Prison Policy Initiative

Before we continue to our next story, I want to interject with some more fun facts.

The Prison Policy Initiative estimates that 48,000 youth are incarcerated in the United States.

Many of them are incarcerated for low-level offenses.

Many of them did not have a hearing before they were incarcerated.

What all of these moves have in common is what they do to the people left behind.

Research by the Prison Policy Initiative found that 63% of people in the US state prisons are held more than 100 miles from their families.

Among those held within 50 miles of home, about half get a visit in a given month.

Between 101 and 500 miles, that drops to about one in four months.

This week we present journalist and media critic Ari Paul, who examines the Paramount Skydance Warner Brothers merger, warning that the growing concentration of media ownership... threatens consumer interests and the diversity of viewpoints in U.S. news coverage.

Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative, who discusses a recent study that finds cities and states that block cooperation with ICE effectively decreases the number of immigrants arrested and deported.

and Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton, who talks about Republican Party activists' effort to rehabilitate disgraced President Richard Nixon that she believes is designed to normalize Donald Trump's criminality and corruption.

But first, we begin with a summary of some of the week's underreported news stories.

In fact, states which denied ICE access to their local jails have lower rates of immigrant arrests, while states that collaborated with ICE saw more immigration arrests.

The researchers concluded that the Trump regime's mass deportation project falters in places that resist.

Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhu spoke with Wanda Bertram, communications strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative, which analyzed the data.

Here she summarizes their report, which found that states and cities that block ICE access to jails decrease the number of arrests and deportations.

The researchers concluded that the Trump regime's mass deportation project falters in places that resist.

Between the Lines, Melinda Tuhoo spoke with Wanda Bertram, communication strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative, which analyzed the data.

Here she summarizes their report, which found that states and cities that block ICE access to jails decrease the number of arrests and deportations.

There was, of course, in Minneapolis and in Chicago and some other places, some really, um, blatant, some really explicit and, and sh- shocking ICE action.

So these, these prohibitions on police collaboration with ICE, they work, right? And, and that's the really good news.

The more grim news is that there are localities that have kind of tried to s- strike a cooperative or a middle way tone with the federal government, and those states, those, those places, they've been duped into thinking that allowing ICE access to their courthouses, to their jails, is going to, you know, reduce arrests, and it really has not.

That was Wanda Bertram, communication strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative.

Find a link to the Deportation Data Project report and related news and commentary by visiting our Between the Lines website at btlonline.org. [outro music]

think the battle with prison labor is that there is a fine line between employment and essentially slave labor.

According to data from the Prison Policy Initiative, the average daily wage for an incarcerated worker is just 86 cents an hour.

Edge says living in Alaska, period, is already expensive.

But trying to reenter society after prison? It's really, really extra challenging on people.

I think the battle with prison labor is that there is a fine line between employment and essentially slave labor.

According to data from the Prison Policy Initiative, the average daily wage for an incarcerated worker is just 86 cents an hour.

Edge says living in Alaska, period, is already expensive.

But trying to reenter society after prison? It's really,

What kind of fucking sense does that make? There's also a lot of inequality and racism that goes along with this.

And I'm right now I'm pulling from the prison policy initiative that does great work on this.

About 90 percent of all people facing capital charges cannot afford their own attorney, meaning they're not getting the best representation when they're literally their life is on the line.

It's also remarkably racist.

So yeah, land of the free, land of the cruel and unusual.

Gotta love it.

I do recommend organizations like Prison Policy Initiative for some really rad insight into myths about our so-called justice system.

They do great work.

Why? Researchers point to a pattern of compliance, a tendency, especially among people with intellectual disabilities, to defer to authority figures they've been taught are there to help them navigate a difficult world.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, people with intellectual or developmental disabilities are already, quote, "Heavily over-represented in the criminal justice system," end quote.

And they make up an estimated 1 to 2% of the general population, but some studies put their share of the prison population as high as 30%.

Others put it lower, close to 4 to 10%.