[Ppnews] Georgia Prison Strike, One Year Later: Activists Outside the Walls Have Failed
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Wed Dec 21 14:08:10 EST 2011
Georgia Prison Strike, One Year Later: Activists Outside the Walls
Have Failed Those Inside the Walls
By Bruce A. Dixon
Created 12/21/2011 - 12:51
http://blackagendareport.com/content/georgia-prison-strike-one-year-later-activists-outside-walls-have-failed-those-inside-walls
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
In December 2010 inmates in up to a dozen Georgia prisons either
refused to leave their cells for work assignments, or were
pre-emptively locked down by prison officials. They demanded wages
for work, access to educational programs, fairness in release
decisions, along with decent food and medical care. An ad hoc
coalition sprung up to negotiate with state officials, and gained
privileged access to Smith and Macon State Prisons. But the coalition
has long since withered and died, without even issuing reports from
its December 2010 fact finding visits. What happened? And what happens next?
Georgia Prison Strike, One Year Later: Activists Outside the Walls
Have Failed Those Inside the Walls
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
The Concerned Coalition To Respect Prisoner Rights was supposed to
issue public reports of its fact-finding prison visits. That never happened.
A year ago this month, black, white and brown inmates in a dozen
Georgia prisons staged a brief strike. They put forward a set of
simple and basic demands --- wages for work, decent food and medical
care, access to educational and self-improvement programs, fairness
and transparency in the way the state handles grievances, inmate
funds and release decisions, and more opportunities to connect with
their families and loved ones. A short-lived formation calling itself
the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner Rights came together, and
met with the Georgia Department of Corrections. In the last weeks of
2010 teams of community observers were allowed to visit Macon State
and Smith prisons, where they examined facilities and interviewed
staff and prisoners.
The Concerned Coalition To Respect Prisoner Rights was supposed to
issue public reports of its fact-finding prison visits. That never
happened. It was to have initiated a long-term dialog with state
officials in pursuit of the inmates' eminently just and reasonable
demands. That never happened either. It should have called public
meetings and begun to organize a lasting campaign to educate the
public on the meaning of Georgia's and the nation's prison state, and
the possibilities for radical reform. These are the things the
prisoners expected of their allies and spokespeople on the outside.
But compromised and undermined from within and without, the coalition
was unable to make any of these things happen. Thus the trust that
Georgia prisoners placed in activists outside the walls to organize
in support of their demands was betrayed.
From the beginning, members of the coalition uncritically deferred
to a single one of their number with extremely limited local
availability. That leading person vetoed public meetings, the
establishment of an interactive web site or even a steering committee
listserve, insisting that nobody else could not be trusted to manage
or access the coalition's contacts. So apart from the limited
interactivity of a seldom updated Facebook page, the coalition
maintained no easily found point of public contact. This leading
person, in sole charge of calling meetings simply stopped emailing or
telephoning this reporter and others who contributed significantly to
the cause of the prisoners.
"True to his name, Deal reportedly made a deal with some leading
figures in the Coalition to Respect Prisoner Rights"
State authorities did their party to gut the coalition as well.
Georgia got a new governor at the beginning of 2011, who took a keen
interest in his own right wing vision of "criminal justice reform."
Taking his cues from an ultraconservative think tank called "Right On
Crime", Governor Deal is one of those who believes the main thing
wrong with mass incarceration is that it's too expensive. Aided by
the Pew Foundation and a major state contractor, Deal created a
commission on "criminal justice reform" composed of judges,
prosecutors and state legislators to approve what his consultants
cooked up --- a hodgepodge of recommendations to shrink the state's
maximum and medium security institutions while greatly expanding
probation, home monitoring, workfare, closely supervised "diversion"
and misnamed "re-entry" programs, all under the profitable guidance
of well-connected "not for profit" entrepreneurs.
True to his name, Deal reportedly made a deal with some leading
figures in the Coalition to Respect Prisoner Rights, who bolted the
coalition with the expectation that if they help line up black
Democrats behind the white Republican governor's "criminal justice
reform" proposals, they'd get some of the state's new "re-entry"
money. A senior national civil rights leader quietly flew in and out
of Atlanta the same day to quietly meet with Governor Deal about his
deal. So the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner Rights, withered and died.
And so, a year out from the December 2010 prison strike, it is clear
that activists outside the walls have largely failed to honor their
commitment to those inside the walls. In the past year, not much has
changed. Scores of prisoners alleged to be strike leaders were
punitively transferred and locked down in the wake of the strike.
Dozens more who were not strike leaders were savagely beaten, as
exemplary reprisals for the strike, and denied medical attention
afterward. State officials conspired to hide from his family and the
public the whereabouts of one man they beat into a coma for nearly
two weeks as he hung between life and death. A handful of guards were
charged, but local prosecutors and grand juries refused to indict.
The federal Justice Department, under its first black attorney
general, and president has thus far expressed no interest in
protecting prisoners from the arbitrary and brutal retaliation
inflicted upon them by Georgia officials.
Inmates with debilitating and life threatening conditions are still
mostly untreated. Educational programs are available to less than 5%
of prisoners, and thousands of Georgia's prisoners as young as 14, 15
and 16 years old, continue to be confined in adult institutions with
adults. Bank of America still has the exclusive contract to handle
inmate accounts, and levies a parasitic fee each and every time a
family member sends an inmate a few dollars, and deducts another
monthly charge as long as any funds remain in an inmate account. This
year as last, thousands of prisoners who speak mainly Spanish are not
afforded interpreters at disciplinary hearings, and with no
transparency at any level it's impossible to know whether there is
any hint of fairness in these proceedings. Politically connected
companies like J-Pay and Global TelLink are still allowed to siphon
millions each month from the families of inmates by collecting tolls
on the money transfers going into and phone calls coming out of
prison. Food ranges from bad to merely inadequate, vermin
infestations abound, and of course Georgia inmates still work every
day without pay.
"The question is what will that work look like? How do activists in
Georgia bring the questions of the prison state and the rights of
prisoners to the front burner as a public and political issue? "
On Wednesday December 14, a year after the strike, Rev. Kenneth
Glasgow of TOPS, The Ordinary Peoples Society showed up at the
Georgia state capitol with some of the families and supporters of
prisoners savagely beaten by wardens and correctional officers in
Georgia after the strike.
"We are here to reaffirm our commitment to the prisoners who made a
principled stand for their own and each others' human rights a year
ago this week. We know the ball was dropped. TOPS and the National
Organization of Formerly Incarcerated Persons, along with some
others, are picking it up. Over the past year we've worked to secure
legal and other assistance to the families of some of the prisoners
who suffered beat downs in retaliation for the December 2010 strike,
and we've expanded our work with the National Organization of
Formerly Incarcerated Persons. But we know that much more has to be
done to fulfill the promise of last year's coalition.
For our part, we can promise that the next twelve months out here
won't be like the last twelve. Decent food and medical care, wages
for work, educational opportunities and the like are ordinary human
rights to which everybody is entitled. The Ordinary Peoples Society
is ready to work with whoever is willing to advance the human rights
of Georgia's prisoners."
The question is what will that work look like? How do activists in
Georgia bring the questions of the prison state and the rights of
prisoners to the front burner as a public and political issue? With
the corporate media determined to twist and ignore the issue, and
prominent sections of the black establishment lining up in bipartisan
endorsement of a phony "criminal justice reform" package in return
for a share of "re-entry program" money, how can this be done. Hugh
Esco, secretary of the Georgia Green Party, thinks he knows.
"We've worked with people in Georgia communities to come up with 13
demands for the governor and his phony Commission on Criminal Justice
Reform. Demands like ending the lifelong discrimination in housing,
employment and other areas against persons convicted of felonies,
automatically restoring the vote to everyone including inmates
currently in prisons and jails, decent food, health care and
education behind the walls, stopping the incarceration of juveniles
in adult prisons, decriminalizing homelessness, mental illness, drug
use, and more. Beginning this week we've got persons on the
courthouse steps every day courts are in session, first in Cobb and
Fulton counties, and within a few weeks in half a dozen other Georgia
counties.
"Our volunteers will be petitioning, gathering signatures on these
demands. The Georgia Green Party will be sending letters, postcards,
phone calls and emails to those who sign the petitions inviting them
to phone conferences and face to face public meetings beginning in
January, and going throughout the year. That's what a campaign of
grassroots public education looks like, and that's how our party is
going to pick up the ball that the coalition dropped last year. Our
campaign even has its own web site at
<http://www.endmassincarceration.org/>www.endmassincarceration.org
[4]. We are also helping the families of prisoners build their own
network of mutual aid and support.
"Using these methods we expect to be able to call well-attended
public meetings on the prison state in many parts of Georgia this
spring and summer. And 2012 is an election year, so we expect that
some of the friends and families of prisoners will join with us to
run for seats in Georgia's state legislature, using their 13 demands
as the core of their platform. In this way we will use the elections
to educate our neighbors on Georgia's and the nation's prison state.
Anybody who wants to help in this campaign can contact us at
<mailto:info at endmassincarceration.org>info at endmassincarceration.org
[5]. We're here, we're serious, and we aren't going anywhere."
The 13 demands of the Georgia Green Party's Campaign to End Mass
Incarceration can be found
<http://endmassincarceration.org/sites/default/files/emi-13points.pdf>here [6].
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a
member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. He can be
reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
***********************************************************************
Source URL:
<http://blackagendareport.com/content/georgia-prison-strike-one-year-later-activists-outside-walls-have-failed-those-inside-walls>http://blackagendareport.com/content/georgia-prison-strike-one-year-later-activists-outside-walls-have-failed-those-inside-walls
Links:
[1] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/georgia-prison-strike
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/jails-and-prisons
[3]
http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/goergia_inmates.jpg
[4] http://www.endmassincarceration.org/
[5] mailto:info at endmassincarceration.org
[6] http://endmassincarceration.org/sites/default/files/emi-13points.pdf
[7]
http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackagendareport.com%2Fcontent%2Fgeorgia-prison-strike-one-year-later-activists-outside-walls-have-failed-those-inside-walls&linkname=Georgia%20Prison%20Strike%2C%20One%20Year%20Later%3A%20Activists%20Outside%20the%20Walls%20Have%20Failed%20Those%20Inside%20the%20Walls
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20111221/5ea76c11/attachment.htm>
More information about the PPnews
mailing list