Who We Are:
LSPC is a non-profit organization with a history of over thirty years of working to restore rights of incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated people, release people from prison & reunify people, families and communities during and after incarceration. Guided by the vision of people in prison and of formerly-incarcerated people, working in unity with expert attorneys and policy advocates, LSPC seeks to transform the injustice of mass incarceration.
What’s New: Awards!
In recognition of her community service work, including organizing Clean Slate clinics in the Sacramento area, staff member Aaliyah Muhammad (center) receives the Wiley Manuel Bar Association Community Service Award of 2011. Ms. Muhammad was honored at a banquet held by the Unity Bar Association and is pictured here with the Honorable Kimberly Mueller (left) and Unity Bar Association president Dianne Dobbs (right). Foto/ Elizabeth Asplin
The Habeas Project was honored by the Peace Over Violence Project’s 40th Anniversary Humanitarian Advocacy Award of 2011. Marisa Gonzalez, pictured left, accepted the award on behalf of the Habeas Project partner organizations.
Legislative Policy Update – Our 2012 legislative agenda will be posted soon – here’s what happened in 2011.
LSPC continues to carry the voices and vision of prisoners and formerly incarcerated people into the halls of the California State Capitol. Our Legislative Tracking Committee monitored and responded to over 100 bills in 2011. These bills spanned a range of issues central to our work. We identified the following bills as among our top priorities:
- AB 13 (Oppose) aims to prohibit people convicted of a wide range of felonies from volunteering in public schools. This bill passed through the Assembly but was defeated in the Senate Education Committee!
- AB 420 (Support) would allow prisoners to be counted as residents of their last known county for purposes of determining legislative districts and federal funding. Passed and signed by the Governor!
- AB 568 (Support), sponsored by LSPC, would ban the shackling of pregnant prisoners. Vetoed by the Governor.
- AB 828 (Support) would end the food stamp eligibility ban for people with drug felony convictions. Vetoed by the Governor.
- SB 9 (Support) would allow people who were sentenced as juveniles to Life Without the Possibility of Parole to petition the courts for a new sentence. Failed to pass Assembly.
Assembly Public Safety Committee holds informational hearing on prison conditions
On August 23, 2011, the Assembly Public Safety Committee held a half-day informational hearing on practices within California’s security housing units (SHU). Organized by LSPC and other organizations, and attended by hundreds of concerned people, the hearing shed light on the torturous conditions endured by thousands of prisoners in California prisons today. Chair Tom Ammiano called the hearings in response to July’s historic 20 day hunger strike which at least 6600 prisoners across the state participated in. The hunger strikers issued five core demands for change. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has implemented some minor changes and announced the the possibility of other reforms; however, most of the demands remain unmet.
For more information, and to view the videos of the hearings, you can visit the website of the coalition formed to support the prisoners’ demands: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com
LSPC’s Habeas Project and California Coalition for WomenPrisoners Host a Special Screening of Crime After Crime at the Roxie Theater on Sunday, August 7 at 7 pm
Crime After Crime, the documentary film about incarcerated domestic violence survivor Deborah Peagler and her struggle for freedom with Habeas Project attorneys Nadia Costa and Joshua Safran, opens for its Bay Area theatrical run on Friday, August 5. It will screen daily through August 11th at The Roxie in San Francisco, The Elmwood 3 in Berkeley and The Rafael in San Rafael. LSPC’s Habeas Project and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners invite you to a special screening at the Roxie Theater on Sunday, August 7 at 7pm, hosted by our organizations. Filmmaker Yoav Potash and Attorney Joshua Safran will be present for a Q&A panel after the film along with other special guests.
To purchase tickets to this screening, go to: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=3762245
In 1983, Deborah Peagler, a woman brutally abused by her boyfriend, was sentenced to 25 years-to-life for her connection to his murder. Twenty years later, as she languished in prison, advocates for incarcerated domestic violence survivors were successful in passing a new California law allowing prisoners like Debbie to reopen their cases. LSPC’s Habeas Project connected Debbie with a pair of rookie land-use attorneys convinced that with the incontrovertible evidence that existed, they could free Deborah in a matter of months.
What they didn’t know was the depth of corruption and politically driven resistance they’d encounter, sending them down a nightmarish, bureaucratic rabbit hole of injustice. The outrageous twists and turns in this consummately crafted film are enough to keep us on the edge of our seats. Meanwhile, the spirit, fortitude, and love Debbie and her attorneys marshal in the face of this wrenching ordeal is nothing short of miraculous.
This remarkable film documents not only Debbie’s struggle for freedom, but also the injustices incarcerated domestic violence survivors across the state and around the country experience in the “criminal justice system.” LSPC is proud to have supported battered women in prison for decades, and proud of the efforts of our Habeas Project, which has led to the release of 33 California prisoners. Please come and see this incredible documentary!
“Harrowing, moving and inspiring, Crime After Crime introduces an unforgettable screen heroine in (Deborah) Peagler, who transcends the force arrayed against her with uncommon strength and grace.” - The Washington Post
“This kind of movie, one that compresses such expansive amounts of time, tragedy and triumph into a comprehensible scale, is a gift.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Connect with Crime After Crime
Website || Twitter || Facebook || Trailer
Hunger Strike Announced for Pelican Bay State Prison
Pelican Bay SHU (secured housing unit) prisoners have announced a peaceful hunger strike protest starting on July 1. They have issued five demands, which include ending long term solitary confinement, abolishing the debriefing policy, ending group punishments, and providing adequate food and constructive programs for SHU prisoners. For more information and/or to sign a petition supporting them, click here.
http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
LSPC and All of Us or None hosts author Michelle Alexander in well-attended May lecture series
Author Michelle Alexander with LSPC Executive Director Dorsey Nunn at May lecture series
LSPC and All of Us or None hosted two lectures and book signings by attorney and legal scholar Michelle Alexander, author of the book “The New Jim Crow.” The lectures and book signings were held in Sacramento and Berkeley to call attention to mass incarceration in American in the age of “colorblindness.”
Professor Alexander argued forcefully that mass incarceration is the new “Jim Crow” law, used for racial control. She described how disproportionate rates of incarceration and the lifelong consequences of convictions are the way that people of color are excluded from employment, housing and opportunity, since it is no longer legal to use race itself as a rationale for discrimination. She challenged civil rights and social justice organizations to push the mass incarceration issue to the forefront of the racial justice movement.
Her Sacramento lecture was held at the Women’s Civic Improvement Center on May 25th and her Berkeley appearance was at Saint Paul’s AME Church on May 27th. Both events were well received by over-capacity audiences. Altogether, well over 1000 people attended Professor Alexander’s lectures, others were turned away for lack of room and copies of her book ran out, at each venue.
Crime After Crime — a documentary on Habeas Project client Debbie Peagler — will premiere at the SF International Film Festival!
Crime After Crime is Yoav Potash’s documentary film on the legal battle to free Debbie Peagler, who was imprisoned for over a quarter century due to her connection to the murder of her abusive boyfriend. She finds her only hope for freedom when two young attorneys with no background in criminal law step forward through the Habeas Project to take her case….
The documentary first premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has received numerous awards from film festivals across the country. The Los Angeles Times calls it “A must see film,” and the Salt Lake Tribune describes it as “…a riveting examination of justice denied through political manipulation and prosecutorial callousness.”
Crime After Crime will have its Bay Area premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival, with multiple screenings:
* Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 6:00 PM at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco
* Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 6:30 PM at Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
* Monday, May 2, 2011 at 9:00 PM at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco
Please click here for tickets.
To sign Crime After Crime’s petition for Justice for Battered Women in Prison, please click here.
For more information on the film: Crime After Crime website.
LSPC co-sponsors April 5 panel discussion on isolation units inside U.S. prisons
LSPC is co-sponsoring a panel discussion on prison isolation units, which are being used more frequently and for longer and longer periods in this country. Political prisoners are often the subjected to these inhumane conditions. Sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Rights, this event will take place on Tuesday, April 5, 2011, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Women’s Building, 3543 18th Street, San Francisco. Panelists are: Alexis Agathocleous, Staff Attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights; Zahra Billoo, Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-San Francisco Bay Area; Dr. Terry Kupers, M.D.; and Keramet Reiter, J.D., Ph.D. Candidate, Berkeley Law. Join us at this free event.
To download a flyer, click here.
LSPC organizes successful national convening in Alabama of formerly incarcerated people
Executive Director Dorsey Nunn has just returned from Alabama, where he helped organize and lead the first national meeting of the Formerly Incarcerated & Convicted People Movement. Their goal is to change public policy about prisons in the United States. The group’s concerns range from the cost of prison overcrowding to reducing barriers to successful reintegration into society of people being released from prison. Participants marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, best known as the site where armed officers attacked peaceful civil rights demonstrators marching to the state capital 46 years ago this week. The conference culminated in a meeting with state leaders at the State House in Montgomery. A follow-up meeting will be held in Los Angeles.
To read local press coverage, click here.
Strengthening our Voices, Growing our Impact
After 10 years as Co-Directors, Dorsey Nunn and Karen Shain stepped into new leadership roles at LSPC. Dorsey is now Executive Director, making us one of the first public interest law offices in the country to entrust executive leadership to a formerly-incarcerated African American. Karen’s newly created position as Policy Director marks our shift toward actively shaping the laws and policies that impact our lives, while remaining grounded in grassroots organizing.
Campaign to End Employment Discrimination Goes National
The question “Have you been convicted?” appears on applications for jobs, housing, vocational licensing, benefits, entrance to college, student loans and insurance. It is part of a pattern of discrimination that denies formerly-incarcerated people the right to sustain ourselves and our families. Initiated and led by formerly-incarcerated people, LSPC project All of Us or None’s Ban the Box campaign—to eliminate the box requiring criminal records disclosure and to end unnecessary background checks—has sparked a national movement. Ban the Box policies have been adopted in 6 states and 23 cities or counties nationally, including California!
For more information, please visit All of Us or None
LSPC Sponsors 2011 Bill to Stop Shackling Pregnant Prisoners
While a pregnant prisoner in Contra Costa County Jail, Pauline was repeatedly shackled when going to court and in the hospital for pregnancy complications. Her experience was legal. Under current California law, an incarcerated pregnant woman can be shackled anytime except when she is in labor or delivery. In 2010, LSPC’s Family Unity Project worked with the Women’s Policy Institute of the Women’s Foundation of California to sponsor AB1900, a bill introduced by Assembly member Nancy Skinner that would have made it illegal to shackle pregnant women in state, county or juvenile detention facilities unless there is a security reason. The bill passed through the legislature with an unprecedented unanimous vote. Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the measure. Undeterred, Assembly member Skinner has introduced a new and improved bill — AB 568 — on this subject this year. Getting AB 568 enacted into law is a top LSPC legislative priority in 2011.
