Tag: prison industrial complex
Hidden Victims: The Psychic Toll of a Racist Criminal Justice System
Prominent psychiatrist Dr. Patricia Newton explains the physiological and psychological impact of racism, trauma and violence on black women and communities of color Visit https://therealnews.com for more stories and help support our work by donating…
Rattling the Bars: Stopping Corporate Exploitation in Prisons (Pt 2/2)
Eddie Conway talks with Bianca Tylek, founder of the Corrections Accountability Corporation about thousands of corporations funding private prisons and immigration detention centers and what citizens can do about it. Visit https://therealnews.com for more stories…
They Killed a Man in Prison. This Is How They Covered it Up
New documents reveal how prison authorities tried to cover up the death of a man who died of dehydration in a jail cell. Please join journalists Taya Graham and Stephen Janis for this important episode…
Thinking Outside the Box: Do More Humane Prisons Exist?
Two experts discuss how we can end mass incarceration by building infrastructure that addresses its root causes. Director/Video Editor: Cameron Granadino Audio Engineer: Taylor Hebden Subscribe to our page and support our work at https://therealnews.com/donate….
COVID-19 Pandemic Illuminates Anti-Chinese Racism And Xenophobia
Eddie Conway talks with professor Dylan Rodriguez about how COVID-19 has exposed anti-Chinese sentiment, how it’s inseparable from anti-immigrant, anti-Black, and colonial violence, and how radical movements must include collective care to survive. Director/Video Editor:…
In A Pandemic, The US Addiction To Incarceration Comes Back To Haunt Us
For decades, police could surveil and drug test thousands of Americans every day. Why can’t those same resources be used for coronavirus testing? Police Accountability Report continues its analysis of overpolicing and public health. Please…
Mainstream Media Blind Spots In The Coronavirus Crisis
The mainstream media let Trump’s blunders dominate the COVID-19 narrative, neglecting their chance for a nuanced look at public health, incarceration, farmers, and homelessness. Subscribe to our page and support our work at https://therealnews.com/donate. **…
Michigan Prisons Are One Of The Fastest Growing COVID-19 Hot Spots
Prisoners with the virus have been isolated with punitive solitary confinement measures. Symptomatic staff may still be working, raising the risk for a vulnerable prison population. Subscribe to our page and support our work at…
Prisoners have power in their own words
Eddie Conway, former Lieutenant of Security for the Baltimore Black Panther Party, was locked up on dubious charges and held as a political prisoner for over 40 years. Conway is part of a generation of…
Connecticut made prison phone calls free. Other states should do the same
After Gov. Ned Lamont signed a new bill into law in June, Connecticut became the first state in the US to make phone calls free for incarcerated people, including those in juvenile detention facilities. Studies…
Alabama is using COVID relief funds to build prisons
President Joe Biden signed a major $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that provided funds to cities and states around the country to recover from devastating effects of the pandemic. Regardless of widespread condemnation and criticism,…
‘We want Rikers closed and no new jails in its place!’
COVID-19 turned what were already inhumane conditions at Rikers Island, New York’s most notorious jail, into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Prisoners, activists, and legal advocates are demanding it be closed for good. For years, prisoners,…
Why US prisons don’t want prisoners to read
In a recent piece for Protean magazine entitled “The American Prison System’s War on Reading,” Alex Skopic writes, “Across the United States, the agencies responsible for mass imprisonment are trying to severely limit incarcerated people’s…
Stop trying to revive local economies with prisons
Closing prisons and reducing the incarcerated population should be a good thing, but when local economies become dependent on the prison industry it creates many perverse incentives for keeping our inhumane system of mass incarceration…
How I survived 48 years in prison
Charles Hopkins, better known as Mansa Musa, is a 70-year-old social activist who was released from prison on Dec. 5, 2019, after being locked up for 48 years, nine months, 5 days, 16 hours, and…
Virginia revokes early release for inmates with good behavior
Lawmakers in Virginia have approved a draconian budget measure from Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin that takes aim at inmates’ eligibility for early release. The new law prevents so-called “violent offenders” from applying credits earned for…
How Maryland is preventing prisoners from getting college degrees
UPDATE (7/1/2022): One day after this segment aired, prison authorities announced that they had “reconsidered” their earlier decision, clearing the way for Atiba to earn his degree. Education is one of the few rehabilitative options…
NY prisons ban care packages containing food
The prison-industrial complex has many ways of turning the incarceration of human beings into a profitable business model. In New York state, new regulations targeting care packages for prisoners show this logic at work. Friends…
Chris Hedges on trauma & teaching writing in prison
Since 2013, Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and host of The Chris Hedges Report, has taught college courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history at East Jersey State Prison (aka “Rahway”) and other New Jersey…
Keeping incarcerated mothers and their families together
As Wendy Sawyer and Wanda Bertram recently wrote for the Prison Policy Initiative, “Over half (58%) of all women in US prisons are mothers, as are 80% of women in jails, including many who are…
Rattling the Bars: Repurposing prisons can revitalize rural America
The economic fortunes of rural communities across the United States are often deeply intertwined with the prison industrial complex. This poses a real challenge to the project of ending mass incarceration. How can organizers build…
