Thank you CharitySub!

In March, we were honored to be one of the three charities chosen by CharitySub as one of three organizations addressing the prison epidemic. We report back.

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.

Dallas Texas to consider banning free in-person visits, requiring expensive video visits instead

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:

• Dallas Morning-News: Dallas County considers using video chats for jail visitation (This article is a good introduction except that it subtly legitimizes the bizarre argument that the contract might not ban in-person visits.)
• Dallas Observer: Dallas County Set to Stop Most Face-to-Face Jail Visits, Charge Families for Video (This article squarely presents the evidence to address the fact that this contract will ban in-person visits.)

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!

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Ferguson, MO and Police Militarization

by Peter Wagner, August 19, 2014

On Sunday, John Oliver did an amazing piece about Ferguson, Missouri and the effects of the unnecessary militarization of the police. (Warning: NSFW for language.)

See also the ACLU’s report from June of this year: War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing. As we summarized in the Research Clearinghouse:

“Using… federal funds, state and local law enforcement agencies have amassed military arsenals purportedly to wage the failed War on Drugs, the battlegrounds of which have disproportionately been in communities of color.”

Legislators listen up, we want fair elections!

Legislators listen up, we want fair elections! You can't count constituents in your house of corrections!

by Leah Sakala, June 12, 2014

I have the good fortune to be a bike commuter for most of the year, which gives me some good bike path thinking time every morning. A couple of years ago, I was riding along and mulling over ways to explain prison gerrymandering (as you do) when the lyrics started to come to me for a new spin on the classic Yankee Doodle.

Here’s how it starts:

If there’s a prison in your district,
don’t get so elated
‘cause it’s not fair to count folks there
who are incarcerated

Your district may be padded full,
but please don’t you gloat
’cause you are violating my right
to one person, one vote

Chorus:
Legislators listen up,
we want fair elections!
You can’t count constituents
in your house of corrections

The full sing-along print-out version is here.

Welcome Bernadette Rabuy!

Our newest staffer comes to us from the University of California, Berkeley, and has previously worked with National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Voice of the Ex-Offender, and Californians United for Responsible Budget.

by Peter Wagner, May 30, 2014

Please welcome our new Policy & Communications Associate, Bernadette Rabuy.

Bernadette comes to us from the University of California, Berkeley, and has previously worked with National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Voice of the Ex-Offender, and Californians United for a Responsible Budget.

Bernadette starts August 1st.

We’re hiring!

Interested in joining the Prison Policy Initiative team? Now's your chance, because we're hiring!

by Peter Wagner, May 1, 2014

Are you interested in joining our dedicated team to produce cutting edge research to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization? Do you want to spark creative advocacy campaigns to create a more just society?

If so, our new employment opportunity Policy & Communications Associate might be for you. Please spread the word, and if you think the position is for you, please apply.

PPI friend Kelsey Kauffman urges American Pharmacist Association to reject lethal injection

Think Progress covers the push for the APA to recognize that pharmacists have a moral imperative to refuse to participate in the state-sanctioned administration of death.

by Leah Sakala, April 14, 2014

Our friend and colleague Kelsey Kauffman is urging the American Pharmacist Association to join virtually all other leading medical associations in declaring that the Hippocratic Oath bars medical professionals from participating in executions. As Tara Culp-Ressler reported in Think Progress:

States are turning to so-called “compounding pharmacies” — facilities that are outside of the regulatory scope of the Food and Drug Administration — to get the ingredients they need for untested cocktails like the one that killed McGuire. Compounding pharmacies, which repackage drugs to keep down the cost of filling prescriptions, are already controversial from a public health perspective. For instance, in 2012, a compounding pharmacy was identified as the source of a deadly meningitis outbreak that killed 36 people. Since then, Congress has worked to crack down on these unregulated facilities, although some public health advocates don’t believe the recent legislative push goes far enough.

Some compounding pharmacies have agreed to manufacture the drugs that states need to kill people, but state officials won’t always reveal the details. States like Oklahoma and Missouri claim that publicizing where they’re getting their lethal drugs will result in too much public pressure on the compounding pharmacies to stop producing them. So the methods they’re using for executions are increasingly kept secret, and it’s not entirely clear whether they’re violating the Constitution’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Kauffman hopes that, if the American Pharmacist Association adopts a new policy position that forbids pharmacists from assisting in executions, this will all become moot because the employees at compounding facilities won’t be able to continue supplying these drugs. And, after attending APhA’s annual meeting at the end of last month, Kauffman believes senior officials in the pharmaceutical industry are receptive.

“I look at the American Pharmacist Association as a partner in this process, and when it comes to almost all of the pharmacists I spoke to, I see them as future allies,” she said, pointing out that medical professionals don’t have to be personally opposed to the death penalty to agree that it’s against their code of ethics to participate in them.

Kelsey is working with corporate accountability organization SumOfUs on a petition collecting 50,000 signatures to urge the American Pharmacists Association to ban its members “from participating in executions in any way.” Please sign if you haven’t already!

John Green on mass incarceration, racial disparities and long sentence lengths

John Green responds to Hank's video about Mass Incarceration with his own insightful comments on racial disparities and why the U.S. has the world's highest incarceration rate.

by Peter Wagner, April 11, 2014

The other half of the Vlog Brothers, John Green, responds to his brother Hank’s amazing animated video about Mass Incarceration in the U.S. with his own insightful comments on racial disparities in prison and the one of the key reasons why the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world: because sentences in this country are so much longer than for the same offense in other countries.

The best part is from 0:47 to 1:35:

I was also thrilled to see that one of John’s sources was this excellent article in The Economist America’s prison population: Who, what, where and why which was based on our briefing Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie.

Conn. considers reforming broken school zone law

Conn. Judicial Committee hears testimony in favor of sentencing enhancement zone reform.

by Aleks Kajstura, March 13, 2014

Yesterday, I testified before Connecticut’s Judiciary Committee in support of reforming Connecticut’s sentencing enhancement laws (my testimony starts at 3:34:03).

Connecticut’s 1,500-foot sentencing enhancement zones, meant to protect children from drug activity, are some of the largest in the country. I described how the law’s sheer expanse means it fails to actually set apart protected areas and that it arbitrarily increases penalties for urban residents. As Senator Holder-Winfield concisely explains, Senate Bill 259 would decrease that size to a more effective 200 feet.

For more details, check out the video above and my written testimony (with maps).

And check back in soon, I’m releasing a report examining Connecticut’s sentencing enhancement zones on the 28th.

CharitySub picks PPI to address the “prison epidemic”

The Prison Policy Initiative is thrilled to be chosen as one of three CharitySub organizations addressing this month’s “prison epidemic” theme.

by Peter Wagner, March 3, 2014

The Prison Policy Initiative is thrilled to be chosen as one of three CharitySub organizations addressing this month’s “prison epidemic” theme.

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.

You can join today to support this month’s organizations and learn about other organizations doing great work in the future.