Prison system exposed from many angles
By
Cheryl LaBash
Detroit
Published Aug 30, 2007 12:27 AM
The hall for an Aug. 25 forum on “The Prison-Industrial Complex and
Prisoners’ Rights” was packed, illustrating how deeply Detroiters
feel about these issues, particularly the African-American community and other
people of color. A panel of speakers and a film—“Torture:
America’s Brutal Prisons”—documented that what has happened
in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and Afghan detention centers is part and
parcel of the U.S. government’s denial of fundamental human and civil
rights of oppressed peoples here and around the world.
From different perspectives, speakers exposed a system that has resulted in
more than 2 million people each year finding themselves in the clutches of the
U.S. prison-industrial complex. The meeting was initiated and chaired by Kevin
Carey of Workers World Party.
According to Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan African Newswire and an activist
with the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI), the
U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of those
imprisoned, and is one of the few countries that still inflicts the death
penalty.
Doreen Bey, a youth advocate, described the war on youth that ensnares 65,000
young people in Michigan each year, leading to prison terms for 4,000. Stuck
with court-appointed attorneys, young people are often questioned without their
parents or lawyers present. Strong-armed into plea bargaining, they are
channeled into a system that collects $50,000 per child incarcerated. Bey
stated that many youth sentenced to life imprisonment can’t comprehend
what that means and still ask when they are going home.
Two speakers who have been struggling for a jury of peers for people of color
now face serious retaliation for defending this basic democratic right. Judge
Deborah Thomas can no longer hear pretrial motions and is facing action to
remove her from the bench because she allegedly is anti-police and
pro-defendant. Rev. Edward Pinkney spoke to the meeting via phone from house
arrest in Benton Harbor. Pinkney was convicted by an all-white jury after an
earlier, diverse jury could not reach a decision on politically motivated fraud
charges.
Additional speakers included Kay Perry of MI-CURE, which monitors state
legislation related to prison reform, and Andrea Egypt of MECAWI, who spoke on
the plight of women in the prison system. An urgent appeal was made to stop the
pending Texas execution of Kenneth Foster and a report was presented on new
developments in the case of the Cuban Five, who are being held in U.S. prisons.
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