For Immediate Release: 4/29/2014
Contact: Steve O’Neill, EPOCA ● 
(508) 410-7676 ● steve@exprisoners.org
MEDIA ADVISORY
State House Action for Jobs Not Jails
Coalition Will Wrap 46,643 Petition Signatures around the State House
On April 30, a coalition of over 120 labor and community organizations will wrap 150 yards of bright orange fabric around the State House on Wednesday, covered with 46,643 signatures.
Wednesday, April 30 — 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Where: All around the State House, Boston, MA
The coalition, which also held a rally of over 2,000 people in the rain last Saturday, will celebrate recent shifts in public policy away from mass incarceration and toward job creation, and will call for more dramatic movement.
The petition calls upon the Legislature and Governor to:
1) Enact criminal justice reforms that have been proven to work in other states, including: reducing barriers to employment; diversion to addiction treatment; ending mandatory minimum drug sentences; and improving access to education.
2) Halt the construction of new prison units until these reforms can take effect.
3) Re-direct the $2 billion savings into a jobs program targeting communities with high rates of poverty and crime, further improving public safety for everyone.
While volunteers hold up bright orange banners covered with the petitions, others will deliver copies of Michelle Alexander’s book ‘The New Jim Crow’ to each lawmaker. The book has caught widespread national attention for outlining the political calculus underlying the massive increase in America’s prison population in the last four decades, and for detailing how that expansion has effectively created a racial caste system in the United States.
At the same time, voters from around the state will call their legislators, asking for speedy action on a series of reforms this legislative session.
CONTACT: Steve O’Neill ● (508) 410-7676 ● steve@exprisoners.org
www.JobsNotJails.org ● #JobsNotJails
