“The poor get locked up, the real thieves keep living…” Naima, Climbing PoeTree

So much gratitude to Naima and Climbing PoeTree for participating in this project. This excerpt is part of a much longer piece that shine a bring spotlight on the painful impact of mass incarceration on poor people of color, and the influential role that the for-profit incarceration industry plays in policy-making.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

GALEO’s Leader Speaks About the Criminalization of the Immigration System

Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of GALEO (Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials) comments on the use of for-profit prisons, including CCA, for the detention of undocumented immigrants.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

The Other Death Penalty Project’s campaign

Luis J. Rodriguez on The Other Death Penalty Project - and reading Spoon Jackson's poem "No Beauty in Cell Bars"

Fighting The Sex Offender Registry

Attorney who fights for the civil rights of those listed on the public sex offender registry.

“The profit motive is fundamentally at odds with the mission of corrections…”

Check out this awesome video by Caroline Isaacs of AFSC Arizona, a state that is no stranger to Corrections Corporation of America. AFSC Arizona has been extremely active in working to stop the expansion of private prison. If you're in the Tucson area, join us in a rally TODAY, May 13th, from 4-5pm at the DeConcini Federal building to let CCA know that 30 years of profiteering from incarceration is nothing to celebrate!

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

Activist, organizer, radio/TV

Trailer for Documentary

“Prison bars start looking like bar codes, freedom was sold” - Invincible

A huge thanks to Detroit-based hip hop artist and activist Invincible who took some time to share their response to CCA's 30th anniversary, and to help connect the dots of the for-profit private prison industry.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

“I don’t want any more individuals to be killed…”

Patrick is a former employee of the facility at CCA's Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility (TCCF) in Tutwiler, Mississippi. He believes he was wrongfully terminated from his job for speaking out against CCA and wrongful terminations, staff that is under trained, underpaid, and made to work dangerously long shifts.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

Phones Calls

Phone calls are so precious and mean so much to everyone involved yet it costs soo much!!

From Campaign for Prison Phone Justice

Dirty Thirty

Eating Cake and Making Dough - CCA Dirty30 The Movie

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

K’s Story

As K's story demonstrates, mothers behind bars don't stop loving and caring for their children. When possible, they try to stay active in their children's lives and, when released, do what they can to both maintain their relationship and address the harm caused by their separation. So why not give them that chance & delay severing them from their children? SHB 1284 would do that for parents incarcerated in Washington State.

From Birthing Behind Bars

Campaign message from The Other Death Penalty Project

The Other Death Penalty Project's anthology, "Too Cruel, Not Unusual Enough," (an anthology of writings by life without parole prisoners and others) will raise awareness nationwide that life without parole sentences are the death penalty and must be abolished. We need to raise $10,000 by May 25, 2013.

Nowhere but Barstow and Prison

A story by Spoon Jackson

Too Cruel, Not Unusual Enough

A very important forthcoming anthology about Life Without the Possibility of Parole, Too Cruel, Not Unusual Enough. You can read more about the project and contribute to the campaign to get this book out to California legislators and policy makers by going here: http://www.igg.me/at/todpp.com

By Heart - Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives

By Heart is a double memoir written by Spoon Jackson and Judith Tannenbaum

Spoon Jackson reading from

Spoon Jackson was born in 1957 and grew up in Barstow, a small town in California. At the age of 19 he became involved in a dispute that resulted in a killing. After an error-ridden racist trial in 1977 he was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. He has served time at eight of Californias thirty-three prisons.

“I’ve seen it from the outside and the inside and I know how private prisons operate…”

Alex Friedman of Prison Legal News spent six years incarcerated in a CCA-run facility. He believes CCA's 30th anniversary should be viewed as an opportunity to speak out against the private prison industry.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

“As a person of faith, I hope this is CCA’s last anniversary.”

Laura Markle Downton, a member of the United Methodist Church, shares reflection on CCA's celebration of their 30th anniversary.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

“We shouldn’t profit off of discrimination or because a person made a mistake.”

Rev. Kelly Wilkins, Minister of Social Justice for Covenant Baptist Church shares reflection on CCA's celebration of their 30th anniversary.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

“CCA’s 30th anniversary is not a cause for celebration.  It’s a cause for mourning.”

Dr. Harold Dean Trulear, Associate Professor of Applied Theology and Director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Howard University shares reflection on CCA's celebration of their 30th anniversary.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

“We should not celebrate 30 years of CCA.  We should be looking at ways to liberate.”

Elder Doug Walker, Program Coordinator for Urban Ministry at Wesley Theological Seminary shares reflections on CCA's celebration of their 30th anniversary

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

“The profit system in prisons drives the cost down, and the services become virtually non-existent.”

Ford Rowan, licensed lay preacher in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland shares reflection on CCA's celebrations of their 30th anniversary.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

“30 years of private prisons is something we should look at with horror…”

Rev. Darren A. Ferguson, Pastor of Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Far Rockaway NY shares reflection on CCA's celebrations of their 30th anniversary.

From Public Safety and Justice Campaign

A Prison Justice Poem in Process by Rebecca Preston

After attending the "Call Me (Come Back Home): Fighting the Cost of Prison Calls, Part 1 & Part 2" poet Rebecca Preston began processing this poem-in-progress at the National Conference for Media Reform. Watch this beautiful mind go!

From Campaign for Prison Phone Justice

NCMR:  Lunar Solar Power

Lifting up voices from from the National Conference for Media Reform in Denver, CO. Sustainable Freedom has many voices, and there are still unending stories to be told and possibilities to share.

From Sustainable Freedom

Community assets as told by Stacy

Great Cacapon, WV - Living in a small town where someone is always there to help.

From Sustainable Freedom

Community assets as told by Charlotte Davis

Great Cacapon, WV - Another resident praises Rick Dunn as being the centerpiece of the community. Charlotte reflects on the need to bring people together.

From Sustainable Freedom

Community assets as told by Shafiya Eve

Great Cacapon, WV - Shafiya describes Rick Dunn of the Post Office as one of the community's greatest asset. Coming together to create things such as a community garden can create Sustainable Freedom.

From Sustainable Freedom

Community assets as told by Rick Dunn

Great Cacapon, WV - People are the communities best asset.

From Sustainable Freedom

Community assets as told by Jim Fritz

Great Cacapon, WV - The Post Office is one of the communities greatest assets.

From Sustainable Freedom