Tag Archives: prisoner rights

Citizens for Prison Reform’s Lois DeMott, a recent Ann Arbor Awesome Foundation grant recipient, featured on NBC’s Rock Center

By Mark | March 24, 2013

The Ann Arbor Awesome Foundation recently awarded a $1,000 grant to Lois DeMott, the founder of Citizens for Prison Reform. I’d interviewed Lois at the time of the award, but I’d decided to hold off posting it for a bit, as she had mentioned to me that she was going to be interviewed by Ted [...]

Posted in A2Awesome, Civil Liberties, Michigan | Also tagged Citizens for Prison Reform, Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility, Kevin DeMott, Lois DeMott, prison, prison industry, prison reform, prisoner advocate, prisoners, solitary confinement, Ted Koppel | 10 Comments

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 industrial complex, prison industry, prison labor, prison reform, private prisons, Pure Michigan, racism, Soledad Brothers, Students Organizing Against Prisons, University of California Santa Cruz | 11 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 industrial complex, Prison Industries, Prison Industries Act, prison industry, prison labor, prison reform, Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises, prison sentences, prisoner advocate, 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 | 36 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 industrial complex, prison industry, prison reform, prison sentences, private prisons, privatization, Rick Snyder, security state, the cost of incarceration, unions, Wackenhut Corrections Corp, Wal-Mart, Wilkes-Barre | 18 Comments

Senate to vote on giving President authority to indefinitely imprison American citizens, and others, without charge or trial

By Mark | November 27, 2011

At the risk of being called fear monger, it looks as though our Senator, Carl Levin, has drafted language within the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012… which is likely to be voted on tomorrow… that would give Obama, and the presidents to follow him, the power to, among other things, deploy our [...]