"Prisons are the largest censors in the United States.

Single state prison systems censor more books than all state schools and libraries combined. Literature gets banned by prison mailroom staff quickly flipping through books as they inspect the mail. These cursory judgments sweep up medical books, drawing and art books, popular magazines, history books and literature of all kinds. Prison censorship prevents people in jails and prisons from reading."

#justice_league

https://prisonbannedbooksweek.org/

"Hidden Consequences: The Impact of Incarceration on Dependent Children

Family members of incarcerated individuals are often referred to as "hidden victims" — victims of the criminal justice system who are neither acknowledged nor given a platform to be heard. These hidden victims receive little personal support and do not benefit from the systemic societal mechanisms generally available to direct crime victims, despite their prevalence and their similarities to direct crime victims.[1]

Children whose parents are involved in the criminal justice system, in particular, face a host of challenges and difficulties: psychological strain, antisocial behavior, suspension or expulsion from school, economic hardship, and criminal activity."

#justice_league

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/hidden-consequences-impact-incarceration-dependent-children

Prison Job! :)

#justice_league

https://youtu.be/Dkt5P5nfXi4?feature=shared

"The right to have confidential conversations with an attorney in the English-based legal system dates back to at least 1577. In 1973’s United States v. Rosner, the U.S. Supreme Court maintained that government interfering in attorney-client communications is a violation of a person’s Sixth Amendment rights. Even in prison, the attorney-client privilege is supposed to be a bedrock principle of the American justice system. But in 2021, attorneys and activists are concerned that that right is being threatened in prison systems around the country.
Prison email and messaging services bake privilege-destroying agreements into their terms and conditions.

While there are some exceptions, attorney-client privilege generally applies to all communications between those two parties. That includes digital communications such as email or instant messaging. But when it comes to people in prison and their legal counsel, that isn’t always the case."

#justice_league

https://interrogatingjustice.org/right-to-counsel/attorney-client-privilege-prison/

„A hidden path to America’s dinner tables begins here, at an unlikely source – a former Southern slave plantation that is now the country’s largest maximum-security prison.

Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. After rumbling down a country road to an auction house, the cows are bought by a local rancher and then followed by The Associated Press another 600 miles to a Texas slaughterhouse that feeds into the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill.

Intricate, invisible webs, just like this one, link some of the world’s largest food companies and most popular brands to jobs performed by U.S. prisoners nationwide, according to a sweeping two-year AP investigation into prison labor that tied hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural products to goods sold on the open market.

They are among America’s most vulnerable laborers. If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement. They also are often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job.”

#justice_league

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/01/30/prisoners-in-the-us-are-part-of-a-hidden-workforce-linked-to-hundreds-of-popular-food-brands

„Studies show that religion enhances emotional well-being among prisoners, but they rarely address how. Professors Sung Joon Jang and Byron R. Johnson at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, examine the effects of religion on offenders in the South African correctional system. They test whether religiosity is likely to lead to a sense of meaning and purpose in life and the development of virtues, thereby reducing prisoners’ negative emotions. Their findings suggest that the concept of offender rehabilitation should be expanded to include how to help offenders restore their existential significance and develop virtuous characteristics.
The positive effect of religion on subjective well-being is well documented in social scientific studies using samples of the general population, and the same effect has been found among prisoners. This finding has practical implications because negative emotions such as anger, frustration, depression, and anxiety among prisoners may contribute to mental health problems and prison infractions including violence and suicide. Previous studies have indicated that inmates are prone to these emotions because in prisons, also called “total institutions”, they not only experience the loss of liberty, access to goods and services, security, sexual partners, and autonomy, but they also often struggle with feelings of shame and guilt about their crimes and incarceration.

Such emotions lead prisoners to face an “existential crisis” where they question the meaning and purpose of their lives. As a result of their experience of “hitting rock bottom”, prisoners often come face-to-face with the reality that their lives lack meaning and thus have little to lose by committing acts of deviance.”

Praise The Lord (the one you fancy)!

#justice_league

https://researchoutreach.org/articles/effect-religiosity-emotional-wellbeing-among-prisoners/

„The free STEM camp was made possible through a partnership between Prison Fellowship Angel Tree® and a network of organizations that believe in a future where every child has an equal opportunity to thrive. Through its partnerships, Angel Tree helps families impacted by incarceration find healing and restoration by providing enriching experiences and community-based services.

One of the partners for the Atlanta camp was STEM WARS, an organization providing portable, high-tech, hands-on learning environments and interactive STEM lessons.

“We just appreciate Prison Fellowship Ministries for this opportunity. It’s always a blessing when we can engage youth but also where there’s a religious component to it,” William Troy Curry, CEO and founder of STEM WARS, says. “We love this partnership. It truly is our ministry.”

The Prison Fellowship Angel Tree team worked diligently to set up a fun environment for campers. The common meeting space was reminiscent of a hotel ballroom—without all the fanfare—and was sectioned off with room dividers for the various activities. The main meeting area was filled with uncovered round tables to encourage conversation and fun.

As campers rotated through the workshops, the meeting spaces buzzed with excitement. In one room, children flew drones and learned how this technology is changing the way companies make deliveries, do surveillance, and perform other tasks.

In another space, children sat in chairs around the perimeter of the room. They used a tablet to control a tennis ball-size robot, called Sphero, and drive it around orange cones.”

#justice_league

https://www.prisonfellowship.org/2024/08/back-to-school-prepared-for-success/

„As calls increase for better water quality monitoring and mitigation in rural and economically disadvantaged communities, emerging research adds prisons, jails and detention centers to the areas of concern. A new paper published in the American Journal of Public Health finds that 47% of America’s carceral facilities are in a watershed likely contaminated with “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. Because of limited water testing, only 5% of the facilities are in a watershed already known to carry dangerously high levels of these non-biodegradable molecules, but the study shows the true number is likely to be much higher.

Incarcerated populations are of particular concern for toxic drinking water because they have reduced access to mitigating a known exposure. Incarcerated people are generally already in worse health and therefore more vulnerable to acute health impacts compared to the free population.”

„Exposure to PFAS is associated with reproductive and developmental effects, certain cancers, liver harm and hormone disruption.”

„These facilities house around 990,000 people, including at least 12,800 juveniles. The majority of these people — 890,000 — are incarcerated in state and county-run facilities.

The authors note that because about a third of the carceral facilities were missing population data, the total number of people who could be exposed to the chemicals is probably higher.

“It’s important that this is a nationwide study because analysis up to now in studies similar to ours have been at very hyperlocal levels,” said Poirier. “It was challenging largely because of substantial data gaps when it came to water quality monitoring, and gaps in the data, such as for population, on the carceral side. We’re trying to draw attention to areas that have been underassessed.”

„The authors stressed that this is where more research is desperately needed, because contaminated water, especially for young people, can have lifelong consequences for health.”

#justice_league

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/drinking-water-america-carceral-facilities-high-pfas-levels

"
Write a letter, change a life

Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign transforms the lives of people whose rights have been wronged.

Write for Rights supporters are united by their desire to make a difference. In recent years, we’ve seen real change to people’s lives because of your action. From Zimbabwe to Guatemala, activists have been released and justice delivered.

This year’s campaign features people from around the world, all connected because their human rights have been violated. Some by their governments, others by the police, or by big corporations. All because of who they are and what they do.

Together, we can fight for their rights.

Join Write for Rights today."

#justice_league

https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/write-for-rights/