Pp 25 Of Many Prisoner Rights Poem by Saiom Shriver

Prisoners have a right to

1 life
2 libraries
3 communication tools
4 clean surroundings
5 blankets
6 immediate release for marijuana arrests
and many other nonviolent crimes
7 conjugal visits
8 food in accord with spiritual or ethical beliefs
9 noise free environment
10 protection from guard or other prisoner violence
11 access to lawyers
12 protection from extremes of heat and cold
13 protection from medical experiments
14 exercise... sunlight
15 job training
16 high school and college classes
17 medical attention
18 freedom from slave manual labor
19 voting (Jesus, Gandhi, Dr King were defined by
the arresting authorities as felons)
20. spiritual and or meditation time
21. ethical sentencing

22. the right to food without saltpeter or other toxic additives

23 the right to fresh fruit and vegetables in quantity

24 for citizens imprisoned in another country (the right to contact ones consulate... a right not honored by G W Bush... citizens of Germany, Canada, Mexico were executed without their contacting their embassies)

25 the right to human companionship (not solitary confinement except in rare instances)




Prison Facts

1. The US has 2.3 million prisoners, more than any other country in the world including China which has 5 times the population.

2.56% of these prisoenrs are incarcerated for nonviolent drug use.

3. One million guards, prison cooks, and others depend on this large prison population for their livelihoods. Prisons were built in poor, white, rural counties to provide jobs.

4. In addition, the federal ATF agency and several others have higher budgets because of the high prison populations.

5. Corporations make huge profits from the privatizing of prisons.

6. Mandatory sentencing laws passed by Congress are harsher than what 99% of jurors want.

7. The average prisoner costs the taxpayer $27,000 a year. The average is more than doubled for older prisoners serving life sentences with medical problems.

8. Glenn E Martin stated in a radio show that a robbery in which no one was home is still classed as a violent crime.*

9. Sentencing of prison populations has involved much heavier incarceration rates for blacks and for the poor. Bernie Madoff is perhaps the only member of his economic class in jail, and that, say some, is because he stole from the 1% who were richest and not the other 99%.

10. One example of the racism in sentencing is that crack cocoaine guidelines are much harsher than those for cocaine. A white cocaine user had to have 100 times as much of his drug as a black crack user to land in jail. That was changed. Now it's 18 to 1 instead of 100 to 1.

11 'Why call prisons correctional facilities when their goal is punishment not rehabilitation'

was the statement of a caller to Tom Ashbrooks radio show On Point.

12. Senator Rand Paul, candidate for President: Youthful mistakes should not cause someone to be punished for his entire life. (paraphrased)

13. Joblessness creates idleness which is a cliamte for crime.

14/ Between 1990 and 2000, says Judge Mark Bennett, in a mere 10 years the prison population went from 1 million to 2 million.

15. Tom Ashbrook reported that both Bill Clinton and Joe Biden created 3 strikes legislation, requiring that those who have been convicted 3 times of felonies receive life sentences.

16. In many prisons, religious and ethical dietary principles are not respected.

17. At least 14 prisoners in Texas since 2007 have died of temperatures as high as 130 degrees.

18. Prison guard violence has caused untold deaths and beatings.