The Plague of Prisons
Just came across a book review of A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America by Ernest Drucker on the drugsense.org blog. Here’s an excerpt of the review from Craig Jones:
Every student of epidemiology learns the story of the Broad Street pump (London, Summer 1854), which marks the birth of epidemiology. In A Plague of Prisons, Ernest Drucker uses that story as a metaphor to explain the explosion of incarceration in the United States that followed the 1973 enactment of the Rockefeller drug laws and to illustrate how political decisions act as vectors – pumps – and how these vectors create a social epidemic of gargantuan proportions.
Drug Policy Alliance
The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is the nation’s leading organization promoting alternatives to current drug policy that are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. They just launched a great looking new website and are at the forefront of pushing for legislation on a number of drug related issues.
Support the Barber Amendment
The Barber Amendment is also know as the The Sentencing Reform Act of 2011 but don’t let that stop you from supporting the petition on change.org that already has over 28,000 signatures. This bill was introduced around this time last year and I have a feeling we could see another push in 2012 from FedCURE.
View the petition at change.org and decide if you’d like to help out.
Help Fund the Second Chance Act
Recently, the Senate eliminated funding for the Second Chance Act in their version of the FY 12 funding bill for the Department of Justice. Although funding was eliminated in the Senate bill, there is still time to restore funding for the program when the House and Senate Appropriations Committees attempt to resolve differences between the two spending bills. It is crucial that the field respond quickly with letters to the Hill to ensure that the Second Chance Act is funded in fiscal year 2012.
MARIJUANA-ARRESTS.COM
Just came across a new site that provides data on marijuana related arrests and discovers some interesting facts related to race and arrest rates. Taken from Drugsense.org:
Marijuana-arrests.com is an online library about marijuana possession arrests, race and police policy in New York City and beyond.
Help End Mural Moratorium in LA
Check out this email I got from change.org:
The city of Los Angeles thinks art is crime.
L.A. changed its municipal code several years ago to classify murals as “signs,” meaning no mural can be painted without a pricey and difficult to obtain permit from the city.
Now the city is cracking down on unpermitted murals: Private contractors are covering up murals while police are issuing fines, making arrests, and even conducting raids on artists.
Piper Severance is a Change.org member and a close friend of Saber, a prominent street artist who is campaigning to end this ban on murals in L.A. Piper started a petition on Change.org asking L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich to end the moratorium on murals.
Cali State Government
It’s always tough to keep track of your elected state officials and half of us don’t know them anyway so I thought it would be helpful to consolidate California State officials into a quick reference page.
Back at it
Ok, the site was down for a while but we are back at it. Thanks for your support and stay tuned…
Rewind
Check out this video circa 2006 of Keldren’s last day out.
September 2006 last FREE day in Los Angeles
part 2
