According to recent findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement, more than one-third of youth in custody (35 percent) report being isolated — locked up alone or confined to their room with no contact with other residents. The vast majority of youth who were isolated (87 percent) say this was for longer than 2 hours and more than one-half (55 percent) say it was for longer than 24 hours. Locking youth under the age of 16 up in solitary confinement for more than 24 hours violates all best practices that these detention centers and prisons are supposed to abide by.

The report which was published by the OJJDP puts it this way:

“some may find SYRP findings on the prevalance of solitary confinement both surprising and problematic.”

To say the least…

Lockdown, USA is a documentary that purports to tell the story of the fight against the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York City. For those who are not familiar with those laws, here is short primer from the film Lockdown, USA.

Anyway, this documentary is uneven to say the least. Frankly the worst parts are the ones that focus on Russell Simmons. The best parts focus on the actual “organizers” who had struggled for decades to overturn those laws and on thefamilies who are devastated by the impact of the unjust laws.

Oh and one more thing… This music video is better than the film as a whole:

P.S. I am tempted to write a note to the filmmakers imploring them to make a director’s cut of the documentary where they delete all of the Russell Simmons parts. But I guess that’s unrealistic. Oh well…

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong... Just Wrong!

A civil liberties group says a Louisiana jail humiliates suicidal prisoners by forcing them to wear skimpy shorts that say “Hot Stuff” on the rear and confines them in tiny cells more narrow than a dog’s cage.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana says it is unconstitutional for the St. Tammany Parish jail to confine prisoners in cages that are three feet wide, three feet long and seven feet tall. The ACLU says guards and prisoners refer to them as squirrel cages.

A local code requires dogs to be kept in cages at least six feet wide and six feet deep.

The ACLU also claims suicidal prisoners are forced to wear bright orange “short shorts” with “Hot Stuff” scrawled in pen on the rear.

Local officials did not immediately comment.

Paul Rucker writes:

In May of 2009, I was honored to be part of a Prison Issues residency at the Blue Mountain Center. While there I had the honor of being in the company of some amazing people. Artists, activist from around the world provided over two weeks of inspiration, knowledge, and camaraderie.

While doing my individual research, I happened upon some maps created by Rose Heyer that showed the growth of the US Prison system. With that information, I was inspired to create Proliferation, an animated mapping of the US Prison system set to original music.

Timeline
Green Dots: 1778-1900
Yellow Dots: 1901-1940
Orange Dots: 1941-1980
Red Dots: 1981-2005

For more information about Paul Rucker, visit his his website.

On any given day, there are about 90,000 youth in juvenile detention or prison facilities across the country. The following provides more detailed national and state data on juvenile residential placements.

I missed the US Social Forum in Detroit because I was out of the country while it was happening. However, I was very interested in how the issue of the PIC would be addressed in workshops and particularly at the People’s Movement Assembly.

Well by the miracle of technology, I was able to read the resolution that was developed in Detroit. And now so can you…

Now that I have put the word out to friends and family, far and wide, that I have a new blog about Prison Culture in the U.S., I am getting even more information and resources sent to me than usual.

My friend Liz from Boston sent along a link to a website called Black and Pink. I just checked it out and it is very informative. It includes information about prison abolition and also offers a state by state list of queer and trans prisoners who are looking for pen pals. Finally, the site speaks to a neglected and overlooked group of youth who are incarcerated.

The creator of the website is Jason who describes himself as a queer abolitionist clergy person. Now I know that you are just dying to visit his site.

Police Brutality

So the long-anticipated Oscar Grant verdict came in today… Surprise, Surprise the white police officer who murdered a young black man with inpugnity gets a slap on the wrist. The jury found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter deciding that he did not intend to kill Oscar Grant. The irony about American Prison Culture is that it is mostly reserved for those most marginalized. The privileged don’t go to prison. The question for me is: “how do we ensure accountability for violent actions across the board while not extending the PIC?” I just think that this is the question that we need to explore as a society. Even though the police officer committed an abhorrent act by killing Oscar Grant, I can’t join the calls for him to “rot in prison.” I want transformative justice and I want to uproot oppression.

For those who aren’t familiar with the case here is a good primer from Wikipedia

Julianne Hing from Racewire and Colorlines has for my money provided the best reporting and analysis of this case that I have seen. Here she summarizes the verdict from the case.

There is a long history of people taking trips to visit prisons. In the early 20th century, visiting prisons was one of the biggest forms of entertainment for the middle classes. Stephen Cox’s new book "The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison" briefly speaks to this reality.

I started thinking about the issue of prison tourism again when I read a piece listing the Top 6 Prisons to Visit around the Globe. The article begins as follows:

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” said Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In spite of the negative image of prisons and the various implications which they symbolize, prisons, especially ones that have been converted to museums, continue to draw tourists. The stories of infamy that continue to play out in the imagination of the public and the legends of the rogues who spent time in these institutions tickle the fancy of visitors. In this list, we will get intimate with six interesting prisons and the men and women they held behind their bars.

The article then goes on to list Port Arthur, Alcatraz, Robben Island, Ushala Prison, Bukhara Zindan, and The Tower of London as the best prison destinations. What does this say about our “degree of civilization” that people are actually interested in taking prison tourism trips for their vacations. There is something incredibly perverse and wrong about this. Unless you are visiting a current prison to document the level of INHUMANITY that prisons display, I say that it’s a better idea to visit Disneyland on your next vacation.

Every day, I will highlight some completely incredible statistic or fact that those of you who are interested in mass incarceration and the PIC might be interested to know. Today’s crazy fact of the day comes from the California Prison system.

California’s prison system incarcerates approximately 155,500 men and women in 33 prisons that were designed to house roughly half that many. California has the nation’s largest and the world’s third largest prison system. That’s right… California’s prisons are so overcrowded that the courts have ordered the governor to release 40,000 inmates.

For more about California’s overcrowded prisons, read Donald Specter's article about the state of California's prisons.