By Jean F. Andrews In Sunday’s New York Times (October 26, 2013), Nicholas D. Kristof wrote a compelling piece linking two ideas that seemed, at first blush, to be oceans apart–preschools and prisons. What comes to mind is an innocent looking, three year old playing with play dough next to a grizzled inmate who looks beaten down by poverty, low education […]
By BitcoDavid Herman Wallace is best known as one of the Angola 3. Sites like Prisonmovement’s Weblog and Moorbey’z Blog have spent years trying to get him released from solitary confinement in Louisiana. Early on Friday, October 4th, Herman Wallace passed away, after a long battle with cancer. He was 71 years old. Wallace was a […]
By BitcoDavid For starters, I’m a Bozo. I misspelled Appetizer on my last post. I’d have edited it out, but once you publish a post, the title stays permanent. WordPress will repost the edited title as a new post. So, my Bozo moment lives on the Internet, frozen in eternity. Thanks Spellcheck – you’re off […]
By BitcoDavid OK, today’s digest post is huge. Let me start with a quick anecdote vis-à-vis this ear bud thing. A woman who fights at my gym, Kim – for whom I have a great deal of respect – is involved with the Team Blood project, and therefore contributes to numerous charities. She’s been holding […]
By BitcoDavid Two weeks from today, I’ll be 56 years old. Who’d a thunk I’d ever make it this far? Worse, in 3 weeks, my marriage will be 19 years old. All the credit goes to Maureen. Woman’s a saint. I wouldn’t have stayed with me, for a month. I’m working on a new piece […]
By BitcoDavid Well, our post-a-day streak was broken yesterday, but before you go thinking I dropped the ball, I want you to know I was busy drumming up some Supporter Contributions that will be going up this week. In keeping with our editorial priority list, the first order of business in today’s digest post is […]
By BitcoDavid Our month long birthday celebration draws to a close. It’s been a phenomenal month for DeafInPrison.com – and for me, personally. As well as attending the stellar, Symposium for the Deaf and the Justice System, I gave birth to BitcoDavid’s BoxingBlog, attended a reunion show by one of the bands I used to […]
By BitcoDavid Wow! When it rains… We have 6 days left in our month-long Birthday celebration, and we’ve been nominated for 2 awards! This most recent, comes from Hands Talk Too – the Liebster Award! We are grateful to Dholiness and Hands Talk Too for nominating us. Step 1) Answer the following 11 Questions: 1. […]
By BitcoDavid Paul Butler is a former Federal prosecutor who (guilty of Driving While Black) learned firsthand what our punishment-crazed culture is all about. He now writes about Justice System reform, and is best known for his excellent book, Let’s Get Free – A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice. He did a beautiful op-ed piece in […]
By BitcoDavid In 1996 – under Clinton, by the way – the U.S. decreed that people convicted of drug related criminal offenses would never be eligible for Food Stamps or other government assistance. Up until 2011, almost a full quarter of states disenfranchised their ex-felon population, even after those individuals had served their sentences and […]
By BitcoDavid Back in 1963, the SCOTUS ruled that you have a right to an attorney regardless of your ability to pay for one. The ruling was unanimous – one of the few unanimous rulings in the history of the Court. That’s how important the Justices viewed this particular Constitutional right. A half a century […]
By BitcoDavid On March 2nd, we published a post about Federal judges working to institute Drug Court programs in several states. The Times recently published a follow up letter from an attorney for the Drug Policy Alliance. Here’s that letter as it appeared in the NYT, on March 10th. “Outside Box, U.S. Judges Offer Addicts New […]
By BitcoDavid First off, The Times filed this under their Weddings and Celebrations column. Michael Morton and Cynthia May Chessman are newly-wedded man and wife. Morton however, was just freed from a Texas state prison facility, due to exoneration by DNA – thanks to the efforts of the Innocence Project. He had served 25 years […]
By BitcoDavid This case is so weird, I just had to write about it. Apparently, Gilberto Valle – a NYC cop – likes thinking about, writing about, talking about and even Web-surfing about eating Women – and not in that way, either. However, his attorney maintains that the closest he’s come to actually eating a woman, was […]
By BitcoDavid Throughout the United States, Federal judges and prosecutors are proscribing prison for drug-addicted, non-violent offenders in favor of treatment programs and community service. Unofficially known as Drug Courts, this is an effort to avoid overly punitive and destructive sentencing. Moreover, the Justice Department has backed this idea, allowing courts to dismiss charges in […]
By BitcoDavid According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Sentencing Project, prison sentences for Blacks dropped significantly, from 2000 to 2009. Whites and Hispanics however, have seen an increase in that same period. This change in the makeup of the prison population is most significant among Black women, down 30.7%. Black women who […]
By BitcoDavid Here’s the story. A train had pulled into the station in a Brooklyn, N.Y. subway in late January, and the usual throng of waiting passengers pushed and jostled to get on board. A 55-year-old man, was one such passenger, as were two teenage girls. Apparently, one or both of the girls pushed past […]
By BitcoDavid The New York Times reported on February 20th, that attorneys are seeking a Federal appeal for Death row inmate, Augustus Howell. Apparently, all death penalty inmates are to receive one final – Federal – appeal, a Habeas appeal, before the sentence can be carried out. Howell however, never got his because his original attorney […]
By BitcoDavid Michelle Alexander has written a book that has received mention on these venerable virtual pages – The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. She recently wrote an OpEd for the NYT, on the propensity of police officers and other law enforcement to lie on the stand in regards to […]
By BitcoDavid Truthout reports today, that the infamous supermax, Tamms, is officially closed. The solitary confinement maximum security facility in Illinois closed on January 4th. DeafInPrison.com would like to thank Solitary Watch for alerting us to the story. “There is not a single man left behind. The era of the notorious Tamms supermax prison is […]
deafinprison.com 