Research on the crime control industry
Prisonsucks.com is a clearinghouse for useful, verifiable statistics about the crime control industry. Too often prison activists use statistics that are out of date, provided without citation or simply wrong. One of these days the public will start listening to prison activists, so let's be prepared to win without being sidetracked by arguments over defective statistics. In some cases, the numbers we need don't exist. In others, the facts exist but activists don't know where to find them. Now you do.
May 2002
7Up to pull prison rape commercial
May 25, 2002
A campaign led by Stop Prisoner Rape and endorsed by our sponsor the Prison Policy Initiative has succeeded in getting 7Up to stop airing a national television commercial that makes light of rape in prison.
"Nearly 100 organizations spoke out to say that prisoner rape is a horrific human rights abuse that must be taken seriously,i said Stop Priosner Rape Executive Director Lara Stemple, iand weire happy 7UP has listened."
DrugWarFacts.org website summarizes research
May 14, 2002
DrugWarFacts.org from Common Sense for Drug Policy is a frequently updated list of facts and research (with references) to many different aspects of the war on drugs. You can also download the whole website in one handy 120 page booklet. It's a great resource.
New Album from Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
May 11, 2002
The socially conscious Antibalas Afrobeat Ochestra has a new album out: Talkatif. On their website, Antibalas (which means anti-bullet) include a list of links they recommend, including this site!
Antibalas write: "As the prisons (aka slave ships that don't move) grow in size and number, we must become the abolitionists of our time" and describe prisonsucks.com as containing "UP-To-DATE facts on the prison industry, useful for all concerned people and activists." Thanks Antibalas and congratulations on the new album!
UK prison drama - Bad Girls
May 8, 2002
The website of the hit UK prison drama Bad Girls has posted a link to this site; and we're glad to discover the show. Most interesting is that the show has teamed up with Payback and the The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies to produce fact sheets to coincide with each episode for viewers that want to find out more about the reality of life in a women's prison.
Enronesque scandal meets the crime control industry...
May 1, 2002
Check this article from the Wall Street Journal:
Charity Lends a Hand to Prisons With Murky Off-the-Books Deals
"As scrutiny of complex accounting grows in the wake of the Enron collapse, Provident -- a prison-owning foundation run by a group of lawyers and financial pros -- offers the unusual twist of a nonprofit playing the off-the-books game."
Read: Charity Lends a Hand to Prisons With Murky Off-the-Books Deals
Incarceration Clock
As of --:--:-- -.-. today, there are an estimated -,---,---, people in U.S. prisons and jails. Source.
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Electronic books:
- Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Prison Abolitionists, 1976
- Limits to Pain by Nils Christie, 1981
Other resource lists:
Like the site? Love the book!
Written by the editor of this site and co-published with the Western
Prison Project, The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control
Industry is the first index of statistics about our nation's criminal
justice system ever published. Containing 611 facts and 17 graphs and
charts, this 48-page volume presents, in black-and-white, the state of
crime control in America. Read more and order online.