GA Greens: Prison and Sentencing Reform will Save Taxpayer Dollars

From Green Party Watch:

After last week praising Governor Deal’s expressed concern for the wasted lives, drained treasury and depleted workforce left in the wake of the nation’s war on drugs, Georgia Green Party leaders today rejected Deal’s specific proposals.

“None of this will meaningfully impact the budget, end the state’s social control of non-violent and victimless behaviors, nor undermine the racial caste system created by our current policy,” said Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Georgia Green Party. “The state’s disparate enforcement and prosecution of the drug use of working people while ignoring that of wealthy people costs our communities in ways far beyond those mentioned by the Governor the other day. The impacts are as venal as Jim Crow.” . . . .

GA: Greens Call on Governor to Act on Prison Reform, Oppose Mass Incarceration Policies

From the Green Party:

"I am so encouraged to hear Governor Deal acknowledge both the stark statistics and something of the devastation which mass incarceration wreaks on Georgia communities," said Denice Traina, past cochair of the Georgia Green Party, mother, grandmother and Augusta based physical therapist. "We're eager to hear today's State of the State, hoping that Governor Deal will use the occasion to propose policies that apply the principals of restorative justice, rather than our failed policies of punishment and social control. Rehabilitation, education and vocational opportunities can help us keep folks working and families together. All Georgians win with those policies!"

"Greens are eager to see how Governor Deal intends to translate his concern for the wasted lives, drained treasury and depleted workforce into public policy," said Al Herman, Treasurer of the Georgia Green Party, DeKalb County resident and board member for Georgia NORML, the Georgia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijauna Laws, "Greens welcome the Governor's acknowledgement of the debilitating costs of mass incarceration, and would like an opportunity to help craft the policies which can reverse the tragic course set by his predecessors which have decimated communities across Georgia to feed our commitment to mass incarceration."

Ms. Traina and Mr. Herman are responding to incoming Governor Nathan Deal's remarks to the General Assembly on Monday, acknowledging that one in thirteen adult Georgians are under state control. He stated that "It costs about $3 million per day to operate our department of corrections. As a state, we cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions. It is draining our state treasury and it is depleting our workforce."

GA: Greens "Demand Answers" on Brutal Treatment of Striking Inmates

From the Green Party:

In a New Year's Eve letter sent to Governors Sonny Perdue and Nathan Deal, officers of the Georgia Green Party asked why the Georgia Department of Corrections withheld from Terrance Dean's family news of his condition and whereabouts. The letter asks that they "launch an investigation into whether the DoC's apparent efforts to conceal (Mr. Dean's) condition rises to the level of a criminal conspiracy". Reports conveyed by other Macon State Prison inmates and their families have revealed that on or about the 16th of December, as striking inmates were beginning to return to work, employees of the Corrections Department beat and injured the former Bibb County resident serving his seventh year on a 16 year sentence for armed robbery.

"The violent response to the inmates peaceful, non-violent strike is shameful," said Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary for the Georgia Green Party and managing editor for the weekly BlackAgendaReport.com. "Prison inmates deserve wages for work, educational and self-improvement activities, decent food and medical care. The state should facilitate, rather than obstruct contact with their families. They deserve human rights and a clear path back to being productive members of society. The institutional human rights abuses exposed by the peaceful prisoners strike severely compromise the moral authority of Georgia's correctional system."

Information obtained by the coalition suggests that Mr. Dean was assaulted by state employees in the aftermath of the inmate sit down strike.. . . .

GA: Prisoner Strike Continues for Second Day

From the Socialist Worker:

Inmates in at least six prisons across the state of Georgia began a strike [this week] to demand better conditions, more educational opportunities, improved access to their families and decent pay for their prison labor.

According to news reports, prisoners were refusing to leave their cells or perform their jobs. As SocialistWorker.org was published on December 13, the state of the strike was unclear--there were reports of increasing provocative violence by prison authorities in an attempt to regain control. Elaine Brown, a former leader of the Black Panthers and now a prison reform activist, said she had been in touch with several hundred prisoners via smuggled-in cell phones that are banned at the prison, but were used to organize the rebellion. Bruce A. Dixon, managing editor of the Black Agenda Report, reports on the state of the fight. . .

The Georgia Green Party has called for negotiation with rather than retaliation against peaceful strikers. 

GA: Greens Urge Negotiation in Standoff with Striking Prison Inmates

A press release from the Green Party:

Georgia Green Party leadership today are urging that calls of concern be placed to the Georgia Department of Corrections urging negotiations with, not retribution against peaceful strikers in six Georgia prisons.

In a call to action and a blog post, the Party publishes the demands of striking prisoners and urges a humanitarian response. Inmate grievances range from the criminal neglect they suffer for lack of adequate health care, meals heavy on starches and short of vegetables, over crowded conditions in facilities which fail to protect from the extremes of Georgia's climate, the barriers created to family visits and phone contact, among other specifics laid out in the press release available on the site.

In an action which is unprecedented on several levels, black, brown and white inmates of Georgia's notorious state prison system are standing together for an historic one day peaceful strike today, during which they are remaining in their cells, refusing work and other assignments and activities.

"This is a groundbreaking event not only because inmates are standing up for themselves and their own human rights," said Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary of the Georgia Green Party, "but because prisoners are setting an example by reaching across racial boundaries which, in prisons, have historically been used to pit oppressed communities against each other."