Defenestrator issue 53 hits the streets this weekend. 

It's been a very long journey, but all the blood, sweat and toil by contributers, editors, illustrators and supporters is about to come to fruition.

This issue is centered around WORK. There are articles and interviews about international workplace takeovers, nonprofit work & activism, collecting unemployment, radical sports, Black Orchid Foods, prison resistance and much more. We hope you enjoy reading it and thank you for your patience! 

Long live the defenestrator.

by A Concerned Prisoner 

The long awaited Trillion dollar "answer" to the question of the "effectiveness" of the Pennsylvania Department of Correction ADM 804 Grievance Policy and Procedures that has been looming for years in the minds of so many Federal and State Judicial Agencies, State Senators and Representatives, Prisoner Advocacy Rights Organizations, Inmate Family Members and Inmtates of "Why??" the internal grievance system inside the Pa. Dept. of Corrections Routinely rejects- on one ground or another- more than 98% of all Inmate complaints (responses are always "No Merit", "Frivolous", "Upheld", and "Denied") has finally been answered!

Pa. DOC has a manual entitled Helpful Hints for Pa. DOC Inmate Grievance Personnel that is issued to Correctional Staff who handle grievances from the Secretary's Office of Inmate Grievances & Appeals, instructing personnel how to counteract inmate grievances with scripted responses of what to say (or not to say); how to twist & avoid answering the matter(s) or accepting liability (e.g. "Don't write comments that you wouldn't want upper management or a jury to read..") and goes on to explain the DOC's intent. This edict may explain the next-to-zero success rate of inmate grievances- but I shall leave that conclusion to your judgement. ..read more

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On May 25 to June 3, Decarcerate PA, Reconstruction, Inc and other allies will be marching from Philadelphia to Harrisburg to demand that 2013 be the year of a People's Budget, Not a Prison Budget.

 
Click flyer to download The march will start with a huge rally in Love Park at 12pm on Saturday, May 25, and stop in towns and cities across the state, landing at the Capitol in Harrisburg at 12pm on June 3, as the General Assembly reconvenes to discuss the budget. Please join us on May 25 to kick-off the march and demand that legislators rejected Governor Corbett's prison budget and invest in high quality education and building strong communities, not more prisons. You can find more information at www.decarceratepa.info. If you would like to join the march, please register here by May 18.

 

 

 

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Today members of the PA Senate will hear testimony on SB444, a deplorable bill sponsored by Senator Dominic Pileggi that would, among other things, strip prisoners of their access to nearly every provision of PA's Right to Know Law (also known as the Sunshine Law, giving everyday citizens the right to review most government records) and which would further cement prisoners' status as modern-day slaves with no true legal standing and even less practical ability to utilize the tools of democracy.

 

The Human Rights Coalition condemns this transparent and cynical attack on our Constitutional freedoms! Please take this moment to educate yourself on the issue (read HRC's testimony submitted at today's hearing here), call Senator Pileggi and give him and his staff total hell for sponsoring the bill, and then call your own state senators and let them know in no uncertain terms that it is their solemn duty to oppose this bill with all their hearts and souls and votes, and that you will not rest until they’ve torn it to shreds!           ..talking points and contact info

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May 8, 2013: Pittsburgh PA — Lawyers for Russell “Maroon” Shoatz filed a lawsuit today against Pennsylvania Department of Corrections officials, demanding an end to almost 30 years of solitary confinement. Maroon is a 69-year-old former Black Panther, author and intellectual who has been imprisoned in solitary confinement for more than 22 consecutive years (and 28 of the past 30 years).

Link to the complaint here                             read more...

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With one week to go of the 30-Day campaign to get former Black Panther political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz out of solitary confinement, we have heard a lot of talk about Maroon's planned release into general population. With no time frame given, no clear process set forth, and no rationale as to why the 22-year torture of this community leader who is about to turn 70 years old should continue even one more day, Maroon's supporters must make this last week count! We can do that by making the "count" of all the letters, faxes, and phone calls go up every single day till May 8, 2013. On that morning, if Maroon is not in general population his legal team will file litigation on his behalf in federal court. While we are optimistic about the strengths of his legal case, we are well aware that justice in the courts is a political act - so today's calls make the chances of successful litigation tomorrow even greater.     ..act now

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PA Prison Report - Special Edition
Update on the Case of Lorenzo Johnson

April 29, 2013

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In this edition: Campaign to Free Maroon from solitary Now!, PA DOC guard Nicoletti sentenced for prisoner abuse, Lynn Stewart seeks compassionate release, and more…

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In this issue: Uncovering the U.S. government's mass incarceration of immigrants, the ongoing story of a Muslim family targeted as "terrorists", Parole for PA Lifers petition, and more!       download pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Russell Maroon Shoatz STILL IN SOLITARY confinement as Campaign grows; PA DOC Secretary Wetzel must be flooded with DEMANDS for his immediate release to general population!

Twenty-two consecutive years in solitary is more than long enough!

DEMAND that Maroon be placed in general population IMMEDIATELY!

 

Call PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel: 717-728-4109   (Fax: 717-728-4178)

or write him at:

1920 Technology Parkway, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050

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HRC has just received word that Alfonso Percy Pew has been released back into general population!

Alfonso was held naked in a solitary confinement "strip cell" at SCI Rockview since March 11.

An Action Alert about his situation went out on March 26.

Thanks to everyone who called in to the prisons to demand his release!

Former Black Panther Russell Maroon Shoatz has been held in torturous conditions of solitary confinement in Pennsylvania prisons for the past thirty years. He has not had a serious rule violation for more than two decades. Maroon’s role as an educator, human rights defender, writer, and critical intellectual of liberation movements is widely renowned.

 

From April 8 to May 10, the Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz is calling for an intense call-in and write-in campaign to bring pressure on the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC), to release Maroon from solitary confinement and into the general prison population. This is the first major phase of a coordinated political-legal campaign, beginning with Maroon’s attorneys sending a “Demand Letter” to the PA DOC on the morning of April 8, 2013. The letter, outlining the legal and humanitarian reasons why an immediate release from solitary is needed, gives the PA DOC an opportunity to correct the grave injustices being carried out on a daily basis before litigation begins.. read more to ACT NOW

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Former Black Panther political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz

transferred to SCI Mahanoy, still held in solitary confinement

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HRC has just received an urgent letter from a trusted source about Alfonso Percy Pew (BT-7263):

He is in the hole at SCI-Rockview on a HUNGER STRIKE and he is currently being held in a “strip cell” with no hygiene products or clothes, no blanket, sheets, towel or wash clothes, property, books, etc. He is naked with just a medical thin smock on (paper gown with the back open like the hospitals use for patients). HE’S BEEN IN A STRIP CELL SINCE 3/11/2013, supposedly for his own protection. THIS IS PUNISHMENT FOR ALFONSO'S HUNGER STRIKE, AND IT IS TORTURE.            act now...

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In this edition: Allegheny County Jail updates, Disability Rights Network files lawsuit against solitary, DOC releases recidivism report, and...

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Life intrudes on the best made plans. Instead of attempting some grand relaunch, which was my hope, when time permits I’m going to upload various incarnations of Philly Future over the years, including article archives, along with a summary historical account and takeaways I learned. Thank you to everyone who worked to make Philly Future what it was. There is much today that eliminated the need for Philly Future, and I’d rather see those efforts grow and reach their potential.

PA Prison Report Special – An interview with Lorenzo Johnson

Posted Sunday, February 25, 2013

This time last year, Lorenzo Johnson was living in New York after spending 16 years in Pennsylvania prisons for a crime he did not commit. Johnson thought the nightmare of being sentenced to life without parole – the other death penalty – was behind him. But in a stomach-churning turn of events, he finds himself back in a Pennsylvania prisons, State Correctional Institution (SCI) Mahanoy.

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In this edition: Retaliation and racial harassment against prisoners at SCI's Greene and Albion, Allegheny County Jail is sued for the death of a prisoner in 2012 , and more...

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Paul Rogers has been released into the general population at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Smithfield after spending 12 years in solitary confinement. His release comes after a letter writing and phone call campaign by family and supporters, including the Human Rights Coalition.   read more..

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By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State

Working families in Pennsylvania pay a far higher share of their income in state and local taxes than the state’s wealthiest earners, according to a new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).

Pennsylvania’s tax system scored so poorly that it made the list of the “Terrible 10” most regressive tax states in the nation.

The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) co-released the report, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, with ITEP. PBPC Director Sharon Ward made the point in a press release that "No one would deliberately design a tax system where low-income working families pay the greatest share of their income in taxes, but that is exactly the type of upside-down tax system we have in Pennsylvania.”

Middle-income families in Pennsylvania pay more than double the share of their income in taxes than the very wealthiest Pennsylvanians, while low-income families pay nearly three times as much as top earners, the report found. Get more details on the report, including a Pennsylvania fact sheet, here.

The report should bury once and for all the myth of the makers vs. the takers. Low-income families in Pennsylvania are paying much more of their income in state and local taxes than the top 1%.

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