Nationwide Prison Strike Launches in 24 States and 40 Facilities over Conditions & Forced Labor

Today Sept 9 is the 45 year anniversary of the uprising at Attica state prison in New York.

Here is info on the Attica prison riots:

Prisoners riot and seize control of the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York. Later that day, state police retook most of the prison, but 1,281 convicts occupied an exercise field called D Yard, where they held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. After negotiations stalled, state police and prison officers launched a disastrous raid on September 13, in which 10 hostages and 29 inmates were killed in an indiscriminate hail of gunfire. Eighty-nine others were seriously injured.

Riot at Attica

Today prisoners in 24 states in at least 40 facilities are protesting long term isolation, over crowding, violent attacks, slave labor among other adverse conditions behind bars.



I agree we need both criminal justice and prison reform immediately.

In St Louis there is a jail called the workhouse, some end up staying here upto 3 years. There is open sewage in parts of the facility and almost everyone locked up here ends up with hepatitis.

I have the solution:

1) for the riots and strikes - they are prisoners in prison, lock them down in their cells and restrict them to bread and water for a period of three months (all they really need), at the end of the three months most will be begging for the opportunity to work.

2) for the prisoners's conditions - don't get put in prison. I know it is a novel concept, but when you commit the crime, you are forgoing your rights to all these privileges you are demanding.

I know, everyone is going to say that they are people too. Yes but they are people who were put in prison to be punished not coddled.

The better argument some will make will be that not all of the people in are guilty. Well, sadly this is true, but they were all convicted by a jury of their peers . . . and under the current system that is the best we can do. Hopefully, those that were wrongly convicted will have the best lawyers to help rectify the situation.

peace

a reply to: JDeLattre89

they were all convicted by a jury of their peers

That is completely false. It would actually be rare.

Crowded system, plea bargaining due to inadequate defenders. Trumped up charges. The system is broken.

you're right:

amendment . . . either convicted by peers or Pled Guilty

Abolish private prisons, lock up the people that profited from putting humans in cages, and end the war on drugs.

a reply to: Grimpachi

So it isn't enough for you that people are in prison, you think that they should also be treated like dogs???

And tell me, how would you like to meet one of these abused people right after they get out of jail?

Why don't you go back to the age of Inquisition. You would seem to fit in well there, what with burning witches and all.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: JDeLattre89

Jury trial is sort of rare, usually it is just a judge.

Guilty, not guilty, or no contest.

originally posted by: JDeLattre89
I have the solution:

1) for the riots and strikes - they are prisoners in prison, lock them down in their cells and restrict them to bread and water for a period of three months (all they really need), at the end of the three months most will be begging for the opportunity to work.

2) for the prisoners's conditions - don't get put in prison. I know it is a novel concept, but when you commit the crime, you are forgoing your rights to all these privileges you are demanding.

I know, everyone is going to say that they are people too. Yes but they are people who were put in prison to be punished not coddled.

The better argument some will make will be that not all of the people in are guilty. Well, sadly this is true, but they were all convicted by a jury of their peers . . . and under the current system that is the best we can do. Hopefully, those that were wrongly convicted will have the best lawyers to help rectify the situation.

peace

Except that harsh treatment that soly revolves around punishment doesnt solve anything. What are reoffending rates? 60-70%? Prison is not much good is it if most end up back there?

Look at countrys like Denmark and Norway that focus on rehabilitaion. There reoffending rates a rock bottom. There prisons work.


Now for muderers, rapists and pedophiles. Lock the bastards away in dungeons and throw away the key as they shouldnt be allowed out ever anyway so rehabilitation to me is not a issue.

But for other crimes? Clearly the current system of punishment does not work.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Why are you directing that at me?

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: Grimpachi

So it isn't enough for you that people are in prison, you think that they should also be treated like dogs???

And tell me, how would you like to meet one of these abused people right after they get out of jail?

Why don't you go back to the age of Inquisition. You would seem to fit in well there, what with burning witches and all.

Tired of Control Freaks

Exactly. Treat them like animals and what do you expect when they get out?

They will just get worse and worse.

There was a 400 man riot at Holmes Correctional Institution in Florida on Weds leading up to the protests planned for today.

Florida’s prison system, the third-largest in the country, has been dangerously understaffed for nearly a year, and several sieges have occurred in recent weeks. To further exacerbate tensions, many inmates have been in forced confinement in their dorms, allowed out only to eat because there isn’t even enough staff to guard them during outside recreation.

Over the past two years, the Miami Herald has published a series of stories documenting the brutal or unexplained deaths of inmates in Florida prisons, a record number of use-of-force incidents and corruption by guards and top officers.

In recent weeks, the department has had disturbances at Jackson Correctional, Gulf Correctional, Franklin Correctional and Okaloosa CI. All of them, like Holmes, are located in Region 1, in the Panhandle. And a corrections officer was stabbed during a melee at Columbia CI in April.

miami herald

I haven't seen any other news reports of anything happening today.

Public "Defenders" job is to put you on probation no matter how silly the charge or innocent you are. I once as a teen had one try to CONJOB me into taking a probation deal. She stalled had me sitting out there in the lobby all day kept leaving coming back making me wait forever in between. I finally said "JURY TRIAL" and her jaw hit the floor her head shaking doing the slight back and forth like nooooooooooooooo. I'll never forget her face! They set the date. I came in for it they never even did a jury call it was dismissed, but the prosecutor did show up though. He was LAUGHING. True story.

a reply to: Grimpachi

I apologise. I meant this reply to JDlattre89.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: WilburnRoach

Good. Not only is prison labor immoral, those are jobs that poor Americans can fill. I'm sick of these corporations that sell 200 dollar jeans that only cost 5 dollars to make.

I'm sure if it was a resort they would all be nicer people when they got out.

originally posted by: WilburnRoach
Today Sept 9 is the 45 year anniversary of the uprising at Attica state prison in New York.

Here is info on the Attica prison riots:

Prisoners riot and seize control of the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York. Later that day, state police retook most of the prison, but 1,281 convicts occupied an exercise field called D Yard, where they held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. After negotiations stalled, state police and prison officers launched a disastrous raid on September 13, in which 10 hostages and 29 inmates were killed in an indiscriminate hail of gunfire. Eighty-nine others were seriously injured.

Riot at Attica

Today prisoners in 24 states in at least 40 facilities are protesting long term isolation, over crowding, violent attacks, slave labor among other adverse conditions behind bars.

I agree we need both criminal justice and prison reform immediately.

In St Louis there is a jail called the workhouse, some end up staying here upto 3 years. There is open sewage in parts of the facility and almost everyone locked up here ends up with hepatitis.

If the people who comitted crimes are working in a prison called the workhouse, why are the vocations plumber, sanitary worker and Certified Nursing Assistant eliminated from their prisoner work force? To make their environment harsh purposefully? How many would be offenders in that area are rethinking committing illegal crimes after reading the article posted here? Is it true? Could be. Could be magnified for a reason too. Either way, at this point in time it seems meant to be. People of all backgrounds and socio-economic levels need to stop playing games with themselves and each other and straighten the hell up. Now is the time.

Has anyone noticed by now the nicer the prison environment is, the more prisoners reoffend or risk it for the first time because there's not much to risk anymore? Just to go back? For attention? For cleanliness? For a bed? Meals, warmth, cool air, showers, friendship, because they don't know what to do with their lives being free? Too many choices for them in freedom?They feel unrecognized. Unloved? Like to be given a schedule? Someone checks on them everyday to make sure their ok? They are part of something? They feel like they belong? Can relate to others? The guards are the well diciplined parents they never had? Face it. Most people feel they are not loved. They don't get healthy attention. Their famlies are small and scattered ever where, don't check on each other, care to communicate with each other. The communities hoard decent paying jobs, refuse to train or teach their fellow community members on the job choosing to instead keep them jobless and convincing them to pay such large sums of money for job training, called college, the biggest scam unprecedented in the history of a free society.

Do any of you even realize many prisoners are perfectly capable of following rules? In fact, most prison gangs make up, enforce and follow a very complex and lengthly set of rules their members must follow? Minimal freedom in comparison to real autonomy and freedom.

Does anyone realize many of these prisoners are actually squared away, like being sober, are now doing the best they ever did in a long time, or ever, being incarcerated and are militarily ready?

The President of the Philippines executes druggies, dealers, their bosses, while here in the U.S. we imprison them instead along with usually making their drug or alcohol treatment mandatory. Everyone knows by now that forced rehabilitation is a waste of time & money because most offenders only stop when their lives are completely ruined from it and they WANT to change. Even once detoxed and clean most willingly go back to using because the only attention they get is being an addict. These people ruin law abiding people's lives with their addiction. While the law abiding person usually suffers the damage in either lonliness and/or a broken down family or community, the addict gets all the attention running around like a banshee. There are groups to support those who's lives are dangling in the ruins of an addict or grants & funds for groups from the state or Feds to use, but once again, the group is still about the addict. It revolves around the addict, relys on their addiction to keep funds going. The addict should never get positive attention while using, or any kind of emotional attention. Sober and law abiding people should be the one's rewarded with positive emotional attention and gainful employment they can take pride in. But even the "good" people are not getting that. Many addicts & criminals clearly see those people are not. Many surmise, "Why change if nothing is out there?" No one is exactly sure why humanity has not yet made an emotional advancement for the better. The fact that technological advancement seemed to come first and so quickly reeks of the real conspiracy here.

45 years! I remember this. I was a teenager. It was on the news every night for a week.

I lived in N.Y. at the time.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
I'm sure if it was a resort they would all be nicer people when they got out.

Well countrys that focus on rehabilitation and treat inmates as humans do see a drastic drop in reoffending.

Sorry but the current US prison system does not work and if anything makes things worse as non violent offenders come out hardened and tend to reoffend in a worse manner.

What ever happened to breaking big rocks into little rocks all day long, just because? They didn't make songs about chain gangs for nothing.

a reply to: crazyewok

Most conservative types have zero interest in rehabilitating criminals.

They just prefer to have them re offend until they die in prison or get the death penalty.

Then harp on about how the system is perfect and they just squandered their opportunities in life and deserved worse than they got.