Showing posts with label overcrowded prisons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label overcrowded prisons. Show all posts

Thursday 19 November 2020

Savage State.

      We can never give enough publicity to the real conditions in prisons across the world, there can be no civilised method of imprisoning people, the whole idea of incarceration of humans is inhumane and a barbaric aspect of a degraded human mind.  Added to the sadistic process of locking people up in cages, is the brutal arbitrary violence, gross overcrowding and total lack of human duty of care, lack necessary facilities, and inadequate medical treatment, even more so during this pandemic.
    Of course the state and its mouthpieces will always paint the opposite picture, first demonising the individuals that happen to get sucked into their loaded judicial system and end up incarcerate in these cages of repression. Secondly, they will put out propaganda trying to create the illusion that life in their cages is one of ease, comfort, with modern facilities and due care of prisoners, and lots of programs to make those unfortunate individuals, "better people". We are also fed, via the media a series of "entertainment" programs showing prisons as places of calm and camaraderie between prisons and their cage keepers, citadels of of dialogue and compassion, the old UK program of "Porridge" springs to mind. We have to keep shouting the truth about these inhumane cages and the true reason for their existence, they are there to protect the powerful and wealthy privileged parasites, who hold the reins of power in this economic system, and control all aspects of our lives. Prisons must be crushed and the parasite class abolished before human dignity can flourish.
 
 

Greece :A letter from Polykarpos Georgiadis about the situation in the Greek prisons
         In recent months the far right neoliberal government has launched a tempest of propaganda on prisons through the controlled media aimed at creating a deformed narrative on the prison situation, thereby favouring a methodical abolition of the rights conquered with the blood of the prisoners themselves. These are not rights conferred by some merciful government but conquests that were won through hard struggles, revolts, torture, hunger strikes, privations.
        In this propaganda campaign, the prisons are being presented almost as places of rest and leisure, with luxury cells and services, in the same way that the junta of the colonels presented the places of confinement. They were ridiculous to the point that they even indicated kettles, small speakers, USBs with music and films, etc. as luxury articles. But instead of calling up the various chiefs of the prison guards such as Aravantinos and the various robocops, who give a false image of prisons, journalists should make the effort to go into the prison wings themselves to see the real conditions of life in person. Of course the image shown by the media is distorted and misleading. The reality is completely different. Thousands of people are literally crammed up in disgusting buildings, in inhuman shameful conditions of detention. Obviously, this is nothing new for Greek prisons. However, in the current conditions of pandemic the situation is even more dreadful. Not only are the conditions of detention still deplorable, but no substantial health measures have been adopted to protect the health of prisoners, who continue to be piled into cells that are becoming the antechambers of coffins. The prisons are filling up each day more and more and are on the verge of collapse, at the same time as the government – through the ever-available media – are publicizing a “spectacular fall in criminal delinquency”.
        How do you explain this paradox: reducing criminality and filling up the prisons. And this is happening in Greece, whereas even authoritarian regimes have decongested their prisons, releasing thousands of prisoners. At the same time the government is making a fool of prisoners by publishing COVID-19 instructions and advising them not to have gatherings! In the Greek prisons, instead of adopting basic health measures, the ministry of public order prefers prohibitions and the imposition of repressive measures that make prisoners’ lives even more difficult. All permits have been cancelled, visits with third parties abolished and days for closed visits have been reduced instead of increasing them to avoid crowding of relatives and friends in waiting areas. The example of Corfu’s jails is absolutely indicative. Instead of taking health measures, the authorities preferred to block prisoners, sentencing them to death while waiting for EODY [national organization of prevention and public health] to wake up after a week and proceed with prescribed tests.
       This policy is obviously murderous and some have chosen the role of hangman for themselves. In the face of these destructive and inhuman conditions it is necessary, inside and outside the prison hells, to develop a wide movement of solidarity that demands the immediate decongestion of prisons, the provision of dignified conditions of life, and medical care as well as visits by doctors to check (and not the Ministry of Public Order) measures taken to protect the prisoners’ health, doing mass testing, the free administration of antiseptics and face masks, the immediate lifting of repressive measures and their replacement with aequate health measures against the pandemic.
       P.S. 1. Shortly before publication of this text, new repressive measures were announced by the ministry, clearly revealing the inhumanity and depravation of its leader, M. Chrysochoidis. So, all visits have been cancelled indefinitely, thus intensifying the social and family isolation of prisoners; all transfers to hospitals for health reasons have been suspended, thus endangering the very lives of prisoners and, finally, all educational services and therapeutic activities have been stopped. The only certainty is that they want us dead. But, you reap what you sow – who sows wind reaps a tempest.
        P.S. 2. I send my solidarity to comrade Costas Sakkas who started a hunger strike on 9th November demanding his transfer to Korydallos for reasons of study.
Polykarpos Georgiadis
Prison of Larissa
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk    

Thursday 4 January 2018

For A Free Society, Prisons Must Be Destroyed.

 
        Prisons are one of the state's repressive tools, they are brutal places, where ever aspect of your life is at the whim of the repressive administration. Apart from over crowded and insanitary conditions, there is the abuse by the corporate bodies that use prisoners as very profitable slave labour, in this particular field I believe American leads the field. Now it seems they are going one step further in this abuse and exploitation with a rolling out of a new scheme which bans those incarcerated from receiving fresh fruit and veg from their families and friends. Packages for prisoners can now only be made through named vendors. This is just another cruel and vindictive aspect of this savage inhumane state repressive machine. Denying prisoners of healthy food and squeezing more money from families and friends while at the same time, increasing the profit of selected corporate bodies. True capitalism, profit before humanity.
          This from It's Going Down
      The thugs who run the NYS prison system (NYS DOCCS) has issued a new directive (4911A) that describes new, draconian package rules that they are testing in 3 prisons as a ‘pilot program’. This directive comes in the wake of petty rule crackdowns after the escape of two prisoners from Clinton prison in 2015. Reports have trickled in about long term prisoners losing their trailer visits, hoodies being eliminated and even more bitterness on the part of the guards. This past fall, political prisoner Herman Bell was beat down by 3 or more guards, others like Ramsey Orta had to deal with transfer way upstate and have been assaulted by staff. Basically, staff thinks they can do what they want.
     Currently, at most facilities, family and friends can drop off packages at the front desk when visiting, packages that include fresh fruit and vegetables that supplement the high carb/sugar, meager diet provided by DOCCS. Although you have to deal with the guards and their bullshit attitude about what can and cannot come into the prison, at the end, you know your friend or family member will be getting to eat some fresh fruit, vegetables and treats they cannot possibly get from DOCCS.
      These new rules are horrible in so many ways including:
1. Packages can be ordered only from approved vendors (so basically, some corporations will win out and have a guaranteed market to sell overpriced processed food).
2. Fresh fruit and vegetables are not allowed.
3. Family and friends cannot drop off packages while visiting. All packages must be shipped through the vendor.
4. Each person is limited to ordering three packages a month for him or herself and receiving three packages a month from others. Each package cannot be more than 30 pounds. Of the 30 pounds per package, only 8 pounds can be food.
5. Allowable items will be the same in all facilities. (No more local permits.)
6. There are far fewer items allowed than before and of the items that are allowed, far less variety. This includes additional restrictions on clothing.
7. The pilot rules are not clear about how books, media, religious items and literature, or other items subject to First Amendment protection will be treated. This could mean that prison book programs like Books through Bars will not be able to send free books to the 52,000 people in the prison system.
       The pilot program implements an “approved venders only” package system. This means that only packages from approved vendors will be accepted. The vendors appear to be companies that specialize in shipping into prisons and jails. There are currently five approved vendors identified on the DOCCS website. This amounts to a cash grab for these companies.
        The pilot program is starting at three facilities: Taconic, Greene, and Green Haven. Those facilities will stop accepting packages from non-approved vendors on January 2, 2018.
          A call to organise against this callous, vicious and vindictive piece of repression and money grabbing action:


       We have to make this package directive unworkable. These new rules are cruel; eliminating fresh fruit and vegetables and creating massive profits for the vampire companies that will fill the niche.
WE CAN ORGANIZE TO ROLL THESE RULES BACK.
Some ideas how:
1.) Sign the petition- share it with your address book, share it on twitter, share it on facebook. It takes two seconds. https://diy.rootsaction.org/…/no-package-restrictions-for-n…
2.) Get in touch with your people in NYS Prisons and let them know about this. Inform them, send them the info. Massive non-cooperation on the part of NYS prisoners will have to play a huge role in this. People inside know how to make things unworkable.
3.) Flood the politicians with postcards and letters. Send one to Governor Cuomo and one to Anthony Annucci, the acting commissioner of DOCCS.
Andrew M. Cuomo Governor of New York State NYS State Capitol Building Albany, NY 12224
Acting Commissioner Anthony Annucci NYS DOCCS Building 2, State Campus Albany, NY 12226
Some sample text:
Dear Governor Cuomo,
This holiday season is about giving, not taking away. I object to the new DOCCS package rules.
From,
(Your Name)
(Your relationship to people in prison, if applicable)
Dear Acting Commissioner Annucci,
The new DOCCS package pilot punishes innocent families. Having a loved one in prison is already expensive and difficult—the new rules make it worse. Rescind the package pilot!
From,
(Your Name)
(Your relationship to people in prison, if applicable)
4.) Call Cuomo’s office and leave a message about it. You won’t have to talk to anyone. Just leave your message. 518-474-8390
6.) Tweet at Cuomo: @NYGovCuomo
7) Get friendly media to cover this issue, to talk to family members of people inside and spread the word.
       Though I agree that prison reform is a dead end, and the prison system must be demolished, we must always show our solidarity with those trapped in this brutal state system of repression.

Sunday 29 December 2013

Private Prisons, Corruption And Inhumanity.


        Prisons are always degrading and humiliating, they are the state's attempt to keep control. In spite of centuries of campaigns fighting for prison reform, they are still an anachronism in democracy. Far from being places for "reform" they are cruel and inhumane and often brutal places. Here in the "developed" and advanced capitalist West, as we are being hit by austerity, which translates into less resources for prisons, and though crime figures are falling, we are seeing ever increasing numbers being imprisoned, most prisons are facing overcrowding. The UK is among the highest prison inmates per head of the population in Europe. However we would have to sink much lower in our inhumanity to reach the level of Greece. 
This from Community:

      More than 30 men were crammed into the cell, locked up night and day for weeks or months. Without enough bunks, many slept on the floor. The windows were painted over, blocking out the sun, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke and the reek of the one toilet everyone shared.
    But what might come as the biggest surprise about this prison was its location: In Greece, squarely in Europe. That’s where former prisoner Giorgos Aslanis spent about three months a roughly 40 sq. meter (400 square feet) police holding cell in the northern town of Serres. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in October that conditions in the cell broke European laws against inhuman or degrading punishment and awarded him 8,000 euros ($11,000) in damages.
Read the full article HERE: 
        However, for the real professionals at dehumanising  people and making billions of dollars in the process, you have to go to that leader of the free world, the land of the free, the good ol' US of A. America leads the world in locking up its own people, though it has only 5% of the world's population, it has 25% of the world's prison population. Privatised prisons are probably the pinnacle of corrupt capitalism, Billions of dollars made from enslaving people for anything from vagrancy to drug use. Greedy shareholders growing rich on the misery of society's vulnerable and unfortunates.


Published on Nov 7, 2013

     Today the US is home to 5% of the world's population but a quarter of the world's prisoners. It also has the highest rate of youth imprisonment and on any given day there are more than 70,000 youths in detention. And the biggest winners of this mass incarceration? The for-profit prison companies whose business models essentially depend on locking more and more people up.

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Where we got our information for this video:
https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/ban...
http://ir.correctionscorp.com/phoenix...
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/24/1512766...
https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-r...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMa5od...
http://www.eastidahonews.com/2012/06/...
http://boisestatepublicradio.org/post...
http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/ar...
https://www.aclu.org/cca
https://www.aclu.org/maps/sexual-abus...
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-new...
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/judge-...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08...
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/2...
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/sh...
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/inde...
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/natio...
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opin...
http://en.avaaz.org/1300/obama-martin...

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 Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk