Archives for posts with tag: prison

No more kids jailed at Hutto!

August 6, 09
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I don’t think that any of the hundred individuals who marched in protest under the blazing sun six weeks ago thought this would happen so soon, which makes the news all the more exciting. Immigrant detention policies are changing. After a few years of activism in the courts, media and on the streets, children will no longer be held behind bars at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas. Now it will hold only women, many of whom will likely be separated from their children. More info.

Podcast with pictures: Texans march against Hutto detention center on World Refugee Day

June 22, 09
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Click the arrow button in the bottom right-hand corner below for a better view. (Sorry about the wind noise, folks!)


This was my second time traveling out to Hutto. Transcript and more information below. (more…)

Activists hold vigil for immigrant detainees on hunger strike

May 7, 09
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vigil
Image from Houston Indymedia.

I contributed a short story on this for today’s Free Speech Radio News headlines. Here’s a less edited version of the story, and my original script below that:

Activists held a vigil on the International Bridge in Brownsville, Texas today in solidarity with detainees at the nearby Port Isabel Detention Center. Up to 200 detainees have been on hunger strike for nearly two weeks in protest of the conditions at the facility. Anayanse Garza of the Southwest Workers Union says the detainees are now taking turns on hunger strike in order to maintain their health. (more…)

Family of murdered prisoner wins $42.5 million in suit against GEO Group

April 8, 09
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I contributed a short headline report to Free Speech Radio News today on this story.  Listen here.

The Texas 13th Court of Appeals upheld a judgment today to award $42.5 million in damages to the family of a prisoner murdered a private prison  The man was beaten to death in 2001 at GEO Group’s (then called Wackenhut) Willacy County jail by two inmates as prison officials, including the warden, stood by and laughed.  Video evidence of the beating was either lost or destroyed.

I interviewed Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership for the story.  He’s optimistic that this strongly-worded ruling, on top of increasingly frequent and well-documented abuses and scandals at private prisons around the state, will help push the Texas Legislature towards re-regulating corporate-run facilities in important ways.  Real justice, i.e. the abolition of private jails and detention centers in Texas, is probably still a ways off.  But this is progress.  (Image from texasprisionbidness.org.)

Recently published

December 15, 08
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I contributed a short headliner to Free Speech Radio News on the Justice Department’s devastating report on the state of Texas mental institutions last week (in short, they’re so underfunded and understaffed that the rights and well-being of the folks in the system are under constant threat). Listen at FSRN. (Also, Racialicious re-published my Quantum of Solace review today.)