Blog Jun 22, 2009
Save the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office
Few events better reflect the priorities of elected officials more vividly than a budget crisis. It is during a budget crisis that policy-makers are forced to choose between the interests of powerful or popular constituencies and the needs of the less powerful and most vulnerable citizens. Presently, this drama is being played out in San Francisco where social and legal services to the poor are being slashed while Police and Fire Department budgets are being protected. This Faustian bargain…
Newsroom Jun 22, 2009
Save the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office
Save the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office BeyondChron, June 22, 2009
Newsroom Jun 22, 2009
School safety programs that work
School safety programs that work Examiner.com, June 15, 2009
Blog Jun 11, 2009
Prison Industry
I’m sure not too many people noticed but a brief news report from a newspaper in Chattanooga, Tennessee called attention once again to the perils of the privatization of prisons. This story involves the settling of a lawsuit filed against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the leading private prison company in the world. (Here’s the story , which has a link to the actual lawsuit that you can download). Although the case centered around one prison in Hamilton County, it was a national…
Blog Jun 9, 2009
The Return of the Chain Gang
In my previous blog I referenced a recent book by Douglas Blackmon on the subject of convict leasing. One of the enduring offshoots of this system has been the “chain gang,” popularized by the film “Cool Hand Luke” (with Paul Newman, which carefully tried to make it seem as if it were mostly white) and memorialized in several books (e.g., “I am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang” — also made into a movie, again trying to be race-neutral). Chain gangs began in the South around the turn of…