From the Green Party of Georgia, via the Green Party of the United States:
“I am so encouraged to hear Governor Deal acknowledge both the stark statistics and something of the devastation which mass incarceration wreaks on Georgia communities,” said Denice Traina, past cochair of the Georgia Green Party, mother, grandmother and Augusta based physical therapist. “We’re eager to hear today’s State of the State, hoping that Governor Deal will use the occasion to propose policies that apply the principals of restorative justice, rather than our failed policies of punishment and social control. Rehabilitation, education and vocational opportunities can help us keep folks working and families together. All Georgians win with those policies!”
“Greens are eager to see how Governor Deal intends to translate his concern for the wasted lives, drained treasury and depleted workforce into public policy,” said Al Herman, Treasurer of the Georgia Green Party, DeKalb County resident and board member for Georgia NORML, the Georgia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijauna Laws, “Greens welcome the Governor’s acknowledgement of the debilitating costs of mass incarceration, and would like an opportunity to help craft the policies which can reverse the tragic course set by his predecessors which have decimated communities across Georgia to feed our commitment to mass incarceration.”
Ms. Traina and Mr. Herman are responding to incoming Governor Nathan Deal’s remarks to the General Assembly on Monday, acknowledging that one in thirteen adult Georgians are under state control. He stated that “It costs about $3 million per day to operate our department of corrections. As a state, we cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions. It is draining our state treasury and it is depleting our workforce.”
The new Governor’s remarks come in the midst of the largest and still unresolved inmate strike in history. In recent correspondence, Georgia Greens have urged the Governor to respond with good faith negotiations, rather than retribution for striking inmates. They have expressed particular concern for thirty-seven inmates subjected to administrative segregation on suspicion of having ‘instigated’ the last month’s inmate strike.
“Besides responding to our earlier concerns for current conditions and the welfare of the Georgia-37, a great start would be an immediate moratorium on the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders and an end to locking up minors in adult prisons,” said Herman. “Our young deserve better. We will enjoy better results treating addiction as a health issue than we have seen from the failed war on drugs. Save for the prison profiteers spurred by past administrations privatization of this very public function, its hard to imagine who might be against spending fewer tax dollars locking up our fellow Georgians.”
On December 9th, inmates in five Georgia prisons refused to work, in what started as a one day strike, but organically spread to at least nine institutions and thousands of inmates before participants went back to work a week later. The Georgia Green Party immediately became involved in a coalition outside the prisons working to amplify the legitimate demands of striking inmates that their human rights be respected.
On New Year’s day, Georgia Green Party officers sent a letter to outgoing Governor Perdue and to incoming Governor Deal asking for an investigation of whether the acts of the Department of Corrections rose to a ‘criminal conspiracy’, in their efforts to conceal the injuries sustained when Terrance Dean was beaten by correctional officers at the Macon State Prison. In the following week, a similar story of prison guards beating Miguel Jackson at Smith State Prison came to light.
Last Thursday, the Concerned Coalition to Protect Prisoner Rights held a press conference to discuss the physical assaults perpetrated on inmates by prison staff. This event also responded to reporters questions about the ongoing investigation being conducted by the Coalition’s fact finding teams which have been given unprecedented access to Georgia prisons in the wake of last months non-violent inmate work-stoppage. Video coverage of that event is available online.
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For further information:
http://georgiagreenparty.org/
http://georgiagreenparty.org/ChallengingMassIncarceration