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Big Labor's Lock 'Em Up Mentality

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By James Ridgeway, Jean Casella - Feb. 22 (Special Report) - On January 4, the Tamms Correctional Center, a supermax prison in southern Illinois, officially closed its doors. Tamms, where some men had been kept in solitary confinement for more than a decade, was notorious for its brutal treatment of prisoners with mental illness—and for driving sane prisoners to madness and suicide.

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Welcome to the New Federal Supermax

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By James Ridgeway - Feb. 11 (News Analysis) - Even as it announces a review and reduction of its solitary confinement practices, the US Bureau of Prisons has confirmed that a newly acquired prison in Illinois will hold federal prisoners in supermax conditions.

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Risk of Disenfranchisement High for Ex-Felons

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New America Media - By Alexis Taylor - Sep. 30 (Special Report) - Walter Lomax can still remember the day he cast his first vote in an election. The emotion in his voice changes as he takes a pause, attempting to put into words how it felt to exercise the right after serving 40 years, wrongly convicted, in a Maryland prison.

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Proposed trans-Pacific trade deal ignites fears of job losses

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

seattletimes.com - By Rob Hotakainen - Sep. 19 (Special Report) - "It's NAFTA on steroids in terms of its geographic scope, its economic scope and the new powers it gives to corporations," said Arthur Stamoulis, a critic of the trade deal and executive director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, a coalition that includes labor and environmental groups.

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The Push to Keep Teen Felons Locked Up for Life

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Suevon Lee - Aug. 07 (Special Report) - When Dennis Epps learned in June that the Supreme Court had struck down mandatory life without parole sentences for kids convicted of murder, he was hopeful. His brother, David, was given such a sentence for home burglary-murder committed at 16 and has spent most of his 48 years behind bars. "I was thinking he was going to get some kind of release, because he served 32 years on a life sentence," Epps told ProPublica . But Epps's brother is unlikely going anywhere soon. A few weeks after the ruling, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad announced he would commute the life without parole sentences of 38 juvenile offenders , and make them eligible for parole after 60 years. David Epps would be in his mid-70s when he could first be released. Continue Reading ...

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Immigrants are lucrative for private prisons

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Detroit Free Press - By Laura Wides-Munoz, Garance Burke - Aug. 04 (News Analysis) - Immigrants are lucrative for private prisonsDetroit Free PressMIAMI -- Locking up illegal immigrants has grown lucrative for the private prisons industry, a reliable pot of revenue that helped keep some of the biggest companies in business. And while nearly half of the 400000 immigrants held annually are housed ...and more »

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This week in the War on Workers: Another Hyatt activist is out of work. Coincidentally, Hyatt says.

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Kos - By Laura Clawson - Jul. 28 (Opinion) - Elvia Bahena This week, Elvia Bahena , who worked at the Indianapolis Hyatt through a contractor, was fired for being a terrible, terrible worker, something that coincidentally Hyatt and the contractor decided to take action on right after she testified in front of the city council about blacklisting in the hotel industry. Actually, the contractor denies that Bahena has been fired. It's just that she's gone from working full-time at the Hyatt for the past six months to being "currently unassigned." In other words, they stopped giving her work, because of problems that were bad enough to be documented, supposedly, but for which Bahena says she had never been disciplined, and which it seems just coincidentally came to a head right after her city council testimony. Hyatt workers aren't alone, of course. It's a common feature of any attempt by workers to organize for better wages and working conditions that the most vocal activists get fired. Walmart and Walmart contractors do it. The 87 labor ...

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Served your time in prison and looking for a job? You're out of luck | Sadhbh Walshe

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Sadhbh Walshe - Jul. 26 (Research) - Few ex-prisoners in the US manage to secure employment after their release – a prior conviction automatically disqualifies them. Homeboy Industries is working to change that When Vance Webster was released from prison three years ago, he was determined to find a job, his first ever, and finally get his life off the ground. He was 45 years old and had been in prison since he was 16, serving out a 25 to life sentence for being an accessory after the fact to a gang-related murder and robbery. Vance applied for hundreds of positions, did over 80 interviews and finally, almost miraculously, got a job in a warehouse. Seven months into that job, a supervisor told him he was being let go for having lied on his application. He had failed to tick the box that asked if he had been convicted of a felony in the past seven years. Although he pointed out that he hadn't actually committed a felony in 29 years, he was fired and the job he'd fought so hard to get was gone and, so it seemed, was his shot at a ...

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Justices Bar Mandatory Life Sentences for Juveniles

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Adam Liptak, Ethan Bronner - Jun. 25 (News Report) - Some 2,000 juvenile offenders serving life sentences without parole were given hope of eventual release by the Supreme Court on Monday. The court ruled that laws requiring youths convicted of murder to be sentenced to die in prison violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

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Torture in U.S. Prisons? Historic Senate Hearing Takes Up Solitary Confinement's Devastating Toll

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 22 (News Report) - In the first-ever hearing of its kind, a Senate panel heard testimony this week on the psychological and human rights implications of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. While defenders of solitary confinement claim it is needed to control the most violent prisoners, many of the people called to testify at the hearing described how it can cause intense suffering and mental illness. We're joined by Anthony Graves, a former Texas prisoner who was fully exonerated of a murder conviction after spending 18 years behind bars, the bulk of that time on death row and in solitary confinement, and by James Ridgeway, a veteran journalist and co-editor of Solitary Watch, a website that tracks solitary confinement and torture in American prisons. [includes rush transcript]

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By the Numbers: The U.S.’s Growing For-Profit Detention Industry

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Suevon Lee - Jun. 20 (Special Report) - Added to your activity feed: We’ve taken a look at some of the numbers associated with the billion-dollar and wide-ranging for-profit detention industry—and the two companies that dominate the market: 1.6 million: Total number of state and federal prison

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Unlocked: At a Halfway House in New Jersey, Bedlam Reigns

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Sam Dolnick - Jun. 18 (Investigative Report) - The Bo Robinson center in New Jersey is as large as a prison and is intended to help inmates re-enter society. But The New York Times found that drugs, gangs and sexual abuse are rife behind its walls.

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Gaming-the-System-2012

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Department for Professional Employees - Jun. 18 (Investigative Report) - An array of skilled worker visas, including the H-1B, L, and J, is available to employers seeking guest workers. In FY2010 alone, over 350,000 guest worker visas, as well as OPT, were approved for employers hiring skilled workers. For the last 30 years, employers have expanded their access to guest workers through intense lobbying of Congress. This lobbying has created a system that largely benefits employers and harms workers.

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Children, brain development and the criminal law

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceDaily - Jun. 18 (News Report) - The legal system needs to take greater account of new discoveries in neuroscience that show how a difficult childhood can affect the development of a young person's brain which can increase the risk adolescent crimes, according to researchers.

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