[Peace] Tues, Apr 12 (2016) 6pm / director of the Prison Monitoring Project (IL state prison watchdog group)

[Karen Medina]

Dear Peace,

The incarceration rate and the overcrowding of Illinois prisons are
issues related to war and racism.

Another "Prison Family Workshop"
Speaker: Gwyn Troyer is the director of the Prison Monitoring Project
for the John Howard Association, Illinois' prison watchdog group.
(Want to read a little about the PMP for the JHA?
http://www.thejha.org/monitor )

Date: Tuesday April 12
Time: from 6 - 7:30
Location: Champaign Public Library / Robeson Pavilion Room C / 200 W. Green St.
Child care: Yes, provided
Refreshments provided.

JHA's Prison Monitoring Project investigates state's prisons'
conditions around health care, education, disciplinary procedures, and
more. During this workshop, Ms. Troyer will discuss why prison
oversight is so important, what she has learned from monitoring
Illinois' prisons, and how family members can engage in advocacy
around prison conditions.

This event is cosponsored by EJP (Education Justice Program) and State
Rep Carol Ammons.

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* Illinois’ prisons were the nation’s most overcrowded in 2014. -
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-leads-nation-in-overcrowded-prisons/
* The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is the largest in
the world. In 2012, close to 25 percent of the world’s prisoners were
held in American prisons, although the United States accounts for
about 5 percent of the world’s population. The U.S. rate of
incarceration, with nearly 1 of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is
5 to 10 times higher than rates in Western Europe and other
democracies.
* Those who are incarcerated in U.S. prisons come largely from the
most disadvantaged segments of the population. They comprise mainly
minority men under age 40, poorly educated, and often carrying
additional deficits of drug and alcohol addiction, mental and physical
illness, and a lack of work preparation or experience.
* High rates of incarceration affects public safety as well as those
in prison, their families, and the communities from which these men
and women originate and to which they return. Incarceration rates
affects U.S. society. - http://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/12
* The best single proximate explanation of the rise in incarceration
is not rising crime rates (crime rates rise and fall yet incarceration
rates continuously increase), but the policy choices made by
legislators to greatly increase the use of imprisonment as a response
to crime. Mandatory prison sentences, intensified enforcement of drug
laws, and long sentences contributed not only to overall high rates of
incarceration, but also especially to extraordinary rates of
incarceration in black and Latino communities. Intensified enforcement
of drug laws subjected blacks, more than whites, to new mandatory
minimum sentences—despite lower levels of drug use and no higher
demonstrated levels of trafficking among the black than the white
population. Blacks had long been more likely than whites to be
arrested for violence. But three strikes, truth-in-sentencing, and
related laws have likely increased sentences and time served for
blacks more than whites.
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