Tag Archives: prison

Trump wouldn’t be the first presidential candidate to campaign from a prison cell

By Thomas Doherty, Brandeis University. Published 3-15-2024 by The Conversation

*Eugene V. Debs leaving the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, on Christmas Day 1921. Photo: Library of Congress/Public domain*

The first trial ever of a former president, the so-called “hush money” case against former president and likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, is scheduled to begin with jury selection in New York on March 25, 2024, though that may be delayed by a month. Trump faces 34 felony charges related to alleged crimes involving bookkeeping on a payment to an adult film actress during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump is unlikely to wind up in an orange jumpsuit, at least not on this indictment, and probably not before November 2024, in any case. Yet if he does, he would not be the first candidate to run for the White House from the Big House.

Continue reading →

UN Report Urges End to Forced US Prison Labor—a ‘Contemporary Form of Slavery’

Leave a reply

One of the U.N. experts who compiled the report after visiting the U.S. earlier this year said its findings “point to the critical need for comprehensive reform.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 9-28-2023 by Common Dreams

*There are no minimum wage or overtime pay requirements for prison work Photo: Meer*

A report published Thursday by United Nations human rights experts condemns systemic racism in the U.S. criminal justice system and policing, while describing “appalling” prison conditions and decrying forced unpaid convict labor as a “contemporary form of slavery.”

The U.N. International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the Context of Law Enforcement report follows a visit to the U.S. earlier this year by a team of human rights experts. The U.N. officials collected testimonies from 133 affected people, visited five prisons and jails, and held meetings with advocacy groups and numerous government and police officials in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

Continue reading →

Trump Reportedly Seeking Tips for Imprisoning Journalists If Reelected in 2024

Leave a reply

“We’ve become used to this sort of thing from him, but we shouldn’t,” said one critic of the former president.

By Jessica Corbett Published 11-8-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

Amid speculation that former U.S. President Donald Trump will announce his 2024 run next week, Rolling Stone reported Tuesday that the Republican leader has sought advice about how he could ramp up his war with the news media by jailing journalists if he regains control of the White House.

Trump’s first presidential campaign and four years in office featured constant attacks on reporters, outlets, and the industry in general, from his frequent declarations of “fake news” to going after journalists for reporting on leaked information. Continue reading →

Federal Judge Allows ‘Untenable’ Plan to Send Juvenile Inmates to Angola Prison

Leave a reply

“The move defies all common sense and best practices, and it will cause irrevocable damage to our youth and families,” said one children’s advocate.

By Julia Conley Published 9-24-2022 by Common Dreams

The entrance of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola and nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the South” and “The Farm” Photo: msppmoore /Wikimedia Commons/CC

Critics of mass incarceration are condemning a ruling handed down late Friday by a federal judge in Louisiana, who admitted the state’s plan to send teenage inmates at a juvenile detention center to the notorious state penitentiary at Angola was “disturbing” even as she decided the plan could move forward.

Chief U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled that the Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) can send two dozen children under the age of 18 from Bridge City Center for Youth, located outside New Orleans, to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, denying a motion brought by several law firms and the ACLU to halt the plan. Continue reading →

Some Prisoners Released During Pandemic Can Stay on Home Confinement, Says DOJ

Leave a reply

“We commend the attorney general for listening to thousands of families who asked not to be separated from their loved ones.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 12-21-2021 by Common Dreams

Protesters from the Decarcerate Minnesota Coalition and the Twin Cities Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee
outside the Department of Corrections headquarters in St. Paul.in July 2021. Screenshot: KARE 11

Rights advocates and progressive U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday welcomed an announcement that some federal prisoners released to home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic will not be required to return to prison—a reversal of a controversial Trump administration policy.

“We commend the attorney general for listening to thousands of families who asked not to be separated from their loved ones,” tweeted the ACLU. “Thousands of people can now breathe a sigh of relief knowing they will be able to remain in the communities where they have been living and working.” Continue reading →

Alabama GOP Condemned for Plan to Build Prisons With Covid-19 Funds

Leave a reply

“The Republican Party in a nutshell: contemptible, cruel, and corrupt.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-29-2021

Advocates on Wednesday condemned Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey for her plan to use coronavirus relief funds to construct prisons. (Photo: Josh Rushing/cc/ACLU of Louisiana)

Local activists in Montgomery, Alabama were joined by rights advocates across the country on Wednesday in condemning Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s plan to use federal coronavirus relief funds to build three new prisons in the state—what the governor called “an Alabama solution to this Alabama problem” of overcrowding.

At a rally outside the State House as legislators debated the plan, demonstrators spoke about some of the inmates and prison workers who have died of Covid-19—at least 69 people, according to the Alabama Political Reporter. Continue reading →

Feds Targeted BLM Activists to Foil Racial Justice Protests: Report

Leave a reply

“The federalization of protest-related charges was a deliberate and cynical effort to target and discourage those who protested in defense of Black lives.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-19-2021

George Floyd protest in Philadelphia 6-1-2020. Photo: Joe Piette/flickr/CC

As Black Lives Matter protests grew across the U.S. following the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, so did the federal government’s persecution of activists who marched in support of racial justice.

That’s according to a new report released Wednesday by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) clinic at the City University of New York School of Law. Continue reading →

US ‘Obsession With Incarceration’ Could Lead to 100,000 More Deaths Than Projected

Leave a reply

“Failing to protect incarcerated people will hurt all of us.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-23-2020

Photo: pxhere

A new report Wednesday shows President Donald Trump’s estimate that the U.S. could see “substantially under” 100,000 coronavirus deaths may be a massive underestimate because of the nation’s huge incarcerated population.

Adding in the conditions of the U.S. jail system means the death toll—even with highly effective social distancing measures—could be 200,000. Continue reading →

‘No Other Path to Redress’: South Carolina Prisoners Appeal to UN After State and Federal Officials Ignore Pleas for Livable Conditions

Leave a reply

“Beyond the basic level of terror in U.S. prison conditions, conditions in South Carolina have been specifically repressive for a few years now.”

By Eoin Higgins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-23-2019

Organizers in Washington D.C. with D.C. Abolition Coalition and the D.C. Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee deliver the demands of South Carolina Prisoners to the local United Nations Office. (Image: Fight Toxic Prisons)

Prison rights activists and advocates are appealing to the United Nations Wednesday for relief of conditions under which prisoners in South Carolina are suffering—conditions that are creating a situation where all prisoners are effectively living in solitary confinement.

“For years, prisoners and their families have been decrying the notoriously bad conditions within South Carolina prisons, as the U.S. Department of Justice has demonstrated through reports and consent decrees with states in violation of basic human rights protections,” the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons said in a statement. Continue reading →

The national prison strike is over. Now is the time prisoners are most in danger

Leave a reply

Heather Ann Thompson, University of Michigan

Photo: Pixabay

Over the last few weeks men and women across the United States – and even as far away as Nova Scotia, Canada – have protested to demand humane treatment for the incarcerated.

In 2016, when prisoners engaged in similar hunger strikes, sit-ins, and work stoppages, their actions barely registered with the national media. As someone who regularly writes about the history of prisoner protests and prison conditions today, this lack of interest was striking. Continue reading →

Occupy World Writes

The Movement Continues – Globally

Tag Archives: prison