to lose power. And prisons have failed to cut crime. They have instead led to more racism, poverty, and sexism. Our communities only become weaker when we use punishment to solve our problems. CRITICAL RESISTANCE'S VISION Critical Resistance's vision is the creation of genuinely safe, healthy communities that respond to harm without relying on prisons and punishment. We call our vision "abolition", and take the name purposefully from those who called for the abolition of slavery in the 1800's. Abolitionists believed that slavery could not be fixed or reformed - it needed to be abolished. As PIC abolitionists today, we also do not believe that reforms can make the PIC just or effective. Our goal is not to improve the system; it is to shrink the system into non-existence. We don't believe that we need the PIC to keep us safe. Instead, we work to build safe and healthy communities, where the basics are provided, such as food, shelter, and self-determination. We also work to create and promote alternatives to the current system. Critical Resistance (CR) is building a member-led and member-run grassroots movement to stop using punishment to "cure" complicated social problems. We know that more police and prisons will not make our communities safer. Instead, we know that things like food, housing, and freedom are what creates lasting safety. We work to prevent people from being arrested or locked up in prison. In all our work, we organize to build power and to stop the devastation that the reliance on prisons and policing have brought to ourselves, our families, and our communities. CREATING ALTERNATIVES Even today, when so many rely so heavily on the prison industrial complex to respond to harm, alternatives are being tested inside and outside the U.S. Within the US, neighbors are setting up alternative neighborhood watches (or shifting the agendas of existing ones) to support each other and provide safe living environments without involving local police. Conferencing circles and mediation are increasingly being used to resolve disputes. Some organizations that work closely with survivors of sexual violence have begun to reject intervention by the police while developing their own community-based alternatives for safety and conflict resolution. Alternative schools have been established that provide practical alternatives to the juvenile justice system. The goal of abolition pushes us to broaden our options in responding to harm. Creating a wider spectrum for economic and political participation; making affordable, quality housing for everyone a priority; or understanding substance use as a health issue can help us challenge some of the assumptions on which the prison industrial complex is based upon. While in the long run we seek abolition; in the short run we seek alternatives to cage based punishment and to reduce the number of prisoners and prisons. Today, we are taking practical, small steps that will move us toward abolition.