News FeedSay NO to $1 Billion for Prisons in Stimulus Package
From www.November.org
Friends:
We recommend that you call your two Senators. If you need to find out who they are, and contact information, visit: Vote-Smart () and enter your zip code. If you have faith in sending emails, there is a message and auto-email generation at (you will have to ‘sign-up’ with change.org to send it from that site:
http://criminaljustice.change.org/actions/view/say_no_to_1_billion_for_federal_prison_construction
The $1 Billion proposed as part of the Senate’s economic stimulus package will be money poorly spent.
The United States with only 5% of the world’s population has 25% of the world’s prisoners. Let’s stimulate our economy by reducing the prison population and encouraging job growth.
Currently, many studies are underway to curtail our high rate of incarceration and even to reduce the high number of citizens who are incarcerated. Now is not the time to enlarge prison infrastructure; rather, it is a time to move greater numbers of our citizens–including many now incarcerated–to meaningful and productive employment.
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Tuesday, February 03, 2009
$1 Billion for Prisons in Stimulus Package
by Dollars and Sense
Lois Ahrens of the Real Cost of Prisons Project has alerted us to the huge amount of spending in the stimulus package on prisons and other questionable criminal justice items. See below Lois’s appeal that people contact their senators to try to get rid of the Bureau of Prisons line item and others.
President Obama’s stimulus package includes the following appropriation:
$1 billion for buildings and facilities in the Federal Prison System.
Please call your U.S. Senator today and ask that the BOP line item be deleted. Of course you can mention all of the other horrible parts of the package too but it might be best to pick one or two of what you consider the worst of the worst (so to speak).
When you call ask for the staff person who is working on the Stimulus Package and either try to speak to her/him or leave a specific message.
The Senate Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
Please do it today. Please forward and ask others to do call.
Remember we already have 25% of the world’s prisoner population and yet only 5% of the world’s population.
