We’re off to a great start.

Since the Federal Court put Governor Jerry Brown on a strict three week deadline to reduce the state prison population, we’ve started to build the pressure it will take to make him do actually do it.

Today, we need you to help build that pressure directly on lawmakers.

Click here to send a message to your elected officials and Governor Brown, telling him that we expect nothing less than the visionary plan Californians want and need.

As Ruthie Gilmore wrote in a much-shared Facebook post yesterday:

“California has 50,000 fewer people locked in prisons and jails than it did five years ago. We have the opportunity in the coming months to make further reductions in a system that destroys lives, inside prison and out, and to shift public priorities and public spending away from cages and cops and into programs that build a stronger and safer California.”

The Governor has shown that he’s much more interested in playing a game of legal chicken than in solving California’s prison crisis – with no respect for the real people’s lives that are at stake.

On May 2nd, when he has to submit his plan to the court, we want that foot-dragging to stop.

We want an ambitious, courageous plan that reduces the number of people in prison by at least 9,000 and doesn’t rely on costly prison construction. We demand a plan that includes retroactive sentencing reform and proactive parole reform that brings home lifers, parents, rapidly aging and medically fragile prisoners, and further reduces the women’s prison population.  And we don’t want to see him push the crisis onto the counties by realigning more people and forcing taxpayer funds into costly new jail construction projects.

We want our people, and our resources, home where they belong.

So far, our media work has helped hold Brown’s racist fear-mongering at bay.  But now we need to open up direct lines of communication with lawmakers themselves, and show just how determined we are.

Please click here now and send a your elected officials a message now.

Thanks for stepping up,
Diana Zuñiga
Field Organizer

P.S.: if you don’t live in California, we still need you! Click here to send a message to Jerry Brown. He needs to know that people all over are watching, and want to see real action.

April 14th, 2013

Yet again this week the Ninth District Federal Judges ordered Governor Jerry Brown to downsize California’s massive and unconstitutional prison system. State officials have three weeks to produce a plan in compliance with the court’s order first issued in 2009. It’s time for everyone to echo the court’s determination: “Enough!”

For decades California has built and filled prisons. For decades grassroots organizations have fought against that all-purpose solution to problems set into motion by California’s profound economic restructuring. The organizations were right, and convinced many skeptics – from public sector unions to newspaper editors to Johnny-come-lately advocates to federal courts – that the state’s direction was wrong.

Nearly four years ago a three-judge panel concluded that conditions in California prisons violate the 8th Amendment, and identified the size of the state’s prison population as the cause of those violations. At that time the Court ordered the prison population downsized to about 110,000. In 2011 The Supreme Court upheld the decision. Parole reform and Brown’s realignment plan have reduced the in-state population to 124,167 (with another 8,501 held in out-of-state private prisons).

California’s prison crisis has reached a definitive crossroads. Should Gov. Brown and most of the state’s law enforcement establishment have their way, we’ll see a return to the growth of the prison system both in the number of cages and the number of people held in those cages. Criminal justice ‘reform’ will have amounted to little more than shifting some incarcerated people from state to county supervision. And for many of the state’s counties, ‘supervision’ will mean doing time in jail. In Los Angeles County, for example, scandal-ridden Sheriff Baca has proposed building a new $1 Billion men’s jail and wasting another $200 Million for a women’s jail.

The alternative path is clear: the Legislature must enact real, retrospective sentencing reform. Lawmakers must also develop new policies on medical and elderly parole, compassionate release, and good time credits. County Boards of Supervisors can and must resist pressure to increase jail capacity, and instead invest state realignment money on services in the most vulnerable neighborhoods.

For Gov. Brown and LA County Sheriff Baca the crisis is an inconvenience that has temporarily slowed the growth of the state’s system of mass incarceration and shifted its course of development. For others, it is a remarkable opportunity to undo three decades of cynical disinvestment in California’s future.

The Governor’s pathetic efforts to stir public anxiety (“I’m sure the people in L.A. would like to see more prisoners out on the streets”) is an excellent indicator of how bankrupt his ‘reform’ efforts are politically, morally and intellectually. That he is, as Diana Zuñiga of CURB put it, “digging in his heels to defend an indefensible prison system” is not a surprise. That he has sunk to fear-mongering shows his desperation.

California has 50,000 fewer people locked in prisons and jails than it did five years ago.  We have the opportunity in the coming months to make further reductions in a system that destroys lives, inside prison and out, and to shift public priorities and public spending away from cages and cops and into programs that build a stronger and safer California.

Over the next 3 weeks, the details of the state’s compliance plan will be fought out. Help us win that fight.

Ruthie Gilmore is Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her prize-winning book is Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (2007). She serves on CURB’s National Advisory Board, is a co-founder of Critical Resistance and the California Prison Moratorium Project, and is past President of the Central California Environmental Justice Network. 

Sign up Today! Help build an activist network strong enough to seize the moment:

510-435-1176

Sacramento: Yesterday’s ultimatum by the 3-Judge panel puts Gov. Brown and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) on notice to present a plan for further reductions in the state’s unconstitutionally crowded prisons within the next three weeks.

“The propaganda that Gov. Brown & Secretary Beard have been feeding Californians didn’t cut the mustard with the Court,” said Misty Rojo, Program Coordinator for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. “Conditions inside continue to be terrible, and in women’s prisons the situation is getting worse.”

Advocates who have criticized the Governor’s criminal justice realignment plan as inadequate were quick to praise the Court decision.

“Realignment itself, no matter how it was implemented, was never going to produce an adequate reduction in the prison population,” said Diana Zuñiga, Field Organizer for Californians United for a Responsible Budget. “It has been clear for years that a serious solution to the prison crisis would require serious sentencing reforms and changes to parole and compassionate release policies.”

The Court ordered the CDCR and Governor to “identify prisoners unlikely to re-offend” and reduce the population by 9,000 before the end of the year.  The Court threatened the Governor and other state officials with contempt of court if they fail to comply. Groups led by those who are members of Californians United for a Responsible Budget have worked for years to convince Sacramento to institute common sense changes already in place successfully in other states, including:

“This is a historic opportunity for the Governor,” said Debbie Reyes of the California Prison Moratorium Project. “Governor Brown put California on the disastrous road to mass incarceration during his second term in the 1980s. During his second second term, he can begin the process of turning California away from a prison-first mindset. The sorts of real changes the Court demands will require changes to California’s dysfunctional sentencing laws. Those changes should, as the Court suggest, be applied both prospectively and retrospectively.”

“Will Gov Brown and Secretary Beard continue to dig in their heel to defend an indefensible prison system? Or will they demonstrate that they have the courage, vision and leadership we need to make meaningful changes to our super-sized prison system?” asked Zuñiga.

Free participatory workshop in Inglewood this Saturday

Contact: Diana Zuñiga

Diana@curbprisonspending.org

213-864-8931

Los Angeles – Residents of Los Angeles County will gather to plan what would make their neighborhoods healthier and safer in an innovative workshop to be held this Saturday, March 30 from 2-7 pm at Chuco’s Justice Center (1137 E. Redondo Blvd Inglewood). The workshop is called “Envisioning a Healthy FREE LA: Community Solutions not Jail Expansion”.

“At a time when the Board of Supervisors is considering proposals from the Sheriff to spend nearly $200 million on a new women’s jail and almost $1 billion on a new men’s jail, we want to provide space and tools for residents to envision how $1.2 billion might be used differently. This space is crucial for the community to create our definition of public safety and build a vision for justice outside of cage,” said Kim McGill, a former prisoner in LA County Jail, who works with the Youth Justice Coalition and the LA No More Jails coalition.

The workshop will be facilitated by members of the group Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, including the organization’s president, architect Raphael Sperry. Sperry was awarded a prestigious Soros Justice Fellowship in 2012.

“Workshops like the one we’ll be hosting on Saturday are an important way to democratize the planning process,” Sperry explained. “It is especially important that the public have a voice when massive public projects are proposed. By the time a completed plan is presented to the Board of Supervisors, the public’s options are generally reduced to support it or to oppose it. We are offering an opportunity for people in LA to identify needs and problems and for them to help design solutions that meet their needs.”

Workshop organizers promise an interesting day of activities open to all. “The only expertise needed is to have lived in Los Angeles. If you have an idea about what your neighborhood or this County needs, you have all the credentials you need to help,” said Sperry.

“We’re going to create real alternatives to the Sheriff’s shortsighted jail expansion,” said organizer Mary Sutton of Critical Resistance, a community organization sponsoring the workshop. “We’ll be making drawings, maps and models of what we could build that would really help our communities.”

“The Sheriff is proposing to spend at least $1.2 billion in public funds in construction costs alone, and who knows how much more in annual operations,” said Sutton. “This workshop will allow Angelenos to have a say in how our tax dollars are spent. Public financing for a public project should require public planning.”

The day’s schedule includes a teach-in on plans for jail & prison expansion from 2:00-3:30 and workshops to develop drawings and models from 4:00-7:00.

Workshop organizers include: Californians United for a Responsible Budget, Critical Resistance, LA No More Jails, Youth Justice Coalition, and Architects / Designers / Planners for Social Responsibility.

#30#

For Immediate Release–March 21, 2013

Crowding at Women’s Prisons Remains Key Issue

Press Contact:  Isaac Ontiveros

Californians United for a Responsible Budget

Ph. 510 517 6612

What: Rally

When: Friday March 22, 8:30 am

Where: California State Building, 350 McAllister Street, San Francisco

San Francisco—  Formerly incarcerated people and prisoner advocates plan on voicing their urgent concerns about ongoing prison crowding at a conference being organized by UC Hastings College of the Law on California’s notorious prison system.  The conference, Correctional Crisis: Realignment & Reform Symposium, lists more than two dozen speakers, many working with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).  Elected officials, academics, CDCR officials, criminologists, and law enforcement will discuss various state and county responses to the “seismic changes” in the California Prison system since 2009.  Since former prisoners and prisoner advocates are not well represented on the Symposium’s panels, they will be rallying outside to call attention to the deteriorating conditions and ongoing health crisis women and transgender prisoners are facing inside California’s prisons, amid claims by the CDCR that the crisis has been resolved.

As Hafsah Al-Amin of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners points out, crowding rates now exceed 200% of capacity at Central California Women’s Facility.  “It took two lawsuits, decades of organizing, and hundreds of needless deaths to break the public silence about the California prison crisis,” says Al-Amin.  “Now the CDCR and the Governor are trying to tell us once again that everything is fine and the crisis is over.  In reality, women are suffering terribly inside prison and in the county jails, and they are speaking out and fighting for their dignity.  We cannot and will not abandon that fight.”

In January more than 400 people from across California converged on Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla to demand an immediate end to the crowding crisis at that prison.  Under the state’s own guidelines, over 4000 women, or nearly half the state’s women prisoner population, are eligible for release under the CDCR’s Alternative Custody Program.  At the Correctional Crisis symposium, advocates will continue to push for release of these women, along with compassionate release for ill prisoners, parole for elder/geriatric prisoners and immediate changes to healthcare access.

“If you want to understand the crisis in corrections, from the county level to the state level, you only need to look at how it is affecting women,” says Courtney Hooks of Justice Now.   “In the past few months, since Valley State Prison for Women was converted into a male facility, women at CCWF have seen their health care deteriorate rapidly.   Instead of releasing thousands of women who are eligible to live in their communities, counties like Los Angeles and San Mateo are proposing building new women’s jails.”

Activists will be making their issues heard at a rally in front of the symposium at 8:30 a.m and throughout the day at the various panels and plenaries.  Emily Harris, statewide organizer for Californians United for a Responsible Budget notes, “If you are going to hold a conference on the Correctional Crisis, you must include the people directly impacted by the crisis – prisoners, formerly incarcerated people and their communities.”

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For Immediate Release--March 11, 2013 

Contact: Isaac Ontiveros

Californians United for a Responsible Budget

Ph. 510 517 6612

Who:  LA No More Jails Coalition

What: Rally and Demonstration

When: 10am, March 12, 2013

Where: Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, 500 West Temple St., Los Angeles

Los Angeles—On March 12, Los Angeles residents will gather for a rally to oppose the County’s multi-billion dollar jail expansion.   Rally planners and participants hope to deliver a clear message to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors that LA County Sheriff Lee Baca’s proposed new women’s jail, which he has dubbed a  “Rehabilitative Village,” will have a harmful impact on LA communities, particularly on communities of color already suffering the highest rates of incarceration, unemployment, and lack of access to social programs and services.   The Sheriff’s proposed expansion plans could add more than 7,000 beds to what is already one of the world’s largest jail systems.  More than 1,100 of those would be use to cage women.

“Unlike Sheriff Baca, we’ve actually talked to women who have been locked in L.A.’s jails , some of us have been locked in these notorious jails ourselves, so we know what sorts of programs women need to improve their lives,” said Kim McGill, a former prisoner in LA County Jail, who works with the Youth Justice Coalition and the LA No More Jails coalition that is planning Tuesday’s action. “Women don’t need a new jail or a better jail. They need programs in the community that will help them stay on their feet and support their families.”

Advocates have pointed out the irony that the same sheriff’s department that is insisting it is best equipped to develop a new jail culture by providing treatment and programs for incarcerated women is at the same time under multiple investigations for abusing people locked in its jails.

The No More Jails coalition has also been vocal in pointing out the particularly devastating impacts of the jail on women of color.  “Women in the L.A. County jail are mostly poor women and women of color. Incarcerating these women only perpetuates the cycle of violence in their lives”, said Diana Zuñiga of Californians United for a Responsible Budget.   “Most of the women locked in LA County Jail were convicted of non-violent crimes, almost half of them are mothers, up to 25% were diagnosed with mental illness, and many of the women have a history of being abused and sexually assaulted.”

“We don’t need these new jail cells, we don’t want these new jail cells, we can’t afford these new jail cells,” said Mary Sutton of Critical Resistance, a member of the No More Jails coalition. “This is another of the Sheriff’s extravagant boondoggles. We can make real reductions in the so-called ‘need’ for jail beds through programs like evidence-based pre-trial assessment, bail reform and community mental health services. How many people are being held pre-trial because they can’t afford to make bail?”

Planners of Tuesday’s rally are calling on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to put a stop the sheriff’s controversial jail expansion plan and instead use the $124 million received from the State in AB109 realignment to fund community-led drug treatment, housing, education, job training.  They are also calling the County to prioritize services and programs for people returning home from prison and jail.

Tuesday’s rally will feature lively expert testimony, music, and art.  Speakers will be available for interviews in English and Spanish.

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JOIN US TUESDAY TO KEEP THE PRESSURE ON THE LA BOARD OF SUPERVISORS TO STOP THE LA JAIL EXPANSION

Help us Get Organized

Call Your Supervisor Today
This will take less than a minute. If you are a resident of Los Angeles County (click here) to figure out which district you live in.  Here’s what to say when you call:

Hi, My Name is ______________ and (I am a constituent of District ______________ and) I am calling to urge Supervisor ______________ to vote against the proposal to accept $100 million of AB 900 to build a new women’s jail on March 12th.  LA doesn’t need a new jail, can’t afford and new jail, and doesn’t want a new jail
Contacts for Supervisors:

District 1: Supervisor Molina: (213) 974-4111

District 2: Supervisor Ridley-Thomas: (213) 974-2222

District 3: Supervisor Yaroslavsky: (213) 974-3333

District 4: Supervisor Knabe: 213-974-4444

District 5: Supervisor Antonovich: (213) 974-5555
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Media Alert – March 8th

Women’s Survival is Focus of International Women’s Day Events in Los Angeles

What: International Women’s Day Event

When:  Saturday, March 9, 10:30am

Where: Outside the Downtown Jail, 441 Bauchet St LA 90012

Contact: Pat Alviso, Military Families Speak Out 562-833-8035

Nancy Berlin, Alexandria House 323-422-2830

Margaret Prescod, Women of Color Global Women’s Strike 323-646-1269

Diana Zuñiga, Californians United for a Responsible Budget 213-864-8931

Spanish speaking contact: Rossana Cambron 562-728-7895

A series of actions are planned for Los Angeles on Saturday March 9 to commemorate International Women’s Day with the theme “Women: Surviving Globally, Surviving in Southern California.” The SoCal event is part of global actions taking place in India, Guyana, Haiti, US, UK.

SoCal Events include a 10:30 rally and speak-out at the Twin Towers jail (441 Bauchet St), a March for Survival from the jail to The Last Bookstore and a 1:30 teach-in at The Last Bookstore (453 S. Spring).  Children’s activities; food; wheelchair accessible.  All events are free of cost and all are welcome.  Interviews are available prior to and at the event in English and Spanish.

LA City Council has issued a resolution entitled “Women: Surviving Globally, Surviving in Southern California to honor the contributions of the women of the City of Los Angeles.

“Our focus on International Women’s Day will be on the increasingly precarious position of women and our children in Southern California and around the world,” said Margaret Prescod of Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike. “The ongoing economic crisis is hitting single mothers, immigrants and other low and no income people the hardest, and women of color are disproportionately impacted.  And our children with few options end up in the military, thus far  over 400 teenagers have been killed in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The women are calling for an end to poverty, for support, for the RISE, and for the WORK Act which will be reintroduced into Congress. The women are calling for the halt of the building of the new women’s jail or “village” in Los Angeles; for establishment of a Bill of Rights for Domestic Workers; to halt the removal of children by DCFS simply because the mothers are poor; to stop the separation of families resulting from immigration laws and more.  The women want a change of priorities from a war and prisons economy to one that priorities the caring of people and the environment. Global demands can be found at www.globalwomenstrike.net.

“California has been cutting funding for welfare, homecare, public education, health care,  food security and other basic survival needs of low income communities,  youth, the elderly and people with disabilities,  while increasing spending on prisons and local law enforcement and undermining labor unions,” said Nancy Berlin of Alexandria House  ”Our very survival is being criminalized.  With 50 million people  living in poverty in the US what mother would not do what she needs to in order to put food on the table and keep a roof over the heads of her children?

“While billions of our tax dollars are being spent on war, the continuing war in Afghanistan, veterans are not taken care of  when they get home   In LA County there are 9,000 homeless Vets.  Our loved ones in the military are  still dying, and countless come home unable to deal with the effects of PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, sexual trauma and other invisible wounds of war, says Pat Alviso with Military Families Speak Out. “Every day about 22 veterans in the US kill themselves.”

“The US has 5% of the world’s population and has 25% of the world’s prisoners. Women are increasingly suffering from homelessness and incarceration. Women are having their children taken from them every day. Women are hungry and in need of health care. What does Los Angeles County want to do? They want to build a $200 million so-called ‘Women’s Village’ – a new jail!” said Diana Zuñiga of Californians United for a Responsible Budget. “The women of Los Angeles don’t need a new jail or a better jail. We need to be out of jail with housing, food, education, quality healthcare of our choice and other resources necessary for the care of our families, communities and the environment.

Coordinating the So Cal events is the So Cal IWD Planning Group:  Alexandria House, Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), Critical Resistance, DCFS Give Us Back Our Children, Every Mother is a Working Mother Network, Iraq Veterans Against the War LA Chapter, KidVillage@OccupyLA, Martin Luther King Coalition, Military Families Speak Out, NO MORE JAILS LA, Veterans for Peace, Women’sCircle@OccupyLA, Women of Color/Global Women’s Strike and GWS/LA
Co-sponsors to date: California Partnership, Coalition to End Sheriff Violence, Long Beach Area Peace Network, Long Beach Recruiter Awareness Project, Orange Co Peace Coalition, Youth Justice Coalition

Global Action called by: the Global Women’s Strike including in: Guyana, Haiti, India, Peru, UK, US