Category Archives: Prison Industrial Complex

Gov. Deal Wraps Up Criminal Justice Reform Agenda, Four Years Later

nathan deal

(APN) ATLANTA — Gov. Nathan Deal made criminal justice reform one of the priorities of his administration.  While he has been problematic on medical cannabis issues, Gov. Deal has pushed forward of several criminal justice reform measures that came out of the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform.   As reported by Atlanta Progressive News in 2012, this Council made […]

Read more

Activists Host Panel on “Georgia Gulag”

gulag

(APN) ATLANTA — On Saturday, December 05, 2015, the Campaign to End the New Jim Crow hosted a program at the Little 5 Points Community Center called, “Georgia Gulag: It’s Up to Us to Stop It.”   In Georgia, there are eighty prisons, 22 youth detention facilities, five immigrant detention facilities, and 193 jails, plus probation centers.   “Mass incarceration […]

Read more

Eleven Arrested while Protesting Stewart Detention Center, including One Atlantan

lady liberty

(APN) LUMPKIN, Georgia — On November 21, 2015, over 1,400 people came from across the U.S. for the ninth annual “Shut It Down” march on Stewart Detention Center.  It was the largest protest yet against the private Correction Corporation of America’s (CCA) for-profit prison.   Up to 1,750 immigrants are held at CCA without due process or the right to […]

Read more

African Americans for Hillary Clinton Event disrupted by Song, Chants of “Black Lives Matter”

hillary

(APN) ATLANTA — On yesterday, Friday, October 30, 2015, thousands gathered at Clark Atlanta University’s Epps Gymnasium to hear Presidential candidate, and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton speak, as she rolled out her African Americans for Hillary campaign at the historic Black college.   Clinton took the stage and acknowledged and thanked prominent Civil Rights Movement leaders from the […]

Read more

Stewart Detention Center On Lockdown as Detainees Protest Inhumane Conditions

stewart

(APN) ATLANTA — Detainees at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia were apparently met with retaliation for protesting inhumane conditions this week.   “We are deeply concerned for people currently detained at Stewart.  As communication in and out of the facility has been limited, it has been difficult to monitor the situation,” Silky Shah, co-director of the Detention Watch Network, […]

Read more

SCHR Files Suit on Debtors Prison Practices by Probation Firm in South Georgia

rsz_1adel

(APN) ATLANTA — The Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) has filed a civil rights lawsuit against Red Hills Community Probation on behalf of indigent people who say they have been injured by the company’s bullying and abusive business practices.  Red Hills operates in the municipal courts for the cities of Bainbridge and Pelham, Georgia.  Both cities are in south […]

Read more

Georgia Removes Criminal History Question from State Job Applications

ban the box

(APN) ATLANTA — Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday, February 23, 2015 signed the fair hiring policy, also known as “Ban the Box,” which postpones questions on a job application about a person’s criminal history until it is shown that the person is qualified for the job.   This prohibits an automatic disqualification for potential state employees.  It allows qualified applicants […]

Read more

National Conference on Mass Incarceration Held in Atlanta

killed by law enforcement

(APN) ATLANTA — A national conference sponsored by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network was held February 07 and 08, 2015 at the Interdenominational Theological Center at Atlanta University.   A wide variety of people, approximately two hundred, from California to New York, attended.  They came to Atlanta to prepare for a nationwide day of resistance, on April 14, 2015, to […]

Read more

Misdemeanor Fee-based Probation Tolling Ends after Georgia Supreme Court Ruling

hugh thompson

(APN) ATLANTA — The Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously ruled, on November 24, 2014, that courts are prohibited from lengthening a person’s misdemeanor sentence beyond what was originally ordered by the sentencing court.  The opinion was written by Chief Justice Hugh Thompson.   The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s finding that private probation companies do not have the legal […]

Read more

Moral Monday Exposes Fraud by Wells Fargo

(APN) ATLANTA — Moral Monday Georgia and Occupy Our Homes Atlanta (OOHA) are exposing Wells Fargo’s crimes against their customers, including by having held a march to a Wells Fargo downtown Atlanta branch at 240 Peachtree Street on Monday, April 28, 2014.     Wells Fargo has a well-documented history of abusing customers seeking mortgage modifications, racial discrimination, robo-signing, predatory […]

Read more

Georgia Prisons Face Crisis of Inmate Violence: 32 Deaths in Four Years

(APN) ATLANTA — The Southern Center for Human Right (SCHR) and State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) held a legislative hearing, on Thursday, April 10, 2014, at the State Capitol, on the increase of violence and violent deaths in the Georgia prison system.       “Several years ago we noticed that we were receiving… ever-growing reports of trauma and violence […]

Read more

Activists to Push Legislature for Medical Marijuana in Georgia

(APN) ATLANTA — A coalition of organizations that deal with marijuana policy reform have come together to push the Legislature to address the issue of medical marijuana in the upcoming 2013 Legislative Session. The new coalition, the Georgia Campaign for Access, Reform & Education Project (Georgia CARE Project), held a press conference at the State Capitol on Monday, December 17, […]

Read more

Georgia Considers Reforms to Reduce Prison Population, Costs

With additional reporting on the Special Council’s recommendations by Matthew Cardinale. (APN) ATLANTA — This year, the Georgia Legislature is expected to begin considering a package of reforms intended to reduce the state’s prison population as well as the enormous costs to taxpayers that Georgia’s mass incarceration policies have caused year after year. The Report of the Special Council on […]

Read more

(IPS) ANALYSIS: Why Innocence Didn’t Matter for Troy Davis

This article first appeared on the Inter-Press Service website at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105613. ATLANTA, Georgia, Oct 26, 2011 (IPS) – “Innocence matters” is one of the slogans used by activists opposing the U.S. state of Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis, up until the day the sentence was carried out by lethal injection on Sep. 21. It seems like stating the obvious that […]

Read more