by Aleks Kajstura, April 8, 2015
The National Academies recently released a great video highlighting some findings from their 2014 report, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Take a look at mass incarceration in perspective:
by Bernadette Rabuy, March 23, 2015
John Oliver does it again! Watch Last Week Tonight: Municipal Violations and learn more about municipalities that are senselessly locking people up for failure to pay traffic tickets.
by Peter Wagner, February 25, 2015
John Oliver on HBO Tonight explains judicial elections and explains how that hurts our justice system. (Warning: NSFW for language.)
by Aleks Kajstura, February 4, 2015
The simply-titled article Exploiting Inmates by Sukey Lewis in today’s East Bay Express presents a great comprehensive overview of the current problems with the prison and jail phone industry.
Well worth a read, whether you’re new to the issue or looking for a good narrative that ties it all together: Exploiting Inmates
by Bernadette Rabuy, February 3, 2015
I woke up today feeling pretty irked. Back when we were working on our report on the video visitation industry in prisons and jails, I tried to do a Securus video visit with an incarcerated person in Texas. Even though the Securus interface said “Status: Ready,” and I could see my face on the computer screen, I waited for 25 minutes for a video visit that never happened.
As a result, a month ago, I requested a refund from Securus. Since it seemed like I did everything right, I was feeling fairly confident that I’d get a refund. I submitted the refund form a month ago and never heard back. Today, I called, and the automated attendant said I’d have a 4 minute wait, but after 20 minutes I gave up.
And then I noticed this: Securus changed the status of my video visit to “Status: You did not log in for your scheduled visit.” I just so happen to have a screen shot of the Securus website from last month when I was waiting for my visit. Do I look logged in to you?
by Peter Wagner, January 14, 2015
On Monday evening, we submitted 6 major briefings on the need to regulate the prison and jail telephone industry to the Federal Communications Commission:
by Bernadette Rabuy, November 12, 2014
Yesterday, musician Alicia Keys wrote a piece for The Guardian describing the motivation behind her activism and calling musicians to use their platforms for true movement-building. Describing how motherhood has fueled her awareness of social injustices, Keys writes, “A woman becomes a lioness when she sees her unborn child’s future juxtaposed with the horrors of the world.” Recently, Keys went out in the streets to protest outside the Nigerian consulate in New York for the six-month anniversary of Boko Haram’s abduction of Nigerian girls. We were also excited to see Keys bring attention to racial disparities in the criminal justice system as an issue she cares about. She even used our data! We hope that other musicians will join Alicia Keys and move beyond social justice tweets to getting into the thick of the movement.
by Peter Wagner, September 25, 2014
Federal Communications Commissioner Clyburn and Chairman Wheeler are circulating to their colleagues a new proposal to regulate the prison and jail telephone industry.
There aren’t a lot of details in the Commission’s press release, but it appears the Commissioners want extend their earlier progress to:
The draft isn’t available yet, but when it is, we’ll have a full analysis and be working with our friends to encourage public comment on it. For background, see our phones page.
by Peter Wagner, September 19, 2014
In March, we were honored to be one of the three charities chosen by CharitySub as one of three organizations addressing the prison epidemic.
CharitySub is an innovative new approach to online giving. CharitySub members pledge $5 a month, and each month CharitySub picks a new cause and identifies three non-profits making a difference on that cause. Each month, CharitySub members get to pick which of the three organizations receives their $5. Most recently, Charity Sub members have supported organizations addressing STEM education, wildlife welfare, beach conservation, drug free youth, and — this month’s topic — body image.
You can join today to support this month’s organizations and learn about other organizations doing great work in the future.
Thank you, Charity Sub members, for supporting our work. With your help, we won a big victory two weeks ago, convincing Dallas County Texas to reject a video visitation contract that was going to replace the usual visiting hours for families with expensive video visitation. This is the first time the public was able to stop one of these anti-family contracts, so we expect it will have a national effect. Thank you for making this victory for families possible.
by Peter Wagner, September 9, 2014
Later this morning, Dallas County Texas will vote on a new telephone contract with Securus that will also ban free in-person visits and require families to pay for video visitation instead.
There have been two good stories this week:
With the vote scheduled for this morning, our friends at SumOfUs collected 2,053 petitions from their Texas members in under 12 hours yesterday urging the county to reject a “contract that would substitute visiting hours for expensive corporate-sponsored video calls.”
To our friends in Texas, good luck today!
States fall far short of their duty to meet the health needs of incarcerated people.
The bail industry exploits cracks and loopholes in the legal system to avoid accountability, while growing its profits.
Criminal justice policy in every region of the United States is out of step with the rest of the world.
We are leading the movement to protect our democracy from the Census Bureau's prison miscount.
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