Mark Maynard | prison industrial complex

Angela Davis to commemorate MLK Day at U-M with a speech on the threat of the prison industrial complex

By Mark | January 20, 2013

Activist, educator and author Angela Davis will be in Ann Arbor on Monday, delivering a lecture titled “Impediments to the Dream: The Prison Industrial Complex and the Dream.” Davis, as I suspect many of you know, before going on to have a successful career as an academic in the History of Consciousness Department as U-C […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1970, Angela Davis, Bob Sloan, Communism, Corrections Corporation of America, Elliott Currie, ex-prisoners, for-profit prisons, History of Consciousness Department, Impediments to the Dream: The Prison Industrial Complex and the Dream, Judge Harold Haley, kidnapping, Martin Luther King Day, murder, Natalie Holbrook, prison industry, prison labor, prison reform, prisoner rights, private prisons, Pure Michigan, racism, Soledad Brothers, Students Organizing Against Prisons, University of California Santa Cruz | 11 Comments

Davontae Sanford, in prison for murders he almost certainly didn’t commit, finally gets national exposure in The New Yorker

By Mark | October 23, 2012

Over the past three years, we’ve discussed the troubling case of Davontae Sanford several times. As you may recall, Davontae was taken into police custody in Detroit at the age of 14 for the murder of four people. We’re told that Davontae, who is developmentally disabled, and blind in one eye, confessed to the murders. […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Detroit | Also tagged Christine Moellering, coerced confessions, confessions, Dateline NBC, Davontae Sanford, getting away with murder, Kim McGinnis, Michael Russell, Michigan Court of Appeals, murder, murder for hire, murder mystery, prison, Runyon Street, Taminko Sanford, The Innocence Project, Vincent Smothers | 24 Comments

Bob Sloan on the new slavery of the American prison factory system

By Mark | June 19, 2012

When I flew into Providence a few weeks ago, to attend the Netroots Nation conference, I caught a taxi from the airport to the hotel with a fellow by the name of Bob Sloan. Bob, like me, had won one of the Democracy for America scholarships, and we talked about our work as we made […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Corporate Crime, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged ALEC, American Bail Coalition, Bill McCollum, Bob Sloan, Boeing, Bureau of Justice Assistance, CAD, Charlie Crist, Clearwater, company towns, computer drafting, corporatocracy, corrections, cubicles, Dell, Democracy for America, Department of Correction, early release bond, Escod Industries, ex-prisoners, factory, factory work, Florida, Floyd Glisson, GEO Group, HP, IBM, Indiana, Indianapolis, Jack Eckerd, James Crosby, James McDonough, Janet Reno, Jeb Bush, job training, jobs, Keefe Commissary, Koch brothers, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, minimum wage, National Correctional Industries Association, NCIA, Netroots Nation, Newt Gingrich, Nordstrom, OnShore Resources, Pam Davis, Pat Nolan, PIE Program, PIECP, pride, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Prison Industries, Prison Industries Act, prison industry, prison labor, prison reform, Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises, prison sentences, prisoner advocate, prisoner rights, Private Correctional Facilities Act, private prisons, privatization, Ray Allen, recidivism, restitution, Right on Crime, slave labor, stand your ground, tethers, Texas, the cost of incarceration, tough on crime, UNICOR, unions, US Technologies, Wackenhut Corrections Corp, workers rights | 37 Comments

For-profit prisons… What could possibly go wrong?

By Mark | May 27, 2012

As it’s been a while since we’ve had a post here about the prison industrial complex, I thought that I’d pass along this clip from Charles Blow’s recent piece in the New York Times. “Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Michigan, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged Baldwin, Charles Blow, Corrections Corporation of America, G4S, GEO Group, Group 4 Falck, honey holes, House Bill 5174, Joe Haveman, John Proos, Louisiana, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Mark Ciavarella, Michigan Department of Corrections, Michigan House of Representatives, Natalie Holbrook, North Lake Correctional Facility, North Lake Facility for Youth, overincarceration, Pennsylvania, prison, prison industry, prison reform, prison sentences, prisoner rights, private prisons, privatization, Rick Snyder, security state, the cost of incarceration, unions, Wackenhut Corrections Corp, Wal-Mart, Wilkes-Barre | 18 Comments

50 Detroit high school students suspended for having the audacity to demand “An Education”

By Mark | March 31, 2012

The following story, regarding a student protest at Detroit’s Frederick Douglass Academy, which resulted in the suspension of 50 students on Thursday, ran yesterday on FOX 2 News. When asked by the Detroit Free Press why he was marching in front of the school, senior Tevin Hill said, “Right now, I’m not going to be […]