NewsTrust - Prisons - Most Recent Stories

Billions Behind Bars

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNBC.com - Oct. 24 (Special Report) - With more than 2.3 million people locked up, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. One out of 100 American adults is behind bars – while a stunning one out of 32 is on probation, parole or in prison. This reliance on mass incarceration has created a thriving prison economy. The states and the federal government spend about $74 billion a year on corrections, and nearly 800,000 people work in the industry.

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What Do Marco Rubio, Immigrants For Sale, And A Sh_t-Ton Of Cash Have In Common?

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

MoveOn - By MoveOn productions - Oct. 22 (News Report) - You’re about to find out. Watch:

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Noam Chomsky on Israel-Palestine Prisoner Exchange, U.S. Assassination Campaign in Yemen

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Noam Chomsky - Oct. 18 (Speech) - MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned linguist and political dissident, spoke Monday night at Barnard College in New York City about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just hours before Israel and Hamas completed a historic prisoner exchange. "I think [Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit] should have been released a long time ago. But there’s something missing from this whole story. There’s no pictures of Palestinian women, and no discussion, in fact, in the story of—what about the Palestinian prisoners being released?

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Freed U.S. Hiker Shane Bauer

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 26 (News Report) - "In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantánamo Bay. They would remind of us of CIA prisons in other parts of the world and the conditions that Iranians and others experience in prisons in the U.S.," says Shane Bauer. "We do not believe that such human rights violations on the part of our government justify what has been done to us. Not for a moment. However, we do believe that these actions on the part of the U.S. provide an excuse for other governments, including the government of Iran, to act in kind."

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ALEC Exposed – Prison Labor

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

mainstreetinsider.org - Sep. 22 (Special Report) - Earlier this year, the Center for Media and Democracy released documents detailing some 800 model legislations crafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Included in those documents was the Prison Industries Act, legislation that had already been established in dozens of states across the country. Like much of the model legislation created by ALEC, this bill is designed to help private corporations increase profits. In this case, those profits come from the use of prison labor. As Mike Elk and Bob Sloan wrote in The Nation, “prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies.”

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Flush With Prison Industry Dollars, Rick Perry Pushed Privatized Prisoner Care

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Tim Murphy - Sep. 03 (News Report) - Corrections industry lobbyists and execs donated generously to the Texas governor's reelection campaign. He advanced policies that would benefit the prison industry. Coincidence?

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The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Mike Elk, Bob Sloan - Aug. 01 (Investigative Report) - The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour.

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Mary Bottari on ALEC Exposed, Marjorie Cohn on prison hunger strike

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FAIR - Jul. 22 (Fact Check) - This week on CounterSpin: You've probably never heard of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. So why do they have so much sway over the laws affecting your life? We may get some sunlight on the actions of this influential "public/private membership organization" with the release of a cache of previously secret documents on their work. We'll hear from Mary Bottari of the Center for Media and Democracy about the ALEC Exposed project, and what it all means.

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The Corrupt Corporate Incarceration Complex

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By William Fisher - Jul. 01 (News Report) - Seventeen-year-old Hillary Transue did what lots of 17-year-olds do: Got into mischief. Hillary's mischief was composing a MySpace page poking fun at the assistant principal of the high school she attended in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Hillary was an honor student who'd never had any trouble with the law before.

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Call Off the Global Drug War

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jimmy Carter - Jun. 17 (Opinion) - To make drug policies more humane and more effective, the U.S. should rehabilitate non-violent, casual drug users, and undermine the power of organized crime.

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Crime Victims United of California: A powerful voice in state politics

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Joshua Page - Jun. 04 (Opinion) - If policymakers continue to follow the voices of expressly punitive victims rights advocates and ignore the opinions of those who promote alternative, less punitive conceptions of justice, California will not shrink its $9-billion prison system or alleviate its correctional crisis. The status quo will prevail. Let's hope this harrowing prediction doesn't come true.

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Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings

Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Richard A. Oppel Jr. - May. 18 (News) - The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.

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Bin Laden Raid Revives Debate on Value of Torture

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Scott Shane, Charlie Savage - May. 04 (News Report) - The raid that led to Bin Laden’s death has raised anew the issue of using torture to gain intelligence.

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North Korea 'holding 200,000 prisoners'

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Al Jazeera - May. 04 (News) - Amnesty International says new images and testimony point to terrible conditions in huge network of prison camps.

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FBI serves Grand Jury subpoena likely relating to WikiLeaks

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Apr. 27 (Opinion) - In the wake of a massive disclosure of Guantanamo files by WikiLeaks, the FBI yesterday served a Grand Jury subpoena in Boston on a Cambridge resident, compelling his appearance to testify in Alexandria, Virgina.

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WikiLeaks discloses new details on whereabouts of al-Qaeda leaders on 9/11

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Peter Finn - Apr. 25 (Special Report) - Cache of classified military documents also offers tantalizing glimpses into operations of Osama bin Laden right after Sept. 11 attacks.

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Guantanamo Bay: Why Obama hasn’t fulfilled his promise to close the facility

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Peter Finn, Anne E. Kornblut - Apr. 24 (Investigative Report) - This account of the unraveling of Obama’s pledge to close Guantanamo is based on interviews with more than 30 current and former administration officials, as well as members of Congress and their staff, members of the George W. Bush administration, and activists. Many of them would speak about internal or sensitive deliberations only on the condition of anonymity.

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WikiLeaks suspect Manning will be transferred from Quantico to Fort Leavenworth

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ellen Nakashima - Apr. 20 (News Report) - Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has spent the last nine months isolated in a Marine jail as the man suspected of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, will be moved from his tiny cell in Quantico to a new Army facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., better suited to long-term detainees, military and defense officials said Tuesday. The move, which follows intense international criticism about Manning’s treatment, will be “imminent,” Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson said. One military official said it is expected to happen Wednesday.

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Why Was PFC Manning Moved to Fort Leavenworth?

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

armycourtmartialdefense.info - By David E. Coombs - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - While the defense hopes that the move to Fort Leavenworth will result in the improvement of PFC Manning’s conditions of confinement, it nonetheless intends to pursue redress at the appropriate time for the flagrant violations of his constitutional rights by the Quantico confinement facility.

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Former Angola Prisoner Wilbert Rideau Receives George Polk Journalism Award For Exposing Sexual Violence Behind Bars

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez - Apr. 07 (Interview) - Wilbert Rideau was imprisoned for 44 years at the Angola Louisiana State Penitentiary before he won his release in 2005. While he was in prison he was editor of the "Angolite," a newspaper produced by inmates, and became an award-winning journalist. He received the George Polk Award for Special Interest Reporting in 1979 for his outstanding contributions to public understanding of the criminal justice and prison systems. More than three decades later, he will be honored today at the 62nd Annual George Polk Awards for journalists. "Back in 1979, the way [prison officials] portrayed sexual violence in prisons to the public was that this was something done by homosexuals and gay guys," says Rideau. "With sexual violence, I essentially told what it really was. It was not the homosexuals or the gays, in fact, they were quite often victims. It was the heterosexuals doing the raping and violence and what not, and being done with the tacit approval of prison authorities."

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Britain to reassert worries about WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning’s treatment

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Karla Adam - Apr. 06 (News Report) - British diplomats said Tuesday that they will restate to the State Department their concerns about the U.S. military’s treatment of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, the soldier who is accused of supplying confidential diplomatic files to the WikiLeaks Web site.

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Cowardly, Stupid, and Tragically Wrong

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Dahlia Lithwick - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - In reversing one of its last principled positions—that American courts are sufficiently nimble, fair, and transparent to try Mohammed and his confederates—the administration surrendered to the bullying, fear-mongering, and demagoguery of those seeking to create two separate kinds of American law.

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Prisons look to share food costs with Ohio State

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Ann Sanner - Mar. 25 (News) - Looking for ways to save money, the state's correction department and Ohio State University are exploring whether to buy food jointly and in bulk.

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The Abuse of Private Manning

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Mar. 15 (Editorial) - The treatment of the soldier accused of giving government files to WikiLeaks conjures creepy memories of how terror suspects were handled during the Bush years.

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Clinton aide quits over Manning's treatment

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Ed Henry - Mar. 14 (News) - P.J. Crowley abruptly resigned Sunday as State Department spokesman over controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case.

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