A former consumer of corrections services, John Nelson knows a thing or two about prison overcrowding—and the men who hope to find rehabilitation when they get there.
Locked Up Loved One? There’s an App for That.
April 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Flikshop seeks to make it easier to communicate with those incarcerated.
Words of Hope
November 30, 2012 by 4 Comments
Offer a message of comfort to prison rape survivors this holiday season.
Prison-Industrial Complex News
October 8, 2012 by 4 Comments
I swear I’ll come up with original content one of these days… Did you know that in America state spending on corrections is growing six times faster than state spending on higher education? It’s true! Because when you look at America, one of the things you say is “dammit, we need more prisons and fewer colleges, that [...]
Private Prison for Virginia Civilly Committed Sex Offenders
August 22, 2012 by 23 Comments
Um. Does it occur to anyone else that civil commitment for sex offenders deemed likely to reoffend is… a bit of a civil rights infringement? You don’t get to indefinitely detain people! If someone is in prison for assault and is deemed likely to punch people in the face again, we don’t keep them in [...]
Chavis Carter’s Death Ruled Suicide
August 21, 2012 by 6 Comments
Chavis Carter was shot in the head while his hands were cuffed behind him. His death has been ruled a suicide. Now, I’m not saying that it wasn’t a suicide. It could have been a suicide. It is theoretically possible that the police managed to miss a gun in his front pockets, despite that being a [...]
What Is The Prison-Industrial Complex?
August 14, 2012 by 10 Comments
It’s America’s biggest issue that nobody quite wants to talk about. Ozy Frantz unpacks the structure of getting paid to keep a lock on freedom.
Locked Up But Innocent
August 8, 2012 by 5 Comments
This post is dedicated to Marvin Wilson, a severely mentally disabled man who has been executed in Texas. RIP. Dozens of men have apparently been locked up for something that is not a crime. Now, I’m not a lawyer. But it seems pretty simple to me that if something is not illegal, then people should [...]
The Criminalization of Mental Illness in Black America
August 6, 2012 by 2 Comments
This article is super-important. I advise that everyone go read it. Literally, I have spent like fifteen minutes trying to come up with something to say about it that wasn’t mentioned in the article, and I’ve come up short. Excerpt: “Black men don’t go to therapy, they go to the barbershop.” I can’t count the [...]
Louisiana: First In The World For Prisons
July 19, 2012 by 1 Comment
Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate of anywhere in the US, which means that it has the highest incarceration rate of anywhere in the world. (Exception: North Korea does not technically report its incarceration rate.) One out of every eighty-six Louisianans is currently in prison. A random Louisianan is five times more likely to be [...]
On Prison Rape
July 18, 2012 by 21 Comments
TW for, obviously, rape. Also gif warning for people with epilepsy. I have decided today is the day to talk about prison rape, which some people think is still not an issue. (Note: if you think prison rape isn’t an issue, especially after reading what I have to say about it, please leave my blog [...]
22,000 Were Arrested For It, and It’s Perfectly Legal
July 1, 2012 by 10 Comments
Man, if you read one piece of badass investigative reporting today, read this. In 1983, cruising laws were overturned, on the logic that since consensual sodomy was legal in New York state, attempting to find a partner for consensual sodomy ought to be legal too. In 1993, a court overturned vagrancy and anti-loitering laws in [...]
Sandusky Found Guilty
June 23, 2012 by 11 Comments
Trigger warning for discussion of rape. Jerry Sandusky has been convicted of molesting ten boys and found guilty of 45 of 48 counts of sexual abuse. He faces the possibility of life in prison. Justice has been served. Despite Penn State’s enabling and coverups of his crimes, despite the apologism of far too many people, [...]
Fuck You American Action Forum
June 21, 2012 by 15 Comments
Trigger warning for rape. The American Action Forum is in support of balanced budgets! That’s cool, I think we can all be in support of balanced budgets (although we might disagree about how and when best this is implemented). However, they are also in support of rape, which is possibly a little bit less cool. [...]
Naomi Wolf: The State Can Strip You
April 28, 2012 by 10 Comments
Naomi Wolf has, lately, been rather facepalmy regarding the whole porn/sex/sex work issue, so it’s nice to see her actually talking about something that doesn’t make me want to look at my copy of The Beauty Myth and cry. Although it kind of makes me want to cry for my country. Our surveillance state shown considerable determination [...]
Racialicious on Walking While Black
April 27, 2012 by 15 Comments
Racialicious has an excellent post on walking while black. I have felt like Trayvon Martin. Many many times while walking at night, being pulled over by police, being told that I’m not supposed to ‘be.’ My ‘being’ in a space has caused questions, concerns, suspicions. In the back of my mind I always wondered if there [...]
“You have reminded me how much I love men!”
These are comments by bobbt, Patty, and Michael Cusden on the post “What Dads Really Want For Father’s Day”.