Razor Wire Summer 2006
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Working to end drug war injustice! Vol. 9 No. 1 Razor Wire Summer 2006 CONTENTS: • Director’s Message — Page 2 • Prison Commission Releases Final Report: Confronting Confinement — Page 3 • Convict Nation, by Silja J. A. Talvi — Page 4 • Eye On Congress — Pages 6, 14 • Five Grams of Coke: Racism, Moralism and White Public Opinion on Sanctions for First Time Possession — Page 7 • NFL Legend Carl Banks Supports Children Of Incarcerated Parents — Page 10 • NASCAR Team Promotes Federal Parole — Page 10 • The WALL: Cynthia Clark — Page 11 • Law Library — Page 12 • Editorial: We Were Hijacked — Page 13 • Battle Over California’s Proposition 36 To Head To Court — Page 15 • More Local Scenes — Pages 16-17 • In The News — Pages 18-19 • I Got Published! — Page 20 • Mail Call — Page 21 • Upcoming Events — Page 22 • US Voters Support Prisoner Rehabilitation — Page 22 • November Coalition History: 1998 to 2000 — Page 23 • Soap And Sentencing — Page 24 • Friends Of November Coalition Running For Office — Page 25 • The WALL: Penny Spence — Page 27 • Editor’s Notes — Page 28 • Editorial: Government Informers — Page 29 • A Message From Leonard Peltier — Page 29 • Let’s Miss This Golden Opportunity — Page 30 • Other Grassroots Groups — Page 32 Architects / Designers / Planners for Social Responsibility — pages 8-9 November Coalition - The Razor Wire www.november.org PAGE 1 A MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR WE CAN STOP BLAMING OURSELVES FOR PROBLEMS WE DIDN’T CREATE, AND CHALLENGE THE IMPOSED SYSTEM THAT By Nora Callahan, Executive Director GIVES POWER TO MULTI-BILLION- DOLLAR CORPORATIONS, A SYSTEM THAT DISMISSES ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR IMMEDIATE CHANGES OF COURSE AND, IF NOT FOR US NOW, OUR It’s Not Your Fault CHILDREN’S FUTURE. skimmed Al Gore’s book on Global livelihoods depend on continued prison children, or themselves for that matter. Blame Warming, the bestseller (now a movie) that expansion, and who help orchestrate everyone, but who has to pay with time served blames us all for the mess we’re in, but explosions of drug hysteria. One group is able in prison? Rarely them. doesn’t blame the rush of global consumption to boast, “Foth & Van Dyke was retained by Do they face their harsh “justice?” Do they via capitalism, nor the gigantic, powerful the State of Wisconsin to prepare the have to conserve? No. They buy their kids out corporations that grind on, having their way with Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the of drug trouble, and they can afford to pay $4 a our lawmakers. Super Maximum Security Prison in Boscobel, gallon for gasoline. I’ve read some critiques on the doomsday Wisconsin”. We can stop blaming ourselves for problems message of Gore’s book, and one of the best Foth & Van Dyke say they can turn public we didn’t create, and challenge the imposed was by Catherine Austin Fitts wherein she opposition into public support. They promise system that gives power to multi-billion-dollar quotes Utah Phillips, a singing story teller and ‘minimal adverse impact to the physical and corporations, a system that dismisses ordinary radical voice of the 1930’s Depression Era, biological environment’. Is it sound reasoning people who ask for immediate changes of “Utah Phillips once said, ‘The earth is not that tax dollars should support Foth & Van course and, if not for us now, our children’s dying. It is being killed, and the people killing it Dyke’s profits that undermine public will and future. have names and addresses.’ In one sentence, public laws? Blaming ourselves, as Catherine Austin Fitts Utah Phillips told us more about global warming First Families Reagan and Bush promoted reminds us — leads to feelings of than Al Gore has told us in a lifetime of writing abolition of parole, creation of drug mandatory hopelessness, despair and inaction. and speaking, let alone in An Inconvenient minimums, and harsh guideline sentencing. Do I blame addicted people and drug Truth.” They were early and leading stalwarts in the dealers for filling our prisons? No. Mostly Disregarded or minimized is a 20-year-old moral campaign to ‘get tough on some drug because I can’t turn on a television set without movement behind the recently found users’, pushed forward by other parents like getting the message. I get it. The message? consensus that global warming is scientific fact, them with kids who use illegal drugs. Want what you don’t have, and buy what you a warning that if we stay on our present course, They could relate because the Reagan and don’t need! we may condemn our children to choosing Bush families were full of drug users and abuse. Now I will link some issues. various doomsday alternatives. Al Gore’s book George Herbert champagne-toasted new drug Surely Congress realizes that refusal to is his way of leading the way to a new future, war legislation in the 80s while Barbara and increase the $5.15 minimum wage will help without telling people what has really caused Laura were tough-lovin’ George Walker through ensure thriving illegal enterprises of every the planet’s warming. recovery. Brother Jeb has had his hands full, imaginable sort? Drug dealing looms large in Some might read this and think I’m making and drug addiction problems continue into the rural and urban communities’ economic viability. a lame attempt to ‘link issues’ — not that I next generation, it is apparent. In hard economic times illegal business thrives. couldn’t go that route, and won’t before it’s over. This isn’t their fault, these first families insist, To continue responding to poverty by jailing No, this route opens first a discussion about “It’s all OUR fault.” ill, addicted or unemployed people, to keep how to solve a problem demanding a fix. So, we all got tough laws, more than 20 calling a street dealer a kingpin, and to We start by identifying the problem correctly, years ago. mindlessly give someone 5 years, 10, 20, even and blame those responsible in the first place. But neither the Reagans, nor Bushes, nor life for ‘drug conspiracies’ based on the words Secondly, a united and empowered people their children go to prison, partly because — in of ‘wet snitches’ — is inhumane and absurd. have to take real action to begin solving our order to take blame and spread it around — Not justice. complex problems, willfully defying the common working poor and middle class people must get Imprisoned or free, this mess really isn’t your belief that hopeless people can’t muster what the bigger dose since there are more of us. fault at all. If you are working on the solution — it takes to be responsible. The cash-short poor are left holding the big even though you didn’t create the problem of The people building new prisons, and bag and the daunting political task of solving mass imprisonment — thank you. helping pass laws to fill them, have names and systemic problems while knowing that, to In this issue you’ll read about the people you addresses, too. While voters went along with influence lawmakers, you mostly need a lot of can blame for mass incarceration through drug tough, new drug laws — in fairness to ‘we the money. By the way, that isn’t your fault either. war injustice, and get names and contact people’ back in the weird 1980’s — looking back Comes Al Gore to tell us that global warming information of individuals and organizations over past 20 years we’ve learned we were is our entire fault: so change out your light bulbs, who aren’t part of the problem because they’re hoodwinked by a lot of government and media drive less, and pressure opportunistic working on real solutions. propaganda. It turned out those crack babies lawmakers who listen mostly to professional It’s not our fault, but it is our future. Join us had souls, and similarly, today’s meth addicts lobbyists. He doesn’t tell us that large in creating meaningful, systemic change. now bear the brunt of contrived stigmatizing of corporations are exempt from accountability one drug. laws and destroying the environment. In struggle, Doing business globally at present are Wealthy people who use drugs also push numerous for-profit corporations whose for harsh laws while exempting their drug using PAGE 2 www.november.org November Coalition - The Razor Wire Prison Commission Releases Final Prison Commission Report Makes News, Gains Endorsements Report: Confronting Dear Friends, I’m writing to let you know about the extraordinary degree of interest in and support for Confinement the Commission’s report, Confronting Confinement. Since the release of the report on he Commission on Safety and Abuse in June 8th, there have been more than a hundred national, regional and local news stories, America’s Prisons has released editorials, and opinion pieces focused on the Commission’s findings and recommendations. “Confronting Confinement”, a report on violence The report has captured the attention of members of Congress — in particular Senators and abuse in U.S. jails and prisons, the broad Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) who chaired a hearing on the results of impact of those problems on public safety and the Commission. The report has received endorsements from organizations ranging from public health, and how correctional facilities the National Association of Evangelicals to the ACLU’s National Prison Project. nationwide can become safer and more The Association of State Correctional Administrators has said that the Commission’s effective. report “presents an opportunity for public discussion of issues that corrections professionals have been working on for years. Leaders of large and small correctional systems are requesting copies of the report to help guide reform.