Continue readingLaws sometimes have unintended consequences, and laws hastily passed in time of high political passions inevitably do.
Several hundred people, mostly labor union members, rallied Saturday at the Georgia Capitol against the state’s new law targeting illegal immigrants. It was the latest in a string of actions by opponents to protest the law.The Washington Examiner included a byline, by Kate Brumback, and an AP photo:The Rev. Al Sharpton told the crowd the law violates civil and human rights and will lead to racial profiling of U.S. citizens and others who are in the country legally.
“We’re going to stop it here before it goes any further to other communities,” the New York-based minister and civil rights activist said. “We cannot have a nation where, based on your language or your race, determines your rights. Your rights must be determined by the fact that we’re all equal.”
Weekly rallies; an interesting development on a subject that unites urban union members and rural farmers.Ben Speight, a local Teamsters organizer, echoed those sentiments and said labor groups must get involved.
“Let’s get in the way of hate. Let’s build a social movement,” he said, to loud cheers. “Labor cannot be isolated. We’ve got to reach out to the community and stand up against hate.”
-jsq
Marian Wright Edelman wrote 13 December 2010, Strength to Love: A Challenge to the Private Prison Industry:
Continue readingA few months ago a group of earnest and determined stockholders traveled together by bus from Washington, D.C., to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend a shareholders’ meeting for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the country. The group included ex-offenders who now each hold one share of stock in the same prison company that once held them captive, and they attended the meeting in the hopes of sharing their perspective on how the privatized prison industry can better serve society by rehabilitating inmates, rather than just serving its own profits by perpetuating the prison cycle.
The group, part of Washington, D.C.’s Church of the Saviour, is named Strength to Love, after the title of one of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermon collections. Members explain their mission this way:
Judy Green, a prison policy analyst says:
“The very first contract for the first private prison in America went to CCA, from INS.”Hear her in this video Private Prisons-Commerce in Souls by Grassroots Leadership that explains the private prison trade of public safety for private profit:
A local leader once called private prisons “good clean industry”. Does locking up people for private profit sound like “good clean industry” to you? Remember, not only is the U.S. the worst in the world for locking people up (more prisoners per capita and total than any other country in the world), but Georgia is the worst in the country, with 1 in 13 adults in the prison system. And private prisons don’t save money and they don’t improve local employment. As someone says in the video, who wants to live in a prison colony?
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.
-jsq
PS: Owed to Jeana Brown.
Georgia is number 1 in something: locking people up,
1 in 13 of adults,
according to the Pew Center on the States.
That costs us more than a billion dollars a year in tax money,
5.9% of the state budget.
That’s up from $133.26 million in 1983, increased by more than a factor of seven.
Meanwhile, the correctional population swelled from around 100,000 in 1982 to more
than 550,000 in 2007.
And while other states have started decreasing their prison populations,
Georgia’s continues to increase.
The state is even coming up with new ways to lock people up,
such as kicking them out of mental institutions.
We seem headed back towards
plantation slave labor
and
prison road gangs
in for minor drug infractions.
How about we reverse this trend? Continue reading
AP wrote 4 July 2011, GA parolees & road maintenance
Georgia is expanding a pilot program that sanctions some parolees by putting them to work rather than returning them to prison.
The program began in Milledgeville, Gainesville, Columbus and Dalton. This summer it will be expanding to communities across Georgia.
Parolees are eligible if they have committed low-level violations of their supervision requirements, such as the onetime failure of a drug test or curfew violations.
How long will it take before these prisoners are sent to work in fields?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on locking up people for minor drug offenses?
Or maybe prison slave labor is a good way to celebrate July 4th.
-jsq
PS: Gretchen got this item from Dwight Rewis of Echols County.
Jane Osborn sent this, dated 27 June 2011:
HB 87 feeds private prison profit at taxpayer and farmer expense. We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia: spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education instead.Editorial Statement to Atlanta Journal Constitution
Here is the statement Rev. Anthony David and Rev. Marti Keller sent to the Atlanta Journal Constitution editorial page editor today following the federal court ruling placing an injunction on parts of HB 87. We of course do not know if it will be published, but wanted to respond in a timely way.
As Unitarian Universalist ministers, we affirm justice, equity and compassion in human relations. We applaud the federal judge who halted several parts of Georgia’s anti-immigration law, but we believe the entire law needs to be overturned. It cannot substitute for comprehensive immigration reform at a national level. The law in its entirety is unjust, fear-based, and inhumane.
Rev. Anthony David
Rev. Marti Keller
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AP reports today, Thousands rally against Ga. immigration law:
And remember, HB 87 has many provisions that bring “customers” to CCA’s ICE prison.Thousands of marchers stormed the Georgia Capitol on Saturday to protest the state’s new immigration law, which they say creates an unwelcome environment for people of color and those in search of a better life.
Men, women and children of all ages converged on downtown Atlanta for the march and rally, cheering speakers while shading themselves with umbrellas and posters from the blazing summer sun. Capitol police and organizers estimated that between 8,000 and 14,000 protesters gathered. They filled the blocks around the Capitol, holding signs decrying House Bill 87 and reading “Immigration Reform Now!”
Friends Jessica Bamaca and Melany Cordero held a poster that read: “How would you feel if your family got broken apart?”
We don’t need to feed the incarceration machine with a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education instead.
-jsq
It’s not just workers participating: Continue readingColquitt County’s Latino community is gearing up to make its presence known by, well, disappearing, at least as much as possible for the largest minority group.
On Friday, the day a strict new immigration law takes effect, many will stay home from work and refrain from shopping to help make others aware of the impact of their contributions in the county.
El Universal of Mexico City reported from Atlanta 27 June 2011,
Juez bloquea partes de ley migratoria de Georgia
Un juez federal concedió este lunes la solicitud de impedir que partes de la ley de Georgia contra la inmigración ilegal entren en vigor hasta que se resuelva una demanda. |
In case you have not emulated
Mayor Paul Bridges of Uvalde and learned Spanish,
here’s google translate’s version in English:
A federal judge on Monday granted the request to prevent parts of the Georgia law against illegal immigration to take effect pending resolution of a lawsuit. |
We don’t need to feed the incarceration machine with a private prison in Lowndes County Georgia that will profit private prison executives and investors at the expense of Georgia taxpayers and Georgia farmers. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education instead.
-jsq