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PHILADELPHIA TRIBUNE: Proposed restitution has penal advocates upset

Wednesday, July 8, 2015 

Nathaniel Lee Tribune Correspondent

A controversial bill has prisons advocates and reformers outraged and ready for action. House Bill 1089 which would require incarcerated persons to pay restitution from any funds on their prison accounts or sent to them by friends, family members and loved ones has been reintroduced by state representative Todd Stephenson (R-Montgomery County).

PHILLY MAG: Philly Lawmakers Put Off Vote to Spend $7M on Land for New Prison

It’s a victory for anti-prison groups. But it might be short-lived.

BY HOLLY OTTERBEIN  |  JUNE 11, 2015 AT 12:15 PM

For the third time this year, Councilman Bobby Henon held a bill Thursday that would allow the city to spend more than $7 million to buy land in Northeast Philadelphia that could be used to replace an aging prison.

Philadelphians Say No to Jail Expansion Plan

DPA press releaseFor Immediate Release
Attn: News Desk

City Council urged to decrease jail population and invest in schools, not jail cells

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 10, 2015) On Thursday, June 11, concerned community members will converge on City Hall to demand that City Council permanently shelve its plan to build a new county jail. They will call on Council to instead take steps to drastically decrease the city’s jail population and direct resources to the city’s severely underfunded school system.

Capitol Steps Occupied to Defend Prisoner Free Speech

For immediate release: May 4, 2015

On May 4th, Decarcerate PA and allied organizations will unite on the steps of the Capitol in Harrisburg to celebrate the overturning of an anti-prisoner law and to protest the ongoing silencing of people in Pennsylvania’s prison system. The 24-hour demonstration will kick off with a rally from 11 AM - 2 PM, at which protesters will share the words of current and former prisoners targeted by anti-speech legislation. 

PHILLY.COM: Opening up prison records part of reform mayoral candidates support

Ryan Briggs, The Next Mayor
Posted: Monday, April 27, 2015, 12:40 PM

Last year, the Daily News reported that guards at the city-run Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility refused to take inmate Mike Brady to the prison infirmary despite pleas that he was sick. After he collapsed, sources told the paper he was maced by guards and finally dragged in a nearly unconscious state to receive medical attention. 

Brady died soon afterward.

PHILLY MAG: 3 Reasons Mayor Nutter Shouldn’t Build That New Prison

At first glance, you can’t blame Mayor Michael Nutter for wanting to build a new prison. The House of Correction — which has an awesome name — is super old and doesn’t even have air conditioning. Both the inmates and the staffers deserve better conditions than the facility can provide.

Still: Nutter should hold off. Let the next mayor deal with it, if necessary, but not this year.

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: End mandatory minimum sentences in Pennsylvania

They fill our prisons at great expense but do little to improve public safety

By James Young and Waleed Shahid

December 17, 2014

Since 1980, Pennsylvania’s prison population increased sixfold to about 51,000 people, thanks in part to state legislation passed during the frenzy of the failed “War on Drugs.” Bipartisan policies passed in Washington and in state capitals have led the United States to house 25 percent of the world’s prisoners despite having only 5 percent of the world’s population. In Pennsylvania, laws requiring mandatory minimum sentencing have been a primary driver of the skyrocketing numbers of prisoners and the enormously expensive prisons that accompanied their tragic rise.

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