Challenge: Online Justice Advocacy re Recidivism

The U.S. Justice Department announced that hundreds, and possibly thousands of inmates will be eligible for prison release upon receipt and processing of their clemency applications. Prison release is a positive development, especially for inmates who were overly sentenced under the racist powder to crack cocaine law before the Fair Sentencing Act. But prison release will not resolve mass incarceration. That is partly because 67.5 percent of released prisoners recidivate within three years of their release. Two psychologists addressed the issue of recidivism on two of our radio shows recently: Dr. Earle Williams and Dr. Jean Kennedy. International human rights attorney Dr. Mustafa Ansari joined us on the May 19th show, which seems to be delayed in posting. Tapes for our shows are ordinarily available within an hour of completing the broadcasts. See the emails below:

from:		MaryLovesJustice Neal <marylovesjustice@gmail.com>
to:		Earle Williams 2 <wilear7@aol.com>,  jean kennedy <drjeankennedy@yahoo.com>,  "Dr. Mustafa Ansari" ~ redacted email address ~ use administration@scholarsofpeace.com
cc:		Support@blogtalkradio.com,  AskDOJ <AskDOJ@usdoj.gov>
date:		Mon, May 19, 2014 at 11:07 PM
subject:		Human Rights for Prisoners March Blogtalkradio Broadcasts - May 18 - 19, 2014
mailed-by:		gmail.com

Many thanks to you for participating in tonight's discussions regarding recidivism. The tape for tonight's broadcast seems to be delayed. The broadcast for May 19 should be available at this link
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nnia1/2014/05/20/human-rights-for-prisoners-march
The broadcast for Sunday, May 18, should be at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2014/05/18/human-rights-for-prisoners-march

There is growing opposition to mass incarceration, and many people are pleased about the recent announcements by the Justice Department about impending prison releases. Unfortunately, 67.5 percent of prisoners recidivate within three years of release. Society must begin to address reasons why that is so. The information you shared on our programs Sunday and Monday should help officials and the general populace realize how to help released prisoners reintegrate into society.

Below are my ten(10) suggestions to reduce recidivism:
1) Over half of America's inmates are mentally ill people who should have been treated in their communities or hospitalized and never imprisoned in the first place. Upon prison release, all inmates who were treated for mental illness behind bars should be released under AOT programs, which provide subsistence assistance (food and housing) and mandate continuous psychiatric treatment, i.e., Laura's Law and Kendra's Law. Mentally ill people in AOT programs experience over 85 percent fewer incidents of homelessness, arrests, hospitalization, and imprisonment - a tremendous success rate for the participants and for their communities, which were made safer by treating rather than punishing people with serious mental illnesses (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe PTSD, and others).

2) All correctional facilities should focus on rehabilitation services, including skills training and opportunities to achieve high school diplomas and college degrees. Correctional facilities should be given incentives according the number of inmates who become certified in a skill and/or are awarded diplomas and degrees.

3) The Bureau of Prisons should make every attempt to keep prisoners in the area where they lived before incarceration. Studies indicate that released prisoners have a higher rate of success if they maintain close ties with their family and friends while incarcerated. Moving prisoners out of state should be avoided, as it prevents visits.

4) Companies and government entities that use prison laborers should be mandated to hire a percentage of the released prisoners who worked for them behind bars.

5) Released prison workers should qualify for unemployment benefits.

6) Psychological therapy should be offered to all released prisoners to help them recover from PTSD, which Dr. Williams said they are likely to experience.

7) Job applications should not ask about people's criminal backgrounds.

8) Criminal background information should be expunged, except perhaps for repeat sex offenders and violent criminals.

9) Voting rights should be restored.

10) Ex-offenders should qualify for all entitlement programs (subsistence) and college assistance at the same rate as anyone else within their financial status. They should not be relegated to a permanent underclass.

Again, many thanks for sharing your professional opinions with the audience of "Human Rights for Prisoners March" radio shows at Blogtalkradio. Thank you, Dr. Williams, for giving information regarding books and publications you have authored. We wish you much success on your upcoming documentary. All of you are encouraged to share the links to the broadcasts, which are in the first paragraph of this email. You have an open invitation to join any discussions on other radio shows produced by National Network in Action (NNIA1) and Human Rights Demand. See the schedule of shows, including times and phone numbers to connect, at the two(2) links below:
"Human Rights Demand - Blogtalkradio Schedule"
http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/human-rights-demand-channel.html
"New Human Rights Blogtalkradio Broadcasts"
http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-human-rights-blogtalkradio.html

Blessings,
Mary

Response from Blogtalkradio about the tape to our May 19 show experiencing delay in posting for public access:

Re: Human Rights for Prisoners March Blogtalkradio Broadcasts - May 18 - 19, 2014

BlogTalkRadio  |  May 20, 2014 02:09AM EDT 
Thank you for submitting your request. We have received your request and are working on responding to you as soon as possible. If you have any additional information to add to this case, please reply to this email.

Thanks in advance for your patience and support.

This message was sent to marylovesjustice@gmail.com in reference to Case #159578.

*****

I will update this article when our May 19th tape is made available for your access. It is challenging for me to publish articles and radio shows about prisoners' rights, opposition to mass incarceration, and anti-death penalty news. Earlier today, I was locked out of my Google account temporarily by stalkers who were presumably hired to interfere with my online advocacy for human rights. Thanks for hearing and sharing the Blogtalkradio broadcasts about recidivism. If you have trouble accessing the information at the links on this webpage, please notify me by email or by commenting below.

References:

Psychologists Explain High Recidivism Rate

http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/psychologists-explain-high-recidivism.html
Legal Victories Expected re Clemency and Pardons
http://legalvictories.blogspot.com/2014/04/legal-victories-expected-re-clemency.html

Repeat of Paragraph 1 in this article:

We congratulate the U.S. Justice Department on its announcement that hundreds, and possibly thousands of inmates will be eligible for prison release upon receipt and processing of their clemency applications. Prison release is a positive development, especially for inmates who were overly sentenced under the racist powder to crack cocaine law before the Fair Sentencing Act. But prison release will not resolve mass incarceration. That is partly because 67.5 percent of released prisoners recidivate within 3 years of their release. Two psychologists and one international human rights attorney addressed the issue of recidivism on two radio shows recently. One of the Blogtalkradio broadcasts seems to be delayed in posting. See the emails below:

Your Jobs Went to Prison with 2.3m Americans

"Good Enuff" is one of my 21st century slave songs, first published in MaryLovesJustice blog in April 2011. Most ex-offenders are not perceived as being "good enough" to work for the government or major corporations until they are back in prison. A million inmates work up to 72 hours a week on jobs that were removed from "free" workers. People who champion "tough on crime" bills and candidates do not seem to recognize that prison labor projects compete for jobs that are removed from the private sector. Prisons actually advertise for companies to use inmate labor rather than companies that pay minimum wage and union scale wages. Prison slavery is a thriving business, and inmates who refuse to work are punished. Thousands of Georgia inmates staged a labor strike in December 2010 to protest human rights abuses. Their nonviolent protest was met with brutality. Thirty-seven inmates perceived to be organizers of the Georgia labor strike are still "missing," and probably being held in solitary confinement. See the poem "Good Enuff" below. 

GOOD ENUFF

I work for the U.S. Government

Worked five years for the state

Now I make military uniforms

Sho miss my good friend, Jake

His idea sounded real fine to me

Worker strike for human rights

Most of us agreed to stay in our cells

Got real cold in there at night

They turned off the heat ya know

And no food came at all

Guards said “Freeze Nigga or go to work!

Oughta hang you by yo balls”

But all of us stuck together

Thousands of black men, Latinos and whites

Put aside all our rivalry

Gonna make ‘em treat us right

We expected opposition

But nothin’ like what went down

Guards went crazy beatin’ on folks

And Jake, he can’t be found

I tried to get on with the government

Back before I started gettin’ high

They said there was a hiring freeze

And now I sho see why

I applied with the State, too

But didn’t nothin’ came of that

I guess I just wasn’t good enuff

‘Til they caught me with that crack

Finally got me a government job

Problem is, I don’t get no pay

A big company got my first five years

After laying off a thousand in one day

Our labor strike changed nothin’ ‘round here

Still can’t afford phone calls

Now they expect plenty mo black workers

Heard they outlawing menthol*

We had high hopes for the labor strike

But things didn’t turn out great

All day I work ‘til my back is sore

All night I worry ‘bout Jake
(Published 4/4/11 by Mary Neal - all rights reserved)  http://marylovesjustice.blogspot.com/2011/04/good-enuff-by-mary-neal.html

If you don't care about prisoners, consider this: YOUR JOBS WENT TO PRISON along with 2.3 million people http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/business/private-businesses-fight-federal-prisons-for-contracts.html?pagewanted=all . Roughly one million prison laborers work in customer service, manufacturing, and perform many former union jobs. Private industries in America cannot compete with prisons and overseas corporations for providing cheap production costs. End mass incarceration (excerpt from "2012 Human Rights from Prisoners (relay) March" at http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/2012-human-rights-for-prisoners-march.html ). The Georgia prisoners' labor strike lasted from December 9 -15, 2010, but numerous inmates are now in week five of a dangerous hunger strike.

Inmates' labor strike of December 2010 was largely censored in mainstream news although it was an Internet sensation. Therefore, a day before the strike started, eleven hundred of my tweets for human rights for prisoners were unpublished at Twitter. They were reinstated months later, after people stopped browsing online as much for "human rights for prisoners." I am America's most censored writer to continue the cover-up re the secret arrest and murder of my mentally, physically disabled brother and my family's victimization for daring to ask the USDOJ for records and accountability for his death. Inmate abuse is rampant in America, just as slaves were abused or killed without censure for centuries. For instance, the Georgia inmates' nonviolent protest was met with violence and solitary confinement. Inmates count on 'free people' to care about their living conditions, just as God does (Hebrews 13:3). Georgia inmates on a hunger strike are close to death as I publish this report. See the video about the starving inmates at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTeSTRiKC6Q 

 

Some promising changes are underway regarding Georgia's high incarceration rate under Governor Deal:  "As reported in this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, headlined 'Governor to sign sweeping justice reform bill,' the 'way Georgia punishes thousands of nonviolent offenders will forever change when Gov. Nathan Deal signs landmark legislation Wednesday.  Here is more: Deal told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he will also sign an executive order continuing the work of a special council that studied the state's prison system and recommended sweeping changes to control unimpeded growth in prison spending. The reforms in House Bill 1176, to be signed at a ceremony at the Capitol, are projected to save taxpayers $264 million over the next five years....'"  http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2012/05/georgia-joins-ever-growing-red-states-enacting-sweeping-sentencing-reforms.html   

More information about the Georgia prisoners' hunger strike is available at this link to the "Black Agenda Report" http://blackagendareport.com/content/ga-prison-hunger-strike-enters-5th-week

 *The NAACP requested the U.S. Congress to outlaw menthol cigarettes, the kind that 85% of black smokers use. That would be a discriminatory law targeting blacks like powder v. crack cocaine, and it is disgusting that prison investors got the NAACP to suggest it.

Mary Neal, director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill and the Human Rights for Prisoners March. Blessings!