Bring Oprah to Perryville this season.

Friends of Marcia Powell and AZ prisoners:

I actually wrote this weekend to invite Oprah to help us pass Marcia's law (a bill of rights for AZ prisoners), feeling that drawing her into the scene at Perryville would open up the avenue to all other prisoner rights' issues, there and elsewhere.

You should write as well, (that link goes to "who do you want to see interviewed?") especially if you have loved ones enduring conditions at Perryville, so they know it's more than just me concerned. Mention Marcia's death, in case they miss my email. Try to get others to do the same. If enough of us (women and men alike) write about these issues from across the country (world), I bet her producers look into covering an angle. We need mainstream attention to elevate prisoners rights to the level of public discussion here before the legislature convenes in Jan. If Oprah comes, the rest of the media will follow.

Please take a minute and hit her site - we have nothing to lose if we're ignored, and prisoners everywhere have a lot to gain if our collective voice is heard.

Here's what I said in the first category I made an entry in (who to interview - meaning as many women at Perryville as possible):

"Marcia Powell was nobody - just a mentally ill, drug-addicted prostitute and prisoner of the state of Arizona when she was locked in an outdoor cage in 108 degree heat last May after stating she was suicidal. For nearly four hours guards ignored and mocked her as she begged for water, pleaded to get out of the sun, and defecated on herself. She died with second degree burns on her body, and no family willing to claim her remains. No one responsible is being prosecuted; some have their jobs back. Please remember her and the women still suffering in AZ's Perryville state prison. Help us pass Marcia's Law so that this never happens again. http://freemarciapowell.blogspot.com. I could have been Marcia Powell."


Here's the link for the most incredible cancer survivor story. I submitted Sue Ellen Allen's story in that category... here's what I said there:

Sue Ellen Allen is an extraordinary woman who survived cancer in jail and prison in AZ. Her essay on the experience (http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/3610/prmID/1622) won a PEN American Center prison writing contest in 2009:

(excerpts)

"Someone told me there are 365 references in the Bible to fear. Basically, all of them say, “Fear not, for I, the Lord thy God, am with you.” So, with my faith that I treasure, why am I afraid, always afraid?

It started in (Sheriff Joe Arpaio's) Estrella Jail where the incessant noise, violence, hostility, and indifference overwhelmed me. It is a hellish place for a healthy person. Everyone is in black and white stripes and the conditions breed anxiety and stress....

All of these women are going to court. Not me. I am going to Maricopa Medical Center for a mastectomy...

That’s the real fear . . . my helplessness in the face of a medical department that is incompetent and apathetic. My life is literally in their hands and I’ve come to feel they don’t give a damn. I am not a patient with cancer. I am an inmate with cancer and that is full of hidden meaning..."

Sue Ellen's 25 y.o. cellmate, Gina, died in Perryville prison for lack of diagnosis and treatment - all too common a story there. She formed GINA's Team (http://sueellenallen.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/on-my-birthday/) when she got out, to help other imprisoned women. Sue Ellen is a truly amazing survivor giving back to those the world would just as soon forget are dying inside.


Please pass this email on to anyone inside that you can. Women writing from prison should send their suggestions directly to:

Jon Sinclair/Vice President

Keisha McClellan/Director

Kathleen Penny/Associate Director

Harpo Creative Works
110 N. Carpenter St.
Chicago, IL 60607

Creativeinquiry@harpocreativeworks.tv


Finally, please let me know if you or someone you know left her producers a plug for Perryville or Marcia's law, so I can blog updates on our efforts. It should only take 5 minutes. Use my name and number (Peggy Plews 480-580-6807) as a contact or back up number if you want.

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"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness, and our ability to tell our own stories..."

- Arundhati Roy

Abolish them all.

First, let me repeat: There needs to be an independent outside investigation of the death of Marcia Powell, and the appropriateness of certain policies as soon as possible - before evidence is corrupted. This is the latest on the story from Stephen Lemons at the Phoenix New Times. It is titled: "Marcia Powell did have next of kin." (She was removed from life support just hours after she was brought in from under the sun. Why could that not wait for a meaningful search for next of kin? How can Ryan investigate himself on this?)

Also announced today: It's been a little more than two weeks since Marcia Powell died, and the Perryville prison complex in Goodyear just can't get by without using outdoor cages, so they're back. It was previously reported that prisoners were supposed to be checked on every 30 minutes - that's the brilliant new policy they have in place now, with a log book where staff have to document when the prisoner was last seen alive.

That's going to keep people like Marcia from heatstroke and death again?

Here's the AZ Republic article announcing it.

Why don't we ever hear what prisoners and families have to say?

Also came across this article today about how creatively states are saving money on prisoner food budgets: they're just eliminating meals. Some prisoner advocates argue that making food a scarce commodity in prison is not only a denial of human rights, but it creates an opening for more violence.

That make sense, since it will also lead to more time and more reason to leave people locked down or in solitary. And I guess if people are busy fighting for food they won't be clamoring for luxuries like health care.

That's often an effective tactic used against poor people who are trying to organize: hunger is no small thing. Hunger is a brutal form of torture that can be dragged out for years; it wears down ones resistance and gnaws at our children; it brings entire armies to its knees. Hunger feeds our jails and prisons already with check-kiters and petty thieves - need we starve them there, now, too?

The new budget proposal calls for privatizing several prisons in AZ, including Perryville, where Marcia died and and Death Row lives. The only thing in the way of this legislation passing is the Governor. All attention should be focused on the governor's office. She could even write Marcia's law into this budget with oversight and prisoner rights protections, provisions for reducing the flow of people into prisons and overcrowding, and appropriations to make it meaningful. Marcia's Law could be a deal-maker, if she wanted it to be.

Enough of us have to let her know we want Marcia's Law first. And what we want in it.

For folks with questions about where the prison reform advocates are on this, contact Middle Ground Prison Reform in Tempe. Donna Hamm is the one who proposed Marcia's law, and probably has a clear agenda for what that might look like.

When you do contact your legislators and the governor's office, please just remember the following concerns that need to be raised:

1. do not privatize prisons - the DOC needs to be accountable - focusing instead on saving money through decarceration;

2. adequately fund re-entry assistance, long term affordable housing, and employment opportunities (and options for the disabled) to reduce recidivism;

3. reform sentencing laws to reduce incarceration rates, and

4. put teeth into prisoner rights protections - including funding more intensively for training of guards and prisoners alike about rights,

5. Citizen - community-level - oversight of facilities based on the overall jail/prison population, so both communities that operate prisons and those that lose their children to them are represented;

6. New policy immediately: no more cages (That makes a great freewayblogging sign, if you can find a fenced overpass);

7. Prioritize making recommended reforms to health and mental health care services for prisoners, and compassionate release for those who are elderly and seriously or terminally ill.

We need to take control of these institutions - just like our schools - and hold government accountable.

We don't need more commissions and studies, really. This can just be done. Just keep in mind the vision of a world with no need for prisons, and step by step we'll blaze a trail. It's already begun. Critical Resistance, in fact, produces the CR Abolition Organizing Tool Kit, which is worth the $15 I think they ask for it. Spend some time on the website - it's a great resource. There are a few other good books at that link too - I'd recommend all four selections for starting an abolition library.

I'd also recommend a subscription to The Abolitionist (same page): mine just came today and it's pretty good. It helps to see how others address the dilemmas and challenges inherent in building a world without bars.

Because She Matters

I was visited by the blogger at http://www.becauseshematters.blogspot.com/ today. Her site also appears to have come up in the wake of Marcia's death, out of a desire to do something for other women in the sex trade. Since I didn't get an email address from her, I just wanted to say thank you. Perhaps our paths will soon cross.

The service for Marcia today was well-attended: I'd say seventy-five to a hundred people came in all. There was an interesting cross-section of the community - not only were there prisoner advocates, but Women in Black, Code Pink, anarchists and the Department of Corrections were all represented, as was the faith community. Stan Hemry, a longtime local peace activist, described meeting Marcia while serving people meals for "Phoenix Food Not Bombs"

(Food Not Bombs is worth supporting; they salvage food from local stores and restaurants, cook it up and serve it for free in public places frequented by hungry people. Cities all over the country have been trying to pass legislation banning them from feeding people because what they do is political, it's not charity. They make hunger visible, and challenge the popular notion that nothing can be done about it. They reclaim the commons. They put food to use that would otherwise go to waste. And most of their meals are vegan, so that no animals are hurt in the process of making them.)

Anyway, if anyone knows hungry people on the street, it's the folks with Food Not Bombs. Stan's memory of Marcia was so distinct because of her missing teeth: she needed help finding food that was soft enough to eat. He said he remembers her being nice and saying thank you - which is more than any of the rest of us could say, having come to know her only through the eyes of those who have seen her criminal records. Given that, however, it was good to see how many people turned out to pay their respects, to show they cared, and to commit themselves to seeking changes in the systems which have let so many people down, Marcia only being the latest to die as a consequence.

Donna Hamm of Middle Ground Prison Reform was quite emphatic that no outdoor cage - covered or not - is an acceptable place to hold human beings. Right on. And the AZ DOC has over 200 of them scattered across 10 prison complexes in the state. Marcia's treatment wasn't exceptional - it was the norm. She just happens to have died from it. Donna also maintains that an independent investigation needs to be done into the incident and the AZ DOC's policies, and has called on the AZ attorney general to initiate a criminal investigation.

I wonder if Marcia had lived to complain about it if any of us would stop and listen. Who would know what complaints have already been lodged against the DOC for inhumane treatment? How would the public ever know?

Hundreds of prisoners - nearly two thousand at one point - in the Maricopa County jails have been on a hunger strike for weeks over food and conditions. People inside and outside alike having been protesting human rights violations by the MCSO. How is that man still in office?

How much of our outrage over prisoner rights is evoked by the image of a battered white woman that isn't aroused by the image of a latino man in chains? Is one any more or less deserving than the other? I guess each of us has to ask that question of ourselves as we consider how far we're willing to go now for justice: justice for Marcia and every other prisoner of the state.

Donna called for Arizona to pass "Marcia's Law", one or more pieces of legislation to assure protections of prisoner rights. I guess the prisoner's right to life is probably one that needs to be made explicit. I'd shoot for restoring civil rights of prisoners, amending the slavery provision of the 13th Amendment, and prohibiting prison privatization. So long as they're considered less than full citizens and their exploitation profits someone, prisoner's rights can't really be protected.

In addition to helping to channel the energies of the community into a call for action, I think the point of Marcia's service was to reinforce a community standard that every life has value, and that every human being should be treated with dignity. We don't like to see ourselves as perpetrators of torture in America, yet we allow people to needlessly suffer. Getting justice for Marcia means more than holding people responsible for the immediate circumstances of her death. The brutality that Marcia endured lasted more than a few hours or a day, as evidenced by the traumatized woman's eyes in that haunting mug shot. She was punished all her life.

As for the Department of Corrections: Ryan (who was present for the service) is lucky there wasn't a massive call for his resignation today. That will probably come this week. In the meantime, we need an outside investigation and full disclosure of records of prisoner complaints against the DOC. Why assume that the cages were the only means of punishing unruly prisoners? And why assume it would only happen once or twice?

Whether or not a punishment is "cruel and unusual" under the 8th Amendment is gauged in part by whether or not it "comports with human dignity". What exactly that means is open to debate - not even the Supreme Court has reached consensus about that - but boiling prostitutes alive was out of practice before the Bill of Rights was even written. I hope that most people would agree we've evolved - morally, as a society - beyond criminalizing, caging and killing "deviant" women and the mentally ill, which is what it comes down to. Now we just have to put that standard into practice. If our state lawmakers don't take advantage of this moment to lead criminal law reform, then they'd better at least learn to follow. The forces united today to pay respect to Marcia Powell could be much more formidable tomorrow, and will be armed with an agenda for change.