300 American prisoners will be raped today.

Hey folks - read this article then please head over to sign the petition to Holder at CriminalJustice.Change.org

----------------------From the New York Review of Books------------------

Prison Rape: Eric Holder's Unfinished Business

David Kaiser and Lovisa Stannow

A new report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) provides grim reaffirmation of something we already knew: sexual violence is epidemic within our country’s prisons and jails. According to the report, 64,500 of the inmates who were in a state or federal prison on the day the latest BJS survey was administered had been sexually abused at their current facility within the previous year, as had 24,000 of those who were in a county jail that day—a total of 88,500 people.

In fact, as we’ve explained before, the true national total is much higher. The BJS numbers don’t include thousands who we know are sexually abused in juvenile detention and other kinds of corrections facilities every year, nor do they account for the constant turnover among jailed detainees. Stays in jail are typically short, and several times as many people pass through jail in a year as are held there on any given day. Overall, we can confidently say that well over 100,000 people are sexually abused in American detention facilities every year.

As appalling as this figure is, mere numbers can obscure what is at issue here. So consider the case of Scott Howard. Scott was a gay, non-violent, first-time inmate in a Colorado prison when he was targeted by members of the “2-11 crew,” a white supremacist gang with over 1,000 members in prisons throughout the state. For two years he was forced into prostitution by the gang’s leaders, repeatedly raped and made to perform oral sex. Even after he told prison staff that he was being raped and needed protection from the gang, Scott was told that nothing could be done unless he named his abusers—even though they had threatened to kill him if he did. Because Scott is openly gay, some officials blamed him for the attacks, saying that as a homosexual he should expect to be targeted by one gang or another. And by his account, even those officers who were not hostile didn’t know how to respond to his reports, because appropriate procedures were not in place. They failed to take even the most basic measures to protect him.

Ultimately, despite his fear, Scott did identify some of the gang members who had raped him. Not only did the prison authorities again fail to respond, they later put Scott in a holding cell with one of his previous assailants on the day he was to be released from state custody. Again, he was beaten and forced to perform oral sex. Scott had a civil lawsuit settled in his favor recently, winning financial damages and seventeen policy changes that will now become mandatory in the Colorado prison system. Otherwise, however, nothing about his story is unusual.

In 2003 Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), legislation that, among other things, called into being the bipartisan National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC), a panel of experts charged with devising national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction, and punishment of sexual abuse in detention. But the implementation of these standards is now being held up, because, as Attorney General Eric Holder has explained, according to PREA the new rules should not “impose substantial additional costs compared to the costs presently expended by Federal, State, and local prison authorities.”

Last September, the Justice Department commissioned Booz Allen Hamilton to study what it would cost to implement the NPREC standards. Unfortunately, the results of that study are too flawed to be of much use. Even more concerning is that Mr. Holder has commissioned no study of the benefits of reducing prisoner rape; nor, apparently, does he plan to. Yet as a brief submitted to the Department of Justice by New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity makes clear, “substantial additional costs” can only be understood in relation to the standards’ projected benefits. Moreover, Mr. Holder is legally obligated to analyze the costs and the benefits of the new standards together: he cannot give greater emphasis to one half of the calculation than the other. By failing to perform proper analysis, the Attorney General is delaying the reform mandated by a unanimous Congress in passing PREA—and he has already missed his statutory deadline for issuing a final rule on the standards by more than two months.

Prisoner rape is far more a legal and moral issue than a financial one. Since cost considerations are impeding reform, however, it is worth taking a closer look at the true financial implications of sexual abuse behind bars. There are at least two ways in which the Department might try to estimate the value of reducing sexual abuse in detention. One—called “contingent valuation,” and used frequently by environmental economists—seeks to assign dollar-values to goods not traded in the marketplace. Using its techniques, a recent study concluded that the public values the prevention of a single incident of rape or sexual assault at $237,000, a greater worth than it places on preventing any other kind of crime except homicide.

Alternately, the Justice Department can try to quantify particular, identifiable savings and benefits of preventing prisoner rape, and weigh them against particular, quantifiable costs. The costs (no matter how benefits are measured) are the investments needed by corrections systems to comply with the recommended standards, divided by the Department’s estimation of the percentage by which the standards will actually reduce sexual abuse in detention. As for the benefits, a partial list of those to be considered might begin with the medical cost of treating rape victims, which must be shouldered by corrections systems. This is much more expensive in the prison setting than in the general community, because inmates must be transported to often-distant hospitals and escorted the whole time by security staff. And it is a cost that must be paid, not for every victim of prisoner rape, but for every instance. We can deduce from the new BJS study that victims of sexual abuse in detention suffer an average of three to five incidents apiece.

The Washington Department of Corrections estimates that the cost of providing mental health treatment for victims of prisoner rape or sexual assault—which is different from immediate medical care—is approximately $9,700 per victim. Neither category of care includes treatment for HIV, Hepatitis C, and other sexually transmitted infections, which are of course spread by prisoner rape and also impose great costs on prison health services. Making our prisons and jails safer should have a positive effect generally on the mental health problems that are endemic there. And reducing prisoner rape would also lower the number of suicides and unwanted pregnancies in our prison systems.

Quite apart from the horror it inflicts on the victim, failing to protect an inmate from sexual abuse contributes to the substantial legal costs our prison systems face. While it is extraordinarily difficult for an incarcerated victim to bring a civil lawsuit—the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) was enacted with the explicit purpose of limiting prisoners’ ability to be heard in court—prisons have still had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and fees to inmates who can establish that officials were “deliberately indifferent” in failing to protect them.

When inmates do report sexual abuse in prison, they are often put in “administrative segregation,” isolated housing that can entail being locked alone in a tiny cell for up to twenty-three hours a day. While this is purportedly done to protect them from more assaults, such housing is also used for punishment: inmates in solitary confinement are denied many programs and services, and the extensive isolation often causes or exacerbates mental and emotional problems. It is also enormously expensive. In California, for example, it costs an additional $14,600 per year to house a prisoner in administrative segregation.

Prisons and jails in which sexual abuse is widespread have been shown to be more dangerous than others generally. At such facilities, violence of every kind, importation of contraband, and other problems tend to flourish. Facilities with less sexual abuse thereby have lower overall security costs and fewer security breaches. When prisons are safer for inmates, they are also safer for corrections staff. The various measures called for by NPREC’s standards—among them better surveillance technology and external oversight—will provide a wide range of benefits for the facilities in which they are implemented, going far beyond the reduction of sexual violence.

Preventing prisoner rape will also help inmates successfully re-enter their communities when they’re released from prison (as almost all will be, eventually). Not only will recidivism be decreased and the enormous costs of re-incarceration lowered, this will lower the costs of disability payments, public housing, and other government-subsidy programs. As we know from our extensive work with survivors of prisoner rape, former inmates who have not been sexually abused are far more likely to become members of the legitimate workforce and pay taxes. Severe financial, emotional, and social burdens are removed from the families who support former inmates if their loved ones are released from prison without the lasting trauma of sexual abuse. And the children who depend on those former inmates will also do better. Today, more than a million children in this country have at least one incarcerated parent.

Testifying before a House subcommittee, Attorney General Holder said, “We want to effect substantive, real change, so that the horrors that too often are visited upon people in our prisons [are] eliminated…. It is something that I think needs to be done, not tomorrow, but yesterday.” That was on March 16. In mid-August a Department spokesman said that the Attorney General would send a proposed rule on the standards to the White House Office of Management and Budgets “in the fall.” Even then, however, it will take months for another layer of review. If well over 100,000 inmates are sexually abused every year, that is something like 300 every day, or even more. Since Attorney General Holder said that change needed to come “yesterday”—five months ago now—more than 40,000 people have been sexually abused in detention. Good corrections officers are doing what they can, but they are desperate for the support that binding national standards would give them. It is time for Mr. Holder to act.

August 26, 2010 2:15 p.m.

Negligent Homicide of Marcia Powell

The Arizona State Personnel Board office is located at 1400 W. Washington St., Suite 280 Phoenix, AZ 85007-2939. As I posted previously, at their June meeting, with no discussion, on a motion from Joseph Smith, they reinstated Electra Allen to her previous position at Perryville, despite the ADC's decision to terminate her and their recommendation that she be criminally prosecuted. To their credit, they did not reinstate Iain Fenyves; Joseph Smith was the only member who didn't agree, however. He seems to be far more sympathetic to ADC employees than to the woman they killed.

Here is the additional contact information: I'm sure they will be hearing more ADC employee appeals. Before their September meeting, perhaps they should hear from Friends of Marcia Powell's and others in the community who are disturbed by these developments.

Phone: (602) 542-3888
Fax: (602) 542-3588
Email: judy.henkel@personnel.az.gov (executive director)

Additionally, it's my understanding that negligent homicide isn't just a crime in Maricopa County - it's a state and federal crime. If Romley (602-506-3411) won't make his people take responsibility, then we should pressure Goddard to. The Attorney General's office is at 1275 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85007 (602-542-5025). Make it clear that we expect leadership from him on getting justice for Marcia, be it in a courtroom or otherwise.

I looked into Arizona's victim's rights laws to see if the public can ever be considered a secondary victim of violence done by public employees in their official capacity. Apparently, under the Arizona Constitution, a person who is "in custody for an offense" is not considered a "victim" themselves, regardless of their vulnerability to neglect or abuse or the heinousness of the crime perpetrated against them. No wonder the perpetrators aren't treated as criminals.

In light of the horrendous abuses in our prisons and jails here, I have a real problem with people having no rights when victimized in custody, and plan to make it an issue while lobbying for "Marcia's Law", beginning tomorrow.

Finally, Donna Hamm's reference to getting the Justice Department to investigate is regarding the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). It takes years for them to get around to it; the more people who complain to them about abuses in the state prisons and our county jails, the better. They need to see a pattern of abuse, not just a single incident.

I periodically forward them packets to establish such patterns, as I suspect Middle Ground does. You can send them local news articles about prisoner abuse and neglect every time you find them, too, beginning now. An expression of public outrage directed to them, not just the blogs, would help, too. Get them familiar with the name of Marcia Powell.

US Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB
Washington, D.C. 20530

Telephone Number
(202) 514-0195
toll-free at (877) 218-5228

Fax Numbers
(202) 514-0212; (202) 514-6273

Acting Chief: Judy Preston
(202) 514-6258

Thank you.

------------------------------------

Marcia Powell Cage Death: County Attorney Releases ADC PowerPoint, Internal ADC Investigation Not Reviewed by CA

By Stephen Lemons, Tue., Sep. 7 2010 @ 10:11AM

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office did not review a 3,000 page internal Arizona Department of Corrections investigation into the 2009 cage death of Perryville Prison inmate Marcia Powell.

The County Attorney's office last week declined to prosecute anyone involved in Powell's heat-related death. The ADC had asked for charges of negligent homicide to be brought against seven corrections officers on duty May 19, 2009, the day Powell was kept in an outside enclosure for four hours in 107 degree heat.

Powell collapsed and was never revived. She later died at West Valley Hospital in the early morning hours of May 20, after ADC director Charles Ryan authorized doctors to suspend life support.

A 3,000 page internal investigation released by ADC last year revealed accounts by inmates that Powell was never given water and that she was mocked or ignored by ADC staff when she asked for water, to go to the bathroom, or to be taken back inside.

Though corrections officers maintained that Powell had been given water, her desiccated corpse argued otherwise. She had been kept outside in the blazing Arizona sun hours past the department's own two-hour cutoff for such en plein air detention. Also, her body was covered in excrement, as she soiled herself while in the enclosure.

But according to ADC spokesman Barrett Marson, the County Attorney's office never reviewed the 3,000 page report released last year. Instead, the CA received a copy of ADC's separate, criminal investigation, which Marson characterized as "even more voluminous."

Based on that criminal investigation, the CA's office concluded that there was "insufficient evidence" to go forward with a prosecution.

Why didn't the CA get to see the internal investigation, which was made public and reported on by several news outlets? This has to do with something called "the Garrity rule," based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision Garrity vs. New Jersey.

According to the Garrity rule, law enforcement officers can be compelled to answer certain questions by their employers, but those statements cannot be used against a LEO in criminal proceedings.

The CA's office is currently preparing the criminal case file for release. In the meantime, they have released a PowerPoint presentation given by ADC staff to the CA's office. You can see a copy of it, here. (Warning, it contains some blurry photos of Powell's corpse.)

"That was like reading the Reader's Digest condensed version of things," said prison reform advocate Donna Hamm after reviewing the document. "Clearly they left out a lot of relevant, very important stuff, like the fact that she had soiled herself a couple of times. It was a cleaned-up condensed version."

Nevertheless, the PowerPoint is damning. It notes that some officers were aware that the mentally ill Powell was on psychotropic drugs that could cause "an elevation of the body temperature."

And you would think that staff psychologist Dr. Susan Kaz, the person who (according to the PowerPoint) directed the c.o.'s to move Powell from her cell to the outside enclosure, would have been aware of this as well.

When Powell's body was examined by the county coroner, it was found to have a core body temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit. It may have been higher, as medical thermometers only go as far as 108 degrees.

Corrections officers provided conflicting statements according to the PowerPoint. They didn't keep proper logs and notes. And some displayed callous indifference to Powell's suffering.

When officers discovered that Powell had collapsed, one asked officer Esmeralda Pegues, who was stationed nearby the enclosure, how long Powell had been on the ground.

"Officer Pegues replied with words to the effect of, `several minutes,'" the PowerPoint states.

Pegues was one of the seven officers the ADC requested felony charges on. The others were Evan Hazelton, Iain Fenyves, Electra Allen, Cortez Agnew, Anita Macias and Ariana Mena.

Hamm told me that she doesn't believe that conflicting statements from the c.o.'s should be enough to stop a prosecution.

"In any big crime, there are conflicting witnesses," she argued. "That shouldn't scare off the county attorney."

The CA's decision on this matter is disappointing. I'm left to wonder if things might have been different if Powell had next-of-kin willing to push for indictments on her behalf.

Indeed, there's no one around to even sue. Her aged, estranged adoptive mother, who lives in California, reportedly wanted nothing to do with Powell's case.

More than 16 ADC employees were ultimately fired or disciplined in the fallout from the Powell incident, but that's hardly justice. Powell's death deserves more.

ASPC-Tucson: Prisoners neglected in cages, again.

This is despicable. This makes the failure of the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to prosecute anyone from the Arizona Department of Corrections for Marcia Powell's death all the more disturbing. Clearly they think they are untouchable, like most agents of the law. In essence, the higher ups at ASPC-Tucson slapped them on the wrist for this one and kept it all under wraps. It was only because the prisoner and his wife (and finally Donna Hamm) complained that it got anyone's attention.

The investigation reads something like the one on Marcia's death - everyone pointing their finger at someone else, or just not being able to recall who did what. It went on through three shifts, evidently, so it's not like it was just the guard who was pissed off who locked the guy up and left him there. And it wasn't just prisoner Solis who got left in the cages that day - four other guys were left there too long, as well. I bet it's a routine thing that prisoners just don't often complain about because they're used to being treated like dirt. They're probably glad they aren't still getting hogtied and left in the sun as punishment.

I'm glad Ryan at least nailed his administrators - including Sonberg - though the punishments for the rest still hardly fit the crime. They're all implicated in suppressing reports of neglect and abuse that I hear about from prisoners - things that just get handled "in-house".

As far as I'm concerned, it's not the breakdown in staff discipline that's the problem so much as it's the dehumanization that allows ADC officers to treat prisoners as they do. If there wasn't an entrenched culture that tolerates and even encourages the humiliation, depersonalization, and trivialization of prisoners' needs so thoroughly - which comes from the top down (through policies that seek to discourage people from seeking medical care, for example, to save the department money) - abuse and neglect wouldn't be so commonplace at their prisons...

I have more to say but won't say it here - read the investigative report Stephen links to for yourself. I think I'm going to ask the Attorney General tomorrow why the state can't prosecute Marcia's killers since the county won't. The neglect and abuse of prisoners needs to be treated as a crime and the victims need to be seen as human beings worthy of protection, or this will just keep happening as a casual occurrence that no one thinks they should even be disciplined for.

-------------------------------------

Could Marcia Powell Happen Again? Prisoner Kept in Tucson Cage Overnight, Warden Sanctioned

By Stephen Lemons, Tue., Sep. 7 2010 @ 2:01PM

A warden, a deputy warden, and a regional director have all been suspended several days without pay as a result of an inmate being kept in an outdoor cage overnight at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson.

According to a Department of Corrections investigation of the incident, inmate Elisio Solis was confined to an outdoor cage for 19 hours from around 9:45 a.m. on April 29 of this year to around 5 a.m. the following morning.

This is in violation of policies regarding such enclosures, policies that were revised in the wake of Marcia Powell's 2009 heat-related death at Perryville Prison in Goodyear.

ADC policy now prohibits a prisoner from being confined to an outdoor cage for more than one hour without the approval of a deputy warden. (Inmates can be in the cages for no longer than two hours max.) The policy also forbids the enclosures from being used for disciplinary purposes.

But these restrictions were transgressed in the case of Solis, who was placed in the outside enclosure after a verbal altercation with a corrections officer, who called Solis a "motherfucker."

According to the ADC investigation, when Warden Sandra Walker learned of the violation, she advised underlings that the matter was to be handled "in house."

ADC Director Charles Ryan did not learn of Solis' treatment till August 5, after receiving an e-mail complaining of the matter from prison reform advocate Donna Hamm of the Phoenix-based organization Middle Ground Prison Reform. Ryan then ordered an investigation into the incident.

The inquiry shows a breakdown in discipline, with corrections officers finding excuses for not following ADC guidelines, showing ignorance of ADC policies and generally shirking responsibility for their actions.

Their supervisors don't fare much better in the report.

"Supervisors failed to follow DO 704 [the policy regarding outside enclosures]," the report states. "And [they] `passed the buck' to each other during their interviews. Staff interviewed had memory issues related to their shift on April 29, 2010."

You can read the ADC report, minus its attachments, here.

During the investigation, ADC Regional Director Shelly Sonberg, who has to sign off on supervisor complaints, admitted that she doesn't read them all because there are too many. Instead, she selects one at random to read "cover to cover," and relies on her staff to make sure the complaints are complete.

Sonberg was recently suspended 40 hours without pay. Warden Walker received the same sanction. Deputy Warden Keith Hartsuck was suspended for 80 hours without pay.

ADC spokesman Barrett Marson denied that Walker had wanted to cover-up the Solis matter, only that she had kept the investigation at the complex level. Still, Marson called the breach of policy a "significant incident," which is why punishment was meted out.

"The director believes this should have elevated up the chain of command," Marson told me.

Solis, who is doing 19 years on a murder conviction in Maricopa County, complained that he was sick after his outdoor confinement and claimed he had to beg for a blanket. Temperatures had dipped to 48 degrees Fahrenheit by the time he was transferred from the cage in the early morning hours of April 30, according to the report.

Unlike Powell, Solis did not have to contend with the heat, as the high for April 29 in Tucson was 75 degrees, and there was shade in the cage. He had access to food and water, and was allowed bathroom breaks.

Solis' life was not endangered. But the fact that prison officials didn't want to alert higher-ups should tip you off to the importance of the Solis incident. Moreover, the ADC report notes that four other inmates were confined to the cage that day for longer than the time period allowed.

"Given the fact that this was originally scheduled to be handled `in house,' [Director Ryan] was never supposed to find out about it," observed Hamm, whose e-mail sparked the investigation. "You have to wonder how many incidents in other locations, or even in that location, have been deemed in-house and that Ryan never knew about."

Hamm believes the practice of holding prisoners in outside cages for long periods of time as punishment is widespread. She fears this could lead to another Marcia Powell-like incident, and she faulted the ADC's lack of discipline.

"Look, this is a paramilitary organization," she said of the ADC. "And that means that people pretty much don't get to question policy. You follow it.

"But people are not following policy all the way up and down the chain of command. They're winking at the policy. And that's just unacceptable."

She said she's suggested that Ryan name a unit after Marcia Powell as a way of reminding his staff of the importance of following ADC policies on outside enclosures. She said she also may ask the U.S. Justice Department to investigate ADC's practices regarding the cages.

That Ryan acted so swiftly in this matter is laudatory. However, the fact that he had to find out about it from an outside source is unsettling, as are the accounts of staff shiftlessness and complacency in the ADC's own report.

Indict Arpaio.

Public pressure is growing in Phoenix for the FBI and DOJ to do their job.

...and free the 5.

Under the Bridge Folk Fest IV!!

Really, it's under the bridge -
Margaret T. Hance/Deck Park
South side of the Phoenix Library
(Central/Roosevelt Light Rail stop)

Saturday, September 11, 2010
6pm (till everyone drops)

Great Music

Good Souls

Bring something vegan for the potluck
(and a few bucks to help out the bands)

Here's a sample of one the bands, the Haymarket Squares (from an anti-Arpaio rally last year)

Julie Acklin: Tenacious advocate for prisoner's rights.

Julie Acklin (holding photo of son Davon)
with the Arizona Liver Foundation staff/volunteers.

Anyone who's read more than just a few blurbs on this blog should know who Julie and Davon Acklin are, by now. What follows is just one story of how Julie's touched others' lives for the better. I pulled it off of her Facebook - her friend Verena posted it there to remind her of how much she means to those of us who know her, and to ignore the skeptics and haters who occasionally land on her pages and try to sabotage her efforts to assure decent medical care for her son. I've met Verena and her daughter, and know this story to be true.

------------------------

Sunday, September 6, 2010

Hey Julie,

We love you, and the ones that truly know you know what you are capable of.

Here is my story of my beautiful daughter who almost died at the hands of Texas Prisons. My daughter was 21 and on 9/9/09, first let me tell you she suffers from a mental illness. She had been on suicide watch numerous times; she was in the treatment part of the prison for substance abuse and behavioral health issues. She stands only maximum of 5 foot 2in, and very petite.

A couple of weeks before I received a call, my daughter called me from her counselor's office. I asked my daughter if I could speak to her counselor, my daughter handed the counselor the phone, I tried to give the counselor the information on what my daughter needed to work on and the counselor hid behind the HIPPA law stating that she could not take any information from me regarding my daughter. I informed her I wasn’t seeking information but felt it necessary so my daughter could be treated for these issues. Remember HIPPA Laws state that you can receive information, but the professional can not give it with out a written Release of Information, or verbal permission from the patient. My daughter handed her the phone that was a verbal.

I received a call from the Warden, a few weeks later telling me my daughter is on life support, when I asked what happened she told me she hung herself. I lost it. Now I’ve lost control, and going insane it felt like, the warden told me I needed to get to Texas, ASAP. So I contacted my Mother and we left for Texas. I had to see my daughter on what they call a High Five ventilator. I guess it shoots 300 breaths in to the patient; my understanding was they said it’s the most intense ventilator they had.

While at the hospital the Dr. told me that my daughter had a 9 % chance to live. I had to leave Tx and come back home. I had not heard of Julie until I got back - I think one of my friends called her or knew of her. When I got back from Tx, I received a call from Julie telling me she is a prisoner rights advocate for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). She asked me what happened and all I could do is cry.

Julie was so patient with me, and so understanding with me, she provided me with hope, which I lost in Tx. Julie kept in touch to see how I’m doing on a daily bases. Julie jumped in to action and started calling everybody, God only knows who, Julie did something and the charges were dropped on my daughter and she got better and was sent to the prison psych ward, while being released.

The prison told Julie that I could call and talk to my daughter, so I tried to, but the prison would not let me talk to her. They stated that she was still in custody, I explain to them she has been released, needless to say I was not successful, so I called Julie and was crying again and explained to her what happened.Julie got back on the phone and next thing you know I received a phone call the staff at the prison, and they put my daughter on the phone. She didn’t sound like she was all there yet, she wasn’t fully back to being her.

When I went back to Texas to get my daughter and bring her home to AZ, we had to pick her up from the psych prison ward. My daughter had MERSA (staph infection) on the back of her head, she couldn’t walk, she over enunciated her speech, and had traumatic brain injury. She had memory loss, too. My daughter had not had a bath in 4 days, was left to defecate and urinate on herself. She was unable to walk or stand; she needed help with every thing. My daughter would still be there in prison or dead if it hadn’t been for Julie.

Julie fought day and night for my family; she is a blessing to have. If Julie went to bat for you she fights with all she has. Not all situations will turn out the way this one did, but it’s not from a lack of trying on her part. Julie is my friend and she has a heart for justice for our loved ones in prison.

If you all don’t believe me I have pictures of my daughter on life support , and you can meet my daughter get a hold of me on Facebook and leave me your # and I will be more than happy to meet you in public. Julie saved my daughter's life. Thank God my daughter turned 22 this yr.

Verena and her daughter, with Julie's daughter Kirsten, at the 2010 Liver Life Walk raising awareness about prisoners with Hepatitis C. They're holding up a birthday card for Davon, Julie's imprisoned son, for whom we were all walking that day.

Perryville: Resistance Behind Bars

I originally put the following article about Vikki Law's work up awhile ago. In it she discusses both women's resistance in prison and the vision of prison abolition. I thought it was worth putting up again in light of the resistance we saw last week at Perryville.


Families: get this word in to the women of Perryville - Rock On! Some of you have my address - use it or share it, and we'll do whatever we can to support you in there.

Ricardo Levins Morales

------------------------------------

Women's Resistance Behind Bars

Beyond Attica: The Untold Story of Women's Resistance Behind Bars

By Hans Bennett
Alternet
July 21, 2009

As the incarceration rate of U.S. women skyrockets, an important book shines new light on the struggles of women prisoners.

"When I was 15, my friends started going to jail," says Victoria Law, a native New Yorker.

"Chinatown's gangs were recruiting in the high schools in Queens and, faced with the choice of stultifying days learning nothing in overcrowded classrooms or easy money, many of my friends had dropped out to join a gang."

"One by one," Law recalls, "they landed in Rikers Island, an entire island in New York City devoted to pretrial detainment for those who can not afford bail."

Law shares this and other recollections in her new book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press). At 16, she herself decided to join a gang, but was arrested for the armed robbery that she committed for her initiation into the gang. "Because it was my first arrest -- and probably because 16-year-old Chinese girls who get straight As in school did not seem particularly menacing -- I was eventually let off with probation," she writes.

Before her release from jail, Law was held in the "Tombs" awaiting arraignment. While the adult women she met there had all been arrested for prostitution, she also met three teenagers arrested for unarmed assault. "Two of the girls were black lesbian lovers. In a scenario that would be repeated 13 years later in the case of the New Jersey Four, they had been out with friends when they encountered a cab driver who had tried to grab one of them. Her friends intervened, the cab driver called the police and the girls were arrested for assault." Law notes that "both of my cellmates were subsequently sent to Rikers Island."

These early experiences, coupled with her later discovery of radical politics, pushed Law "to think about who goes to prison and why." She got involved in several projects to support prisoners, which included helping to start Books Through Bars in New York City, sending free books to prisoners. In college, she "began researching current prisoner organizing and resistance," and upon discovering almost zero documentation of resistance from women prisoners, she began her own documentation and directly contacted women prisoners who were resisting. A college paper became a widely distributed pamphlet, and at the request of several women prisoners she'd corresponded with, Law helped to publish their writings in a zine called Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison. Law writes that the zine and pamphlet "heightened awareness not only about incarcerated women's issues, but also women's actions to challenge and change the injustices they faced on a daily basis."

"This book is the result of seven and a half years of reading, writing, listening, and supporting women in prison," Law says about Resistance Behind Bars, noting that each chapter in her book "focuses on an issue that women themselves have identified as important." The chapters include topics as diverse as health care, the relationship between mothers and daughters, sexual abuse, education, and resistance among women in immigration detention. Resistance Behind Bars paints a picture of women prisoners resisting a deeply flawed prison system, which Law hopes will help to empower both the women held in cages and those on the outside working to support them.

Who Goes To Prison?

Since 1970, the U.S. prison population has skyrocketed, from 300,000 to over 2.3 million. According to the U.S. Justice Department, this staggering increase has not resulted from a rise in crime. In fact, since 1993, the prison population has increased by over one million, but during this same period, both property offenses and serious violent crime have been steadily declining. The New York Times recently cited a 2008 report by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London documenting that the U.S. has more prisoners than any other country. Furthermore, with 751 out of 100,000 people, and one out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, the U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate in the world. With only five percent of the world's population, the U.S. has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.

While women comprise only nine percent of the U.S. prison population, their numbers have been increasing at a faster rate than men. As Law documents, "between 1990 and 2000, the number of women in prison rose 108 percent, from 44,065 to 93,234. (The male prison population grew 77 percent during that same time period.) By the end of 2006, 112,498 women were behind bars."

Like with male incarceration rates, women behind bars are disproportionately low-income and people of color. Law writes that "only 40 percent of all incarcerated women had been employed full-time before incarceration. Of those, most had held low-paying jobs: a study of women under supervision (prison, jail, parole or probation) found that two-thirds had never held a job that paid more than $6.50 per hour. Approximately 37 percent earned less than $600 per month."

A 2007 Bureau of Justice study documented that 358 of every 100,000 Black women, 152 of every 100,000 Latinas, and 94 of every 100,000 white women are incarcerated. Explaining this racial discrepancy, Law argues that inner-city Black and Latino neighborhoods are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. She cites a 2005 U.S. Department of Justice study which concluded that Blacks and Latinos are "three times as likely as whites to be searched, arrested, threatened or subdued with force when stopped by the police."
The so-called "War on Drugs" has played a key role in the growth of the U.S. prison population.

Law writes about the impact of New York State's Rockefeller Drug Laws passed in 1973, "which required a sentence of 15 years to life for anyone convicted of selling two ounces or possessing four ounces of a narcotic, regardless of circumstances or prior history. That year, only 400 women were imprisoned in New York State. As of January 1, 2001, there were 3,133. Over 50 percent had been convicted of a drug offense and 20 percent were convicted solely of possession. Other states passed similar laws, causing the number of women imprisoned nationwide for drug offenses to rise 888 percent from 1986 to 1996."

Distinguishing women prisoners from their male counterparts, Law cites a Bureau of Justice study which "found that women were three times more likely than men to have been physically or sexually abused prior to incarceration."

Women Prisoners Don't Resist?

The central thesis of Resistance Behind Bars is truly profound. In clear, non-academic language, Law argues that recent scholarship documenting and radically criticizing the increased incarceration rates and mistreatment of women prisoners "largely ignores what the women themselves do to change or protest these circumstances, thus reinforcing the belief that incarcerated women do not organize." Alongside academia, Law also harshly criticizes radical prison activists, arguing that "just as the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s downplayed the role of women in favor of highlighting male spokesmen and leaders, the prisoners' rights movement has focused and continues to focus on men to speak for the masses."

Law gives honorable mention to two books that documented women's resistance at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York State: Juanita Diaz-Cotto's Gender, Ethnicity, and the State (1996) and the collectively written Breaking the Walls of Silence: AIDS and Women in a New York State Maximum Security Prison (1998). Since these two books "no other book-length work has focused on incarcerated women's activism and resistance," writes Law. As a result, Law argues that women prisoners "lack a commonly known history of resistance. While male prisoners can draw on the examples of George Jackson, the Attica uprising and other well-publicized cases of prisoner activism, incarcerated women remain unaware of precedents relevant to them."

Epitomizing the scholarship that Law criticizes, author Virginia High Brislin wrote that "women inmates themselves have called very little attention to their situations," and "are hardly ever involved in violent encounters with officials (i.e. riots), nor do they initiate litigation as often as do males in prison."

To challenge Brislin's assertion, Law gives numerous examples of women rioting and initiating litigation, including the "August Rebellion" in 1974 at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York State. On July 2, 1974, prisoner Carol Crooks won a lawsuit against prison authorities, with the court "issuing a preliminary injunction, prohibiting the prison from placing women in segregation without 24-hour notice and a hearing of these charges," writes Law. In response, "five male guards beat Crooks and placed her in segregation. Her fellow prisoners protested by holding seven staff members hostage for two and a half hours. However, 'the August Rebellion' is virtually unknown today despite that fact that male state troopers and (male) guards from men's prisons were called to suppress the uprising, resulting in 25 women being injured and 24 women being transferred to Matteawan Complex for the Criminally Insane without the required commitment hearings."

Law also criticizes author Karlene Faith, who acknowledges that women resist, but who wrote that in the 1970s, women prisoners "were not as politicized as the men [prisoners], and they did not engage in the kinds of protest actions that aroused media attention." To challenge Faith's argument, Law cites several rebellions that received significant media attention, including one that the New York Times wrote two stories about. As Law recounts, "in 1975, women at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women held a sit-down demonstration to demand better medical care, improved counseling services, and the closing of the prison laundry. When prison guards attempted to end the protest by herding the women into the gymnasium and beating them, the women fought back, using volleyball net poles, chunks of concrete and hoe handles to drive the guards out of the prison. Over 100 guards from other prisons were summoned to quell the rebellion."

In light of the many such stories documented in Resistance Behind Bars, Law argues that "instead of claiming that women in prison did not engage in riots and protest actions that captured media attention, scholars and researchers should examine why these acts of organizing fail to attract the same critical and scholarly attention as that given to similar male actions."

Resisting With Media-Activism

In the chapter "Grievances, Lawsuits, and the Power of the Media," Law observes that "gaining media attention often gains quicker results than filing lawsuits." Among the many organizing victories that were significantly aided by media attention, in 1999, Nightline focused on conditions at California's Valley State Prison for Women. Law explains that "after prisoner after prisoner told Nightline anchor Ted Koppel about being given a pelvic exam as 'part of the treatment' for any ailment, including stomach problems or diabetes, Koppel asked the prison's chief medical officer Dr. Anthony DiDomenico, for an explanation."

DiDomenico was apparently so confident that he would not be held accountable for his misconduct, that he answered Koppel by saying "I've heard inmates tell me they would deliberately like to be examined. It's the only male contact they get." After this interview was aired, DiDomenico was reassigned to a desk job, and as of 2001 he had been criminally indicted, along with a second doctor.

Demonstrating the power of this media coverage, Law notes that the "prisoner advocacy organization Legal Services for Prisoners with Children had been reporting the prisoners' complaints about medical staff's sexual misconduct to the CDC for four years with no result."

Along with agitating for coverage in the mainstream media, women prisoners have also created their own media projects. The chapter titled "Breaking The Silence: Incarcerated Women's Media" documents many important projects. Law explains that these projects are necessary because women prisoners' "voices and stories still remain unheard by both mainstream and activist-oriented media. Articles about both prison conditions and prisoners often portray the male prisoner experience, ignoring the different issues facing women in prison." Therefore, "women's acts of writing -- and publishing -- often serve a dual purpose: they challenge existing stereotypes and distortions of prisoners and prison life, framing and correcting prevailing (mis) perceptions. They also boost women's sense of self-worth and agency in a system designed to not only isolate and alienate its prisoners but also erase all traces of individuality."

Some activist-oriented publications have been receptive and have published prisoners' writings.
From 1999 until its final issue in 2002, the radical feminist magazine Sojourner: A Women's Forum featured a section on women prisoner issues which included writings from the prisoners themselves. Law writes that this section, entitled "Inside/Outside" covered many topics, including "working conditions in women's facilities, the dehumanizing treatment of children visiting their mothers, and prisoner suicides.

Law spotlights many different projects. From 2002 to 2006, Perceptions was a monthly newspaper published by and for the women at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey. Because of censorship from prison warden Charlotte Blackwell, Perceptions was forced to limit its criticism of the prison, but the women published what they could. For example, in one issue, women wrote about how they would run the prison differently if they were in charge. Law notes that "their fantasies revealed the absence of programming for older women and those in the maximum custody unit, emergency counseling and therapeutic interventions and opportunities for mother-child interactions. It also drew attention to the facility's overcrowding and increased potentials for violence and conflict among prisoners."

Tenacious, the zine published by Law, was initiated by women prisoners who sought the help of friends outside the prison to actually publish and distribute it. "Free from the need to seek administrative approval, incarcerated women wrote about the difficulties of parenting from prison, dangerously inadequate health care, sexual assault by prison staff and the scarcity of educational and vocational opportunities, especially in comparison to their male counterparts. Although circulation remained small, the women's stories provoked public response," writes Law.

"Prison officials do whatever they can to strip prisoners of their dignity and self-worth," stated Barrilee Bannister, one of the founders of Tenacious. "Writing is my way to escape the confines of prison and the debilitating ailments of prison life. It's me putting on boxing gloves and stepping into the rink of freedom of speech and opinion."

Arguing For Prison Abolition

When Victoria Law was first introduced to radical politics, shortly after her own stint behind bars, she "discovered groups and literature espousing prison abolition."

"These analyses -- coupled with what I had seen firsthand -- made sense, steering me to work towards the dismantling, rather than the reform, of the prison system." Law's subsequent research has only served to affirm her belief in the need for abolition. She states clearly that "this book should not be mistaken for a call for more humane or 'gender responsive' prisons."

Some readers may view Law's prison abolitionist politics as being abstract or overly theoretical.

However, to support her abolitionist viewpoint, she makes the practical argument that prisons simply don't work to reduce crime or increase public safety. She writes that "incarceration has not decreased crime; instead, 'tough on crime' policies have led to the criminalization … of more activities, leading to higher rates of arrest, prosecution and incarceration while shifting money and resources away from other public entities, such as education, housing, health care, drug treatment, and other societal supports. The growing popularity of abolitionist thought can be seen in the expansion of organizations such as Critical Resistance, an organization fighting to end the need for a prison-industrial complex, and the formation of groups working to address issues of crime and victimization without relying on the police or prisons."

Towards the end of Resistance Behind Bars, Law quotes Angela Y. Davis, who is a leading activist intellectual of the prison abolitionist movement. In her recent book Are Prisons Obsolete?, Davis writes that "a major challenge of this movement is to do the work that will create more human, habitable environments for people in prison without bolstering the permanence of the prison system. How, then, do we accomplish this balancing act of passionately attending to the needs of prisoners -- calling for less violent conditions, an end to sexual assault, improved physical and mental health care, greater access to drug programs, better educational work opportunities, unionization of prison labor, more connections with families and communities, shorter or alternative sentencing -- and at the same time call for alternatives to sentencing altogether, no more prison construction, and abolitionist strategies that question the place of the prison in our future?"

As if answering Davis' question, Law concludes that while striving for prison abolition "we need to also reach in, make contact with those who have been isolated by prison walls and societal indifference and listen to those who are speaking out, like many of the women who have shared their stories within this book. Because abolishing prisons will not happen tomorrow, next week or even next year, we need to break through these barriers, communicate, work with and support women who are in resistance today."

Sweet Honey in The Rock: Are We A Nation?

Check out Sweet Honey in the Rock's new video, "Are We A Nation?" - it's awesome. The organization that's sponsoring it helped drive the supported housing movement for people with mental illness when I developed my program in Ann Arbor in the 90's - they're a fantastic resource.

Beware my anarchist friends - this has a real patriotic flavor, but it's a lot better than "America the Beautiful" or "The Star Spangled Banner", it recalls the truth of our collective history, and it puts the greedy racist pigs running Arizona to shame. It's also good to dance to: Rock on!

Joe Arpaio should be prosecuted, not sued.

I don't know what the big deal is about the feds "suing" the MCSO. I know a lot of folks celebrated this news yesterday, but all it did was piss me off more - that man should be arrested, disarmed, and awaiting trial in a jail cell. He sure shouldn't be out doing more "crime suppression sweeps". We haven't been marching and writing and waiting this long for the feds to sue our county. Arpaio's been sued by plenty of people - and he's never the one who pays, even when he's responsible for killing someone. While good people are being prosecuted as criminals for resisting that man's evil, the DOJ is just stalling until his term expires so they don't have to take responsibility for how he's treated people. I think he does a lot of their dirty work, anyway.


What a mistake to even hope that the Obama administration would come to our rescue in Maricopa County. Look at who the president tapped for Homeland Security, after all - she did nothing but enable this guy. Joe Arpaio may entertain a lot of the nation, but he shouldn't be dismissed as just a clown, a controversial politician, or an incompetent sheriff (though he is all those things): he's an armed and dangerous criminal. After all, what's false arrest if not kidnapping? Racial profiling if not a hate crime? Misuse of public funds if not stealing by both deceit and force? Vindictive investigations and prosecution if not destruction of livelihood and threat to life and limb?


We prosecute young people for terrorist conspiracies just for plotting to drag a few newsboxes into an intersection to momentarily stop the madness of an exploitative, vicious, greedy world. That's not terrorism - that's disrupting the flow of traffic. Using violence or intimidation to coerce political figures or communities is terrorism - which means that Janet still has a job to do here. If anyone else did what Arpaio has been doing, Homeland Security would have swooped in with the DOJ long ago - except that the feds think he's been doing it to people that they really don't give a shit about, either. As I suggested above, it just means less work for them, and by contrast they end up looking like the "good guys", even when all they do is play this game of chastising him.


America is hardly the land of the free or the home of the brave, but most of the rest of the world figured that out a long time ago. We throw the truly courageous and liberated souls into prison like murderers, lest they expose the brutal, corrupt nation we are. So, the feds can slap Sheriff Joe on the wrist or give him a medal - unless they prosecute him as the criminal he is, though, they can take my citizenship and shove it.


They, like Arpaio, are just tools of this hateful, white supremacist, patriarchal empire - they sure aren't serving the People. Arpaio and his kind are heroes only to those who benefit from perpetuating a slave state, and those who have been conditioned to fear the consequences of true justice. They and their kindred invaded and reproduced in this region with an explicit agenda in mind - gaining and maintaining their own wealth and power by impoverishing and criminalizing everyone who resists. It never ceases to amaze me how people like Russ Pearce manage to twist the truth of our collective history. It seems so blatant that I just don't understand how the rest of the country keeps falling for their lies and histrionics. We are indeed a nation of fools.


Well, I'm descended from the Pilgrims and soldiers of the American Revolution - I even carry Brigham Young's genes - but what I learned growing up (from my Young Republican parents, even) was that my family's relative privilege and our presence in this hemisphere by violent conquest makes me all the more responsible for preventing similar injustices from occurring here and now. It sure doesn't entitle me to subordinate the rest of those who populate this land, regardless of where our government erects borders and points its guns.


So, fuck you, your Keystone cops, and your source of power, Sheriff Joe - you are a corruption of what America has claimed to be. That's a claim that's led many young people to kill and die for the ideals of freedom and democracy - which you've done everything you can to subvert. Fuck the feds, too - they didn't come to our rescue - they just keep sending reinforcements to finish us off. And shame on every other American citizen who isn't resisting Power in this place - especially those citizens who lack color. You're like the so-called Christians who owned slaves, or felt a little guilty about it but looked the other way at the auction. I don't know what's so difficult about understanding that someone like Christ would never have voted for those who do violence in His name.


There are many ways to defeat racism and colonialism like this, but you are mistaken if you think you've found a neutral place from which to comfortably watch, tuning in once in awhile for to either vent about evil or scapegoat those being victimized by it. In fact, if you're comfortable with any of what's going on in Arizona - and not at least boycotting this place - then you're already with them, condoning the repression, deportation, incarceration, and even slaughter of people America once so gladly welcomed. The condition was that they had to remain in perpetual servitude - it was only when they began seeking liberty and justice that we decided that migrants were all criminals and aliens. Now the good Senator Pearce wants their children to be born into slavery, too.


What has become of us?


There's never been any consistency in the enforcement of law in America, but in Arizona it's especially biased and mean. Power here demands that people like Arpaio seduce the already-sympathetic, and brutalize everyone else into submission. It's already made sure he doesn't have to go out of his way to put people like me behind bars. The law of this land and its enforcers have no credibility with me; they have my contempt. I guess that makes me another radical preaching anarchy. Call me an outlaw, too, then: I haven't carried state ID since SB 1070 was passed - I know very well who I am, and a good many of the people who would incarcerate me do, too.


I've already said what I think of the DOJ - they're worse than a joke because invested in them is a lot of people's hope. I've been begging them for help for a year and they've answered with nothing but silence as people keep suffering and dying in these prisons. But if I refused to comply with them in the face of an investigation, I'd be charged with obstruction of justice and held without bond while search warrants were issued for everything they wanted - including my DNA for their database. They sure as hell wouldn't be suing me in civil court. What are they doing dancing with our Sheriff around this, then?


Law enforcement officers should be held to a higher standard of non-violence against citizens than anyone else precisely because they already have the guns, the training, and the benefit of the judge's and jury's doubt. Besides, they have a sworn duty to protect and defend us. Instead, however, it's the public that's held to a higher standard when it comes to the welfare of cops, whatever uniform they wear. Even the FBI is guaranteed to brutalize us if we cross them in any way, and the courts will back them up by dishing out solitary confinement for life, if they want - the Black Panthers are a prime example. So, I'm not really optimistic about the DOJ doing anything to rein in anyone's excessive use of force - not by the MCSO or anyone else. A lot of the violence against those targeted by police is done by prosecutors, anyway, in concert with the powers that be - far more than by cops walking their beat.

Case in point: the Arpaio 5. The feds are here because the Maricopa County Attorney wouldn't lift a finger to stop the MCSO from assailing the community (Andrew Thomas was in cahoots with him, anyway), even though tens of thousands of us have demonstrated repeatedly. But the MCA has no problem charging some of those youth who protested police tactics at last January's anti-Arpaio march as violent criminals for the chaos that erupted near the end with the Phoenix PD. There's a double standard, alright.

some of the more colorful anarchists

at the January 16, 2010 anti-Arpaio march.

No one who was there or has seen the multitude of videos can agree on what really happened - much less who was most to blame for police actions - so the default version of the "truth" is, as usual, the one told by the cops (and the Phoenix New Times - thanks a lot, Lemons). Those poor, frail officers (in body armor) were assaulted, obstructed and resisted by a handful of kids half their size who were being trampled by police horses and bikes, blinded by pepper spray, and threatened by a well-equipped cavalry.


Had I been there, I could have easily bumped (or been pushed) into a cop while trying to get out of the way, or arrested for interfering while trying to keep a friend from getting killed in the melee. But apparently it doesn't matter to the county attorney what your intent or your actual capacity to hurt anyone was: if you touch a cop with anything from a banner to silly string, your ass is theirs - especially if you call yourself an anarchist, wear all black, and dare to talk back to state authority. You're really in trouble if you're a woman on top of all that.


So I keep thinking, if Justice is really blind and one's purpose apparently doesn't matter in assault, then shouldn't the cop who hit toddlers with pepper spray be charged, too? Regardless of what frightened her or who she really intended to blind and cause pain (I really doubt she was aiming for the kids), totally innocent children got hurt - the videos and witnesses are pretty clear that little ones were screaming and all red and teary-eyed because they got sprayed. Relatively speaking, that seems to have been a far more serious "assault" than crashing into someone - even if that someone was a cop. If that officer doesn't do time for injuring bystanders by deploying her weapon - be it in self-defense or out of carelessness in all that confusion - why do the kids who got nabbed in the heat of the moment get screwed?


I'm especially disturbed that there's no semblance of proportionality in terms of what the Arpaio 5 are being accused of and what they might be charged with if they don't surrender their right to trial now. They clearly aren't considered to be a threat to public safety, since they aren't being held without bail and the plea deals being offered don't all entail jail. If they maintain their innocence, however, some are being promised the violence inherent in incarceration if they don't prevail in court - one has been told that if she puts up a defense she'll be prosecuted for a serious felony that would carry a mandatory minimum sentence of over ten years in prison.

That floored me - that's literally 100 times more severe than what she'd get if she just pleads guilty now. If the county attorney really thought this young woman was a danger to society, she'd be on her way to prison already. They're coercing her with a promise of harsh retaliation for resistance, not a deal negotiated in the interest of justice. The state isn't trying to protect the public, or even the police. They're trying to repress and silence these young people - and all their friends, by making an example of them - for their defiance of police authority, not for perpetrating violence on police officers. Yet how often do courts punish the cops with incarceration for harassing, pepper spraying, or wrongfully arresting one of us - much less beating or killing someone? They seldom ever treat it as criminal. All they're usually willing to do is let us sue the department they work for - like the DOJ is suing Arpaio.


The DOJ is basically a big fat cop, and thus isn't much different than anyone in Maricopa County - or the State of Arizona - for failing to press criminal charges against anyone at the top of the MCSO, letting Arpaio and his goons off the hook for the criminal harm they've done to so many people. Regardless of how embarrassing he is to the rest of law enforcement, he's still one of their own, so different standards of conduct - lower standards - apply than those which the rest of us are held to. Similarly, neither Thomas' nor Romley's office would prosecute any of the prison guards for Marcia Powell's homicide. Why not? They told me that despite 10,000 pages of testimony and evidence (and a year to investigate), they still couldn't sort out who did what. There were just "too many conflicting stories".


What??? Of course they're all pointing fingers at each other - no one ever wants to take the rap. Prosecute them ALL, then, and let them sort it out in plea bargains like you'd do to any of us. Don't let them off with the modified Nuremburg defense ("No one was following policy; it wasn't just me. Breaking the rules was SOP.") Who else would duck a negligent homicide charge in that situation but agents of the law? They may all tell a different story, but the story they tell is that it wasn't them. Again, the default version of the truth is theirs.

That's pathetic. I just don't believe that the Maricopa County Attorney can't even come up with a misdemeanor charge against one of sixteen (16) prison guards (officers of the law) who mocked or ignored a woman they had locked in a cage in the desert sun, leaving her for over 3 hours without water to defecate on herself, suffer horribly, and finally die with second degree burns on her body. There was enough culpability in her death for the prosecutor I discussed it with to say that it's unfortunate no one can find survivors with standing to sue the AZ Department of Corrections - that's the only way justice would be done, apparently, not through the efforts of the Maricopa County Attorney's office to find it. They're too busy prosecuting kids for challenging the police.

If Marcia Powell had been a child in the care of a parent, the MCA would be looking for someone to execute within days of her death, not closing the file a year later. At the very least negligent homicide charges would be brought. They'd be quicker to prosecute someone if Marcia was a dog, actually - and then they'd erect a memorial for the poor thing. Being "tough on crime" apparently doesn't apply if the perpetrator wears a badge and the victim is a whore with no family to bury her remains. I can tell you from the hits on my blog and the emails in my box about Marcia Powell: the entire world is disgusted with us - all of us, not just the AZ Department of Corrections.


I don't know where the original cancer in this place started - I think it was long before Arpaio, though. The MCSO is just one of the worst sites it metastasized to; it certainly isn't the only one. Nevertheless, Joe Arpaio and his cronies should be excised from this community immediately if we are to ever know the meaning of justice here. The DOJ isn't promising that, however. What consequences does Arpaio face if he loses this round to the feds, anyway? A big fine, perhaps? No - the rest of the county has to pay that part, most of which will come out of lifesaving resources for the poor, of course. They don't even broach the issue of restitution for his victims. Does he actually have to step down (with a healthy pension), or maybe just promise to "reform"? No indication that they have that in mind, either - he could run for office again, for all we know. So, what are all those civil rights laws for, anyway, if they leave abusers in power and enjoying the fruits of their crimes? I really don't know what the point of their lawsuit is, except for the feds to say they did something (even if it amounts to nothing beyond them reclaiming a few million bucks).


Even though it's a rare thing for the Justice Department to sue a police agency, this lawsuit is still petty bullshit when you stack it up against what the man and his machine have done. As far as I'm concerned, Arpaio is worse than the schoolyard bully that too many people dismiss him as. He's more like a gang leader being allowed to run loose with deadly weapons, commandeering an army of thugs who, at his orders, are kidnapping people, committing hate crimes, terrorizing communities, collecting protection money, and persecuting his enemies with threats of violence under the color of "law" - all while he's "under federal investigation" for civil rights violations. How is it not a real crime to violate someone's civil rights, anyway - especially when you chain them up in the process?


Maybe the documents Arpaio refuses to release hold evidence of corruption that could be criminally prosecuted - if so, they have or will be destroyed before he lets them destroy him. I doubt that man will ever get sentenced to jail or prison time, like some of the Arpaio 5 might. Marcia Powell was killed while doing a 27-month prison sentence for offering a cop a blow job, while Arpaio has prostituted himself to White Power for as long as he's been in office, spreading his racist, misogynistic venom in the community like an STD. He's a far greater threat to public safety than either the Arpaio 5 or Marcia could possibly be. So how is it that in the nation which incarcerates more of its citizens than anyone else in the world, this man is not worried about going to prison? I find this to be a very disturbing miscarriage of justice all the way around.


I can't imagine what more the DOJ needs to investigate to prosecute Arpaio. There's no lack of witnesses or evidence here to his criminal conduct: he's publicly boasted about it to no end. He should be arrested immediately and held without bail so the communities he persecutes don't have to keep living in fear. Unfortunately, no one with power in this state defends the common people or human rights - people like Russ Pearce cultivate bigoted, selfish, abusive men (and women) like him. They know Arpaio and his henchmen will enforce only those laws they make to protect their own interests - against those who resist or can be bullied - with the consent of a largely "Christian" public that votes from their fear, rather than from what they profess is their faith.


My bet is that I'll be the one who ends up in jail before the feds pack up and go home - not Sheriff Joe. If any of the Arpaio 5 are doing time there, though, I'd be more free in their company for cursing the state than I would be if I silently empowered the evil holding the keys to our chains.

one of the Phx PD's more dangerous hoodlums:
"Remember Marcia Powell"

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Department of Justice Sues Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for Refusing to Cooperate With Investigation

Friday 03 September 2010

by: Nadia Prupis, t r u t h o u t | Report

The US Justice Department (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday for alleged civil rights violations and refusal to cooperate with a federal probe.

Arpaio, who leads the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) and calls himself "America's toughest sheriff," has drawn both criticism and support as one of the country's most outspoken opponents of illegal immigration. Arpaio is also an active participant in 287(g) - a program funded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that trains and authorizes state police departments in enforcing federal immigration laws. The MCSO has deported more than 26,000 immigrants in the past three years, one-quarter of the national total of 115,841.

Since March 2009, the DOJ has attempted to investigate Arpaio for a litany of alleged civil rights abuses, including racial profiling, unconstitutional searches and seizures and enforcement of English-only policies in his jails, but Arpaio's office has refused to produce all the requested documents. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits federally funded programs such as 287(g) from discriminating on the basis of race, color and national origin, and grant recipients are required to provide the DOJ full access to documents, facilities and staff during investigations. To receive federal funds for its participation in 278(g), the MCSO signed contractual agreements that assured its compliance with Title VI and promised its full cooperation with discrimination probes.

This DOJ investigation is not the first time Arpaio has faced federal charges for civil rights abuses. A separate probe launched this year by a grand jury is looking into abuse of power charges against Arpaio after he conducted baseless prosecutions of political opponents. In 1997, the DOJ also investigated Arpaio for civil rights abuses within his jails, alleging that he deliberately failed to discipline guards who subjected inmates to excessive use of force. Arpaio's compliance in that case led to the implementation of more humane jail policies, including the limited use of pepper spray, stun guns and restraint chairs.

Thursday's lawsuit marks the first time in more than 30 years that the DOJ has had to sue a police force for compliance. Arpaio refused to comply with an August 17 and a September 10 deadline to produce documents requested over 15 months ago.

"The actions of the sheriff's office are unprecedented," said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. "It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities."

Arpaio's attorney Robert Driscoll wrote in a letter to Judy Preston, acting chief for the Special Litigation Section, that the MCSO "certainly did not agree that every document DOJ requested is required to be produced in a Title VI investigation ... If DOJ seeks to dictate every deadline and maintain the position that it, in its sole discretion, can determine what it wants and when, without any reasonable limitations on scope and without any input from MCSO, what DOJ truly seeks is compelled or coerced compliance. MCSO is committed to providing DOJ with a reasonable amount of information and documents based upon which DOJ can investigate allegations of national origin discrimination."

The MCSO and Arpaio's alleged crimes violate not only Title VI, but also the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. According to the lawsuit, if the MCSO is found guilty of discriminatory behavior, Maricopa County stands to lose an estimated $113 million in federal grants. The funds also go toward programs such as assistance for low-income families and health care for the homeless.

During a press conference Thursday morning, Arpaio expressed disappointment in the ongoing investigation. "I thought we were really close to getting this resolved," Arpaio said. He also promised to proceed with his current operation of 278(g), stating, "I'm going to continue, maybe tomorrow, to enforce all the illegal immigration laws ... As [State Senator Russell Pearce] always says, 'Take the handcuffs off the cops.' I'm not going to be intimidated by the federal government going to court against us."