By Anakwa Dwamena, The New Yorker — Several months before the coronavirus first arrived in Brazil, this spring, a series of man-made tragedies befell Maria Marques Martins dos Santos. On November 12th, dos Santos, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three, whose five-foot frame is crowned by curly brown hair, was at her home, in Favela do Amor, in São Paulo. Just after midnight, her fourteen-year-old son, Lucas, went out to buy soda and…
By Kim Hjelmgaard, USA Today — Editor’s Note: If interested in this article, you may also be interested to know that The Right of Repatriation is included in NAARC’s 10 Point Reparations Program. “Africans in America who choose to exercise the right to return will be provided with sufficient monetary resources to become productive citizens in their new home..” – Read it here. Okunini Ọbádélé Kambon knew: He was arrested in Chicago…
The National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls will be hosting a virtual conference October 2-3, 2020.
By Rebekah Barber, Facing South — During this time of pandemic-related social distancing, phone conversations are helping people stay sane and connected. But incarcerated people, who are among the most vulnerable to the novel coronavirus, face significant barriers when it comes to accessing phone calls, which are more vital than ever given restrictions on in-person visits. Prison telecommunications is a $1.2 billion industry dominated by Securus Technologies, headquartered in Carrolton, Texas, and Global Tel…
By Dr. Julianne Malveaux — There were 4623 incarcerated people over 65 in federal prisons during the first week of May. Until May 12, Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s one-time campaign manager, was one of them. The 71-year-old petitioned the court for release to home confinement because of his age, heart condition, and “fear of coronavirus.” Yet the federal correctional institution that housed Manafort had no coronavirus cases, and Manafort had…
Prisoners have made furniture, license plates and government uniforms during the pandemic. In a factory, social distancing is almost impossible. By Cary Aspinwall, Keri Blakinger and Joseph Neff, The Marshall Project — As the coronavirus spread across the country, Patrick Jones kept reporting to his job in the textile factory at the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. He’d worked there for years, sewing tidy buttonholes on government uniforms. Though the highly contagious virus…
No other state is thought to have taken such sweeping action to reduce its jail population in response to the pandemic. By Tracey Tully, NYT — New Jersey will release as many as 1,000 people from its jails in what is believed to be the nation’s broadest effort to address the risks of the highly contagious coronavirus spreading among the incarcerated. New Jersey’s chief justice, Stuart Rabner, signed an order late Sunday authorizing the…
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA — Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Chair Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) held an emergency telephone town hall on Friday, March 20, to discuss the coronavirus and its impact on the Black Community. The discussion also included the coronavirus’ impact on the prison population and the homeless. “Even though we’re in a crisis, we can’t lose momentum,” Bass stated in kicking off the one-hour discussion. Led by…
By John L. Micek, The Philadelphia Tribune — State Rep. Chris Rabb wants the state to pay reparations to people who are wrongfully sent to prison. In a memo seeking co-sponsors for his proposal, Rabb, D-Philadelphia, notes that Pennsylvania is one of 15 states without a law mandating compensation for innocent people for the years they lose behind bars. “Without a state compensation law, the only option for exonerees to…
All of them returned to the South’s frontline struggle for racial justice. By R. Drew Smith — In 2020, January remembrances of Martin Luther King Jr. are occurring against the backdrop of two high-profile films emphasizing sacrificial servant leadership. First, the film Harriet provided a renewed focus on celebrated abolitionist Harriet Tubman. This biopic chronicles her mid-19th century enslavement in Maryland, her daring escape to a hard-won freedom in Philadelphia, and her…
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