Dan Cahill & Ida Strong: The Prison-Industrial Complex in Ohio (Thu., Jan. 10)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Thursday, January 10
Teach-in: "The Prison-Industrial Complex in Ohio"
Speakers: Dan Cahill*, Director of Prisoners' Advocacy Network - Ohio 
(PAN-Ohio); & Ida Strong, Assistant Director of PAN-Ohio & Managing 
Director of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants - Ohio 
(CURE-Ohio)
* Dan Cahill's articles "The Global Economy Behind Ohio Prison Walls" 
and "Worked to Death" (the latter co-authored with Paul Wright) are 
published in _The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. 
Prison Industry_ (ed., Daniel Burton-Rose with the editors of _Prison 
Legal News_ Dan Pens and Paul Wright -- for more info on _The Celling 
of America_, go to 
<http://www.commoncouragepress.com/burton_celling.html>).
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Location: 115 Stillman, Ohio State University, 1947 College Rd., Columbus, OH

The current US rate of incarceration (including both prison and jail) 
of 699 persons per 100,000 population advances the U.S. position as 
the world leader in imprisonment.  The US overtook Russia in 2000 
where a continuing amnesty program has reduced the rate to 644 with 
further reductions planned.  Forty six percent of the overall prison 
population is African American.  Young African American males in 
particular continue to be incarcerated at a shockingly high rate. 
Nearly 10% of black males ages 25-29 are in prison on any given day. 
The rich get richer, and the poor get prison, exacerbating racial 
inequality in the process.  Moreover, more than 10% of federal 
prisoners are now housed in for-profit private prisons.  Starbucks, 
Jansport, and Microsoft all use prison labor to package their 
products; and Corrections Corporations of America, the nation's 
largest private jailer, has been dubbed a "theme stock for the 
1990s."  As capitalism locks up the wretched "surplus population" 
whom it cannot employ at prevailing wages, it exploits them as slave 
labor in sweatshops behind bars.  As Dan Cahill notes, "The 
unprotected use of prison labor leaves prisoners open to the 
possibility of extreme abuse....[In a trash-burning power plant run 
by Shaneway in Columbus, Ohio, work-release prisoners] worked in 
toxic ash which contained arsenic levels of 2 1/2 times those allowed 
by OSHA standards; cadmium levels at 5 times; lead at 138 times; and 
dioxin at levels 770 times the ambient air in the community." 
(Sources: The Sentencing Project at 
<http://www.sentencingproject.org/>; Christian Parenti, _Lockdown 
America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis_; and Dan Cahill and 
Paul Wright, "Worked to Death")

Appalled?  Come and discuss, with Dan Cahill and Ida Strong, what is 
to be done about the Prison-Industrial Complex!

Sponsored by the Student International Forum
For an OSU Campus map, visit <www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/stillmanhall.html>.
For more info, contact Yoshie Furuhashi at <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> or 
614-668-6554; and Keith Kilty at <kilty.1 at osu.edu> or 614-292-7181.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>