Prison Reform Boiled in 2007 as the UNION published 470 Newsletters, attended Legislative Hearings, Coordinated Rallies, Worked with Television and Radio Producers, Gave Speeches, Wrote to Editors Daily, Published Columns - Thousands of Hours of Donated Work to Bring Prison Reform to a Boil
As has been my tradition for nine years in the past, I send out a summary of newsletter titles to remind the 53 journalists and publishers on our list of the prison news that we thought was important to respond to over the past year
You cannot access these links but for the journalists on our list, I will retrieve archived material over the next four days to help you with your year-end stories.
I compiled and wrote editorial comments in 470 separate newsletters in 2007 which takes me about three hours each for UNION subscribers a total of approximately 1410 hours. This did not include another 6 hours a day in answering email from subscribers and non-subscribers on every topic from soup to hay or answering more than 12,000 letters from prisoners.
In addition, I wrote 25 columns for American Chronicle and their Internet Magazines which goes into 26 states and on the national news wires. Most of those were also published by the Republican site of Webcommentary.com
You can read those very detailed commentaries, written in simple language here at this link
I worked with the producers of PBS who did a television special about the homelessness that Prop 83 creates which benefits no one. The UNION members came in and made posts beneath the video of this televised special which is still online at the PBS website. http://www.kcet.org/lifeandtimes/blog/?p=219 UNION members aided in educating the public and editors about the collateral damage of at least one million women and children affected by Prop 83. As you can see at the link above, UNION members posted beneath the video. ------------------------------ I issued calls to action to come to the Capitol hearings to oppose SB 40, and to attend two important hearings to support AB 1539, the television videos of these hearings is still online which you can view http://www.1union1.com/SB40_sentencing_1.htm A video of the hearing is online at www.calchannel.com, click on webcasts, click on search archives, enter date 032207, select committee, Assembly then enter Appropriations. It will come up on a list of links, Appropriations committee hearing 3/22/07. The hearing is only 35 jam-packed minutes long but what it portrays is an attitude that the State lawmakers do not want to re-try the 54,000 people unconstitutionally sentenced to prison. The legislators sidestepped the Supreme Court ruling on Cunningham for a period and given unprecendented power to judges. I called people to attend an important hearing in Sacramento to support Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton which resulted in a record-setting, historic turn-out of an overflow crowd of UNION members I was one of only two people to testify against the appointment of James Tilton as CDCR Agency Secretary and made it clear that he and the legislators were breaking the law.
I coordinated a major rally with many human rights and labor union leaders in attendance on Sept 7 at the Capitol to support the passage of two Sentencing Bills and AB 1539
AB1539 was signed into law October 14, 2007 after ten years of our hard work as unpaid volunteers. While the judges still have the ultimate power,
our UNION members and their lawsuits, their testimonies at these hearings
and our cussed determination and constant letters to editors, editorials
and alerts to the media resulted in this important reform.
This 3000 plus hours that I donated as a columnist, publisher and event coordinator was enough labor to have written three books and several
screen plays. I could have learned a huge salary doing this type of work
for some other cause where advocates are treated well by those whom they represent.
Why did I do this thankless, brutal work as an unpaid volunteer for the ninth year in a row?
Because people are still suffering and dying preventable deaths in the prisons. I did all of this writing to give UNION subscribers at least ten ways to fight back for their loved ones every day - either with a penned letter to an editor, a protest sign, or by giving testimony before a legislative committee.
I wanted to help a few hundred more people see that they only reason in the world they have their current problems is due to their own inaction to organize and elect their own people to office, to stand up against oppression by supporting lawsuits and educating the public constantly by posting at the news sites.
I wanted these devastated mothers and other family members to be able to see that there is nothing more powerful than a large, funded citizen's group and that prisons only exist because they allow them to exist by not organizing large enough. Since there is zero justice in the courts, I wanted the desperate family members to see that when everyone gets together they can force reform as the politicians must go with the group that has the noisiest voters.
Most of the people who did the work in the prison reform movement besides mine of compiling newsletters, coordinating rallies, appearing at hearings, filing and fighting lawsuits were also UNION members, and they deserve thanks and recognition which I will do separately.
Remember that the contents of these newsletters were tens of thousands of letters to editors that our UNION people posted at the news sites. With very few exceptions, it is the UNION subscribers who do that job, even though it is critical to ever getting initiative campaigns past the voters, we seem to be the only ones who do it.
Rev. Shumake with his tent cities and prayer chain participated in by 50 churches is a very special human rights leader even in his 70's, he still makes a huge difference and supports our UNION work too every chance he gets.
Nora Weber and Cindy Canon with their lawsuits fighting for Mark Grangetto showed CDCR that not all family members are too stupid to fight back when prisoners are tortured and murdered, especially those who are mentally ill.
Donald Specter and his Prison Law Office, Judges Henderson and Karlton and now several other Judges cannot be thanked enough for their tireless work, even though, unlike UNION members they all draw a salary for doing it. They went above and beyond the call of what their money covered after UNION members delivered many messages to support their work. We caused an overflow crowd to their hearing unlike any ever seen in prison reform and it was a historic day that I shall never forget!
Eight months out of the year in 2007, I had full time responsibilities at the college which exceed 30 hours per week.
Most other UNION members also work a full time job, and all but two live at the poverty level, so when we have a call to action, it is very difficult for people to bring the ten people they are supposed to have lined up and ready to go.
We have been doing at least one protest a year for ten years straight at the Capitol while those who knock us never do any, but this year, the young people from Los Angeles DID have a Capitol protest, so this was progress.
The Drug Policy Alliance is a great group of people who have brought 25,000 members together and raised $8 million dollars. They are focused on drug laws only, but this sort of organizing power, combined with our lawsuits over medical neglect and overcrowding has put the proposal for 22,000 releases on the table. Drug Policy Alliance is one of four groups who has shown up consistently in the legislature during the past decade to support or oppose the bills concerning their members. The others are ACLU and Friends Committee on Legislation who pay their advocates to do this important work. In 2007 the Catholics were showing up more frequently in years past.
On January 3, 2008 the Drug Policy Alliance will circulate an initiative campaign which has a good chance to win because they organized more than 6500 workers and raised more than a million dollars. This is what the legislators must see before they take anything seriously that the funds and
volunteers are all gathered together and that the people leading the effort
are professional organizers.
Just filing an initiative without money and
trained volunteers does not shake law enforcement's puppets, especially
if the public education isn't reflecting the need in the newspapers. Drug Policy Alliance made huge strides that is benefitting everyone now and they
deserve tribute, even though they focus only on drug laws, they are demonstrating what it takes to change laws and that families of prisoners
can do it when they want to focus and get serious.
I will have more to say on our year in Review over the next several days
as we decide what, if anything, we have the funds and volunteers to do
in 2008. With my work on the movie describing our decade-long work and UNION members' lawsuits coming to court this year, in addition to my
full time responsibilities at the college, I will be unable to donate another
3,000 hours in 2008 just writing in order to teach people that organizing is
the only way to find justice in their individual cases. By now the subscribers to the newsletter should have learned this lesson well, and if not, the deeper reforms will never be achieved which is what all famous advocates before me told me would be the case as they ran into brick walls when they all tried. The ignorance and apathy could not be overcome. I have a clear conscience that I communicated that simple organizing is the only way to overcome repression to enough people who can save themselves if, and when they get serious about getting this work done in large enough numbers. The welfare mentality still prevails amongst the younger people who are looking for a free rescue from some attorney, judge or lawmaker which is never going to come, but the parents of the prisoners know that only when they get serious about organizing will it be possible to win initiative campaigns and file enough lawsuits to where the "tough-on-crime" politicians will be put at bay and hopefully out of office. The organizing in large enough numbers has yet to happen, but all I can do is teach the lesson, not do the recruiting work for people, their choice to be oppressed or not is completely up to them. Most do not want to be inconvenienced to reach out of their comfort zones at the prisons, and expect that someone else is going to do the recruiting work - not them. Jesse Jackson told me on the steps of the Pasadena City Hall that this attitude has been the block to all prison reform in California for three decades. This attitude is why he left California and went to Washington to set up the Rainbow Push group. I feel that enough people know the formula now, and I will see by
January 6 the level of commitment and help I have to determine our
UNION focus in 2008. I certainly do want to recognize those people
who actually helped in 2007 so we will have our UNION subscriber of
the year awards and recognize the California Journalists of the Year
as we have always done in the past.
Rev. B. Cayenne Bird
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Time to fight for Liberty - Opposition from both parties to release
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