Thursday, January 10 Teach-in: "The Prison-Industrial Complex in Ohio" Speakers: Dan Cahill*, Director of Prisoners' Advocacy Network - Ohio (PAN-Ohio); & Ida Strong, Assistant Director of PAN-Ohio & Managing Director of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants - Ohio (CURE-Ohio) * Dan Cahill's articles "The Global Economy Behind Ohio Prison Walls" and "Worked to Death" (the latter co-authored with Paul Wright) are published in _The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry_ (ed., Daniel Burton-Rose with the editors of _Prison Legal News_ Dan Pens and Paul Wright -- for more info on _The Celling of America_, go to <http://www.commoncouragepress.com/burton_celling.html>). Time: 5:00 p.m. Location: 115 Stillman, Ohio State University, 1947 College Rd., Columbus, OH
The current US rate of incarceration (including both prison and jail) of 699 persons per 100,000 population advances the U.S. position as the world leader in imprisonment. The US overtook Russia in 2000 where a continuing amnesty program has reduced the rate to 644 with further reductions planned. Forty six percent of the overall prison population is African American. Young African American males in particular continue to be incarcerated at a shockingly high rate. Nearly 10% of black males ages 25-29 are in prison on any given day. The rich get richer, and the poor get prison, exacerbating racial inequality in the process. Moreover, more than 10% of federal prisoners are now housed in for-profit private prisons. Starbucks, Jansport, and Microsoft all use prison labor to package their products; and Corrections Corporations of America, the nation's largest private jailer, has been dubbed a "theme stock for the 1990s." As capitalism locks up the wretched "surplus population" whom it cannot employ at prevailing wages, it exploits them as slave labor in sweatshops behind bars. As Dan Cahill notes, "The unprotected use of prison labor leaves prisoners open to the possibility of extreme abuse....[In a trash-burning power plant run by Shaneway in Columbus, Ohio, work-release prisoners] worked in toxic ash which contained arsenic levels of 2 1/2 times those allowed by OSHA standards; cadmium levels at 5 times; lead at 138 times; and dioxin at levels 770 times the ambient air in the community." (Sources: The Sentencing Project at <http://www.sentencingproject.org/>; Christian Parenti, _Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis_; and Dan Cahill and Paul Wright, "Worked to Death") Appalled? Come and discuss, with Dan Cahill and Ida Strong, what is to be done about the Prison-Industrial Complex! Sponsored by the Student International Forum For an OSU Campus map, visit <www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/stillmanhall.html>. For more info, contact Yoshie Furuhashi at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or 614-668-6554; and Keith Kilty at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or 614-292-7181. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/> _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
