Prisoners’ Hunger Strike – Solidarity Against All Odds
In 2013, for two months, over 30,000 prisoners throughout 67 percent of the California state prison system went on a hunger strike to protest their treatment. This was the third hunger strike by prisoners since 2011, and it was by far the biggest fight in the history of the prison system in this country. Against […]
The Origin of the Police
There weren’t always police on every street corner with the power to stop, search, and harass people in the name of the law. For most of human history, daily issues of society were settled by people themselves, in their communities. Police forces were introduced by governments controlled by the wealthy, not to protect people but […]
Affluenza?! WTF?
Last December, Ethan Couch, a white 16-year old killed four people while driving drunk. He was sentenced to rehab and ten years probation, but will serve no jail time. His defense argued that he suffered from “affluenza” – what a psychiatrist described as a real condition when the rich are so wealthy they have no […]
The Rich Get Richer – The Poor Get Prison
The worst criminals in our society are the super rich. Bankers and CEOs cause horrible pain and suffering to millions of people around the world, but they are rarely punished for their crimes against humanity. Poor and working people, however, are incarcerated at ever increasing numbers, even though the crimes they commit usually stem from […]
A Nation of Mass Incarceration
The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world. While the U.S. has less than five percent of the world’s population, it has about 25 percent of the world’s prisoners – half a million more than China, which has five times as many people as the U.S. There are about 2.3 million prisoners in […]