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<h1><font size=4><b>Georgia Prison Strike, One Year Later: Activists
Outside the Walls Have Failed Those Inside the
Walls</b></font></h1><font size=3>By <i>Bruce A. Dixon<br>
</i>Created <i>12/21/2011 - 12:51<br>
</font><font size=1>
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/georgia-prison-strike-one-year-later-activists-outside-walls-have-failed-those-inside-walls" eudora="autourl">
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<br>
<br>
</a></i></font><font size=3><b>by BAR managing editor Bruce A.
Dixon<br><br>
</b>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?<br><br>
</font><font size=4><b>Georgia Prison Strike, One Year Later: Activists
Outside the Walls Have Failed Those Inside the Walls<br><br>
</font><font size=3>by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon<br><br>
</b></font><div align="center"><font size=2><i>The Concerned Coalition To
Respect Prisoner Rights was supposed to issue public reports of its
fact-finding prison visits. That never happened.<br><br>
</i></div>
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.<br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font size=3>“</font><font size=2><i>True to
his name, Deal reportedly made a deal with some leading figures in the
Coalition to Respect Prisoner Rights”<br><br>
</i></div>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font size=3>“</font><font size=2><i>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? “<br><br>
</i></div>
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.<br><br>
</font><font size=3>“</font><font size=2><i>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. <br><br>
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.”<br><br>
</i>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.<br><br>
</font><font size=3>“</font><font size=2><i>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. <br><br>
</i></font><font size=3>“</font><font size=2><i>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
<a href="http://www.endmassincarceration.org/">
www.endmassincarceration.org</a> [4]. We are also helping the families of
prisoners build their own network of mutual aid and support.<br><br>
</i></font><font size=3>“</font><font size=2><i>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
<a href="mailto:info@endmassincarceration.org">
info@endmassincarceration.org</a> [5]. We're here, we're serious, and we
aren't going anywhere.”<br><br>
</i>The 13 demands of the Georgia Green Party's Campaign to End Mass
Incarceration can be found
<a href="http://endmassincarceration.org/sites/default/files/emi-13points.pdf">
here</a> [6].<br><br>
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.<br>
***********************************************************************<br>
</font><font size=3><b>Source URL:</b>
<a href="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</a>
<br><br>
<b>Links:<br>
</b>[1]
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/georgia-prison-strike" eudora="autourl">
http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/georgia-prison-strike<br>
</a>[2]
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/jails-and-prisons" eudora="autourl">
http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/jails-and-prisons<br>
</a>[3]
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/goergia_inmates.jpg" eudora="autourl">
http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/goergia_inmates.jpg<br>
</a>[4]
<a href="http://www.endmassincarceration.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.endmassincarceration.org/<br>
</a>[5]
<a href="mailto:info@endmassincarceration.org" eudora="autourl">
mailto:info@endmassincarceration.org<br>
</a>[6]
<a href="http://endmassincarceration.org/sites/default/files/emi-13points.pdf" eudora="autourl">
http://endmassincarceration.org/sites/default/files/emi-13points.pdf<br>
</a>[7]
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