This is Under Lock and Key An organization of Pennsylvania prisoners calls for a phone boycott in May California's "Three Strikes" law is not linked to drop in crime A new film documents the centrol role of prisons in rural towns Historian Howard Zinn speaks on Amerikan slavery in the 20th Century Mumia Abu Jamal asks: "Is the Death Penalty the poor's prerogative?" Massachusetts Supreme Court is weighing prisoner DNA databank An organization of Pennsylvania prisoners and their families is protesting the high surcharges of prisoner's collect phone calls. They are calling for prisoners to boycott the phone system for the month of May. In recent years, many state prisons have instituted new phone systems, which often place restrictions on who prisoners can call and require that calls be made collect. Worse still, is that the surcharge for collect calls from prison is much higher than on regular collect calls, with the Department of Corrections benefiting from this extortion. In the hopes of forcing the Department of Corrections to renegotiate the contract with AT&T, Voices Behind the Walls is asking prisoners to boycott the thirteen hundred phones in the state's prisons during the month of May. VOICE RAIL insists that the restriction on prisoners phone calls shows that the U.$. injustice system is not concerned about crime. One of the few things that affects recidivism is the amount of contact a prisoner has with their family, and by high phone fees, the system wants to cut prisoner & family communication. Prisoners come from the poorest families who already pay taxes to support the prison system. But on top of that, the state wants to tax these families again through the phone charges. Since the installation of new phone system, we have learned of a number of phone boycotts organized by prisoners. The planning of this effort speaks well to the boycott's potential of success. The prisoner's action may have an even greater impact by disrupting an already existing income stream for the DOC. MUSIC Data on California's crime rate and draconian "Three-Strikes" legislation shows that there is no connection between crime and imprisonment rates. NEW VOICE Under California's "Three-Strikes" law, any person convicted of a third felony may receive a sentence of 25 years to life. This has led to such injustices as a man being sentenced to 25 years for stealing a piece of pizza, another for stealing a pair of blue jeans, yet another for stealing a bottle of aspirin, and on and on. Whether or not to try a particular felony as a third strike is up to the discretion of the prosecutor. The rate of "Third-Strike" convictions in Sacramento is 12 times that of San Francisco. However the crime rate in San Francisco dropped more in San Francisco than any other city in California. As we discussed in a previous program, the drop in the crime rates across the u.$. is likely due to the temporary upturn in the economy, and perhaps a decrease in the trade in crack cocaine. [pad out show to 15 minutes with middle of California Uber Alles by Disposable Heroes ideal length 1min] Yes, In My Backyard is a new film by Tracy Huling VOICE This film is a valuable resource for anti-prisons activism because it describes the extent to which prisons have become an asset to the u.$. economy. The film's strength is in showing the extent to which the prisons industry encourages its employees, their dependents, and players in regional economies to think of prisons only as an economic boon. People whose family's bills have always been paid by the prisons have no incentive to question the rehabilitative value of the prisons, or to ask if increased imprisonment has any effect at all on the crime rate for which it is supposed to answer. Yes, In My Backyard is about Coxsackie, a small Hudson River-side community in New York whose local economy is based on two state prisons. Describing the character of Coxsackie and towns like it, the filmmaker said part of the reason she wanted to make this film is that the prisons are central to the town's existence. In these towns everybody knows people who work there, and most families depend on the prison for their livelihood Ñ but nobody will talk about what this means in public. The major difference is that twenty or thirty years ago, there were not nearly as many prison towns in this country. And half a century ago, prisons were not a central growth industry in the united snakes. Amerika's status as an imperialist country gives its citizens the luxury to work in non-productive jobs. But the 1970s brought the beginnings of a boom in prisons, and with it tremendous growth in the number of people directly employed in the business of military control of the oppressed nations. A retired Corrections Officer interviewed in the film explains the job security prisons provide: [worst/better in jail/job 10 sec] 3-2-1 Prisoners at Greene are shown doing farm work in Yes, In My Backyard; the prison has a milk and dairy farm run by a local farmer. In one unnarrated scene, an unseen guard yelled at a Black prisoner working in the dairy farm to pull his pants up. The same scene was repeated without the yelling one or two more times during the film. Our best guess is that this scene was evidence of the general harassment of the oppressed nationalities that goes on in the prisons. In Michigan where RAIL saw this film, wearing sagging pants and other Black urban styles is classified as the mark of a gang or Security Threat Group (STG) member. We assume the white rural guards in New York State are as intolerant and repressive of Black culture as the white rural guards in Michigan. Coxsackie opened its first prison early to replace the town's dwindling commercial economy. A local historian explains in the film that as a river-town, Coxsackie saw a lot of commerce from the Hudson River traffic 100 years ago. But once the highway was built and goods transportation switched to road vehicles, the town needed some new enterprise. Coxsackie is happy with its 2 prisons and wants another one built in their community. The mayor -- who is also a prison employee -- explains why he supports building more prisons in his town: [mayor lobbies for prisons 28 sec] 3-2-1 As a long-term prison town, Coxsackie has a lot of history of the social issues and problems that run through many prison towns. The vast majority of wimmin in the town's domestic violence shelter are correctional officer's wives and girlfriends. A domestic violence official in Albany is quoted in the film saying that the level of danger of domestic violence in corrections and criminal justice families is markedly higher. This is not only because corrections and police officers are more likely to be violent but because they are trained in methods of physical force that do not leave visible wounds. The fact of domestic violence in correction officer families underscores the sick nature of imprisonment in this country. Prisons are supposed to be places of rehabilitation Ñ corrections employees should live by higher standards of patience, self-awareness and responsibility for others than people in other professions. Yet they are trained to inspire terror in prisoners and in their own families. VOICE To RAIL, this illustrates the fact that u.$. prisons will not be reformed to the point of being genuine institutions of correction and rehabilitation. While it is true that some people who are in prisons today have committed crimes by proletarian standards, this does not mean they should summarily be subjected to abuse and torture. Those who carry out the abuse have committed far greater crimes and so are in no position to exact any form of justice. RAIL is happy to see people like Tracy Huling making honest films about prisons and their proponents. Working as anti-imperialists, from the vantage point of the people who are oppressed under imperialism, RAIL sees that building more prisons is in the interests of many people in this country. Employing people to work in the prisons, paying money to towns for service to the prisons - these are methods of bribing Amerikans to support prisons and other forms of imperialism. There is broad support in this country for greater imprisonment because the majority benefits from it. Yes, In My Backyard documents this support in government, and in the eyes of corrections employees and their community. Stay turned to the end of this program for information on how to contact the filmmaker or to order the film. MUSIC? [Howard Zinn track 11. 28seconds] MUSIC? [Mumia Abu Jamal asks: "Is the Death Penalty the poor's prerogative?" Track 12 MAJ CD length: 2:48] MUSIC? In August, we reported that Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein had struck down the Massachusetts law requiring the pigs to create a database of prisoner DNA. With 2,500 samples already stolen from prisoners, a hearing was held on March 1 before the Supreme Judicial Court on the issue. VOICE All 50 states have laws requiring the police to create DNA databanks for at least some types of prisoners. Not all states have yet implemented the laws, and the federal government has not yet started. The Massachusetts law was struck down in the name of "privacy rights" in the Fourth Amendment. Judge Borenstein argued in August that "[r]egardless of the state's compelling interest, an unjustified random bodily intrusionwithout any indication of individualized suspicion is unreasonable and intolerable." Typically privacy "rights" are reserved for those with power and prestige to protect. We emphasized the word "rights" because unlike the bourgeoisie, we don't pretend that there are certain rights that people have. Rather, we believe, as Mao Zedong said, that "there are no rights, only power struggles." The only thing that we can count on in this world is what the masses themselves can fight to gain and retain. The Bill of Rights in the U.$ Constitution claims to speak for all citizens, even though it is rarely that way in practice. But it is a good tactic for progressive lawyers to try and get the Bill of Rights to apply to everyone, especially prisoners The government argued that "if the state can collect a criminal's fingerprints, why not their DNA?" The suing prisoners responded that fingerprints are used for identification purpose, while here the government wants to take all prisoners' DNA without any individualized suspicion. VOICE Yes, In My Backyard was produced by Galloping Girls Productions, Inc. You can contact Galloping Girls at Rural Route #1, Box 168, Freehold, NY 12431, Tel: 518-634- 2170Return to Under Lock and Key RAIL Radio Program page