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Tag Archives: Prison
Death for Profit: Demand An Investigation!
DEATH FOR PROFIT
Roberto Martinez-Medina died in CCA’s Stewart Detention Center in Georgia in 2009. Medina had been arrested a month earlier for not having a driver’s license.
CCA whistleblower Brian Holcomb spoke with us exclusively to expose how the company repeatedly ignored Medina’s pleas for care of his heart ailment while he was imprisoned. Their negligence contributed to Medina’s death.
Watch our video and sign the petition to demand an investigation into Medina’s death!
CCA profited off of Medina’s incarceration, and ensured a greater profit by denying him critical health care. The inhumane conditions at CCA facilities are directly related to their obsession in cutting costs for profit.
CCA has gone to great lengths to hush Medina’s death.
Demand an investigation today. Nobody should die for a corporation to make profit.
Yours,
Axel Caballero and the Cuéntame team
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Convicted for her son’s hit and run death …Release his Mom & install a CrossWalk -Change.org
A.J. Nelson was just four years old when he was killed in a hit-and-run by an intoxicated driver in Atlanta. Now his own mother, Raquel Nelson — who was also hit by the car while trying to save her son — faces up to three years in prison for A.J.’s death.
Raquel and her three children got off a bus and — with several other passengers — attempted to cross a five-lane highway to get to her apartment across the street. Standing at the median, little A.J. reportedly saw someone else jaywalk and ran out into the street to follow. Raquel ran out after him to stop him. But it was too late. Both Raquel and A.J. were hit by a vehicle, and A.J. died in the hospital a few hours later.
The driver, who admitted having a few beers and pain medication that afternoon, spent just six months in jail. This Tuesday, a judge will sentence Raquel Nelson to serve up to 36 months in jail for the death of her own son.
Please sign the Change.org petition to tell Judge Kathryn Tanksley and Georgia Governor Nathan Deal not to jail Raquel Nelson on Tuesday. Improving safety is more important than punishing innocent mothers.
Raquel Nelson’s family will deliver your petition signature to Judge Tanksley at her sentencing on Tuesday. It’s critical to speak out by Tuesday to prevent Raquel from serving a day in jail.
Though the stop itself was directly across the street from Raquel’s apartment where she got off the bus, the closest crosswalk was nearly a mile away. After a long day out in Atlanta, and a missed transfer, Raquel crossed the street with other passengers on the bus, taking the most direct route home.
Raquel was prosecuted for “vehicular homicide” and other charges because she and A.J. didn’t use a crosswalk to walk home. Unfortunately, she is not the first grieving mother to be prosecuted for the hit-and-run death of her child in Atlanta. The same prosecutor who convicted Raquel for her son’s death also convicted another Atlanta mother whose daughter was killed in a hit-and-run while attempting to cross the street.
A Change.org member named Eliza Harris is an urban planner who read about Raquel’s prosecution. She started the petition because she knows it makes more sense to use the money spent to prosecute Raquel to instead create crosswalks and better serve people who use public transportation.
Prosecuting grieving mothers is not the solution — Judge Tanksley should not sentence Raquel to jail, and Cobb County should make streets walkable and safe. Please sign the petition before Raquel is sentenced on Tuesday:
Thank you for taking action.
– Corinne and the Change.org team
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Immigrants For Sale … BraVenew Foundation
Enough is Enough.
Georgia is now the latest state to pass an anti-immigrant bill like Arizona SB1070, with Governor Nathan Deal expected to sign anytime soon. Georgia is also home to the largest private prison in the country. Like Georgia, other states with similar bills have fallen prey to the greedy hands of private prison corporations. Our immigrant communities are for sale in this country. They are being sold to private prison corporations who are locking them up for obscene profits. It is not only a very lucrative business but one that is putting our Latino community at risk.
WATCH the Video
Immigrants For Sale
http://act.bravenewfilms.org/go/653?akid=1618.1058794.jenNaS&t=3
Here are 3 facts you need know and share with friends and family about the Private Prison money scheme:
The victims: Private prisons don’t care about who they lock up. At a rate of $200 per immigrant a night at their prisons, this is a money making scheme that destroys families and lives.
The players: CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), The Geo Group and Management and Training corporations—combined these private prisons currently profit more than $5 billion a year.
The money: These private prisons have spent over $20 million lobbying state legislators to make sure they get state anti-immigrant laws approved and ensure access to more immigrant inmates.
How is all this possible? They profit from locking people up.
Will you stand with Cuéntame’s “Immigrants For Sale” campaign and become part of a nationwide network of Prison Watchers as we follow and expose the players, the money and the victims in this corrupt money making racket? YES, I WANT TO!
Yours,
Axel Caballero, Ofelia Yañez
and the rest of the Cuéntame team
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Free Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan
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THIS WEEK on CHANGE.ORG Free Sex Trafficking Victim Sara KruzanPlus: Deporting Disabled Children • Police Threaten Rape Victim • Halliburton Fracking Controversy • Fighting Racist Mascots • Recovering from Wrongful Imprisonment At Change.org, we encounter a lot of stories of tragedy, injustice and triumph. None is more heart-wrenching than the story of Sara Kruzan. Sara, who was once her elementary school’s student body president, met the man who would become her pimp when she was just 11. After acting as the father figure she never had for two years, he raped Sara at age 13 and trafficked her into the commercial sex trade. For the next 3 years, from 6pm to 6am, strangers would pay Sara’s pimp to rape her and other adolescent girls he recruited and preyed upon. Finally, physically and psychologically traumatized, Sara snapped. She shot and killed her pimp. Her punishment? Life in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence was handed down by a judge in 1994 against the recommendation of the California Youth Authority, and before there was much awareness about the violence of child trafficking or an appreciation for the trauma of adolescent sexual and physical abuse. The sentence was extreme and unjust. And it can now be overturned by one man: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Governor Schwarzenegger is leaving office at the end of the year, and will soon be considering clemency petitions. In response, there is a grassroots movement building to call on Governor Schwarzenegger to commute Sara’s sentence to time served. Join the movement to ask Governor Schwarzenegger to free Sara Kruzan now. Tragically, the sexual exploitation Sara suffered is not unique. But what makes her case especially poignant is not just the injustice of her life sentence, but her response. Rather than descend in hopelessness, Sara has found redemption in jail and become an inspiration to all those around her. She has graduated from high school, is on her way to completing her college degree, and started the prison’s Committee for Youth to serve as a mentor to younger women. She was recently voted “Woman of the Year” at her prison. However, without intervention from Governor Schwarzenegger, Sara will likely die in prison. Don’t let this happen. Sara has more than paid her debt to society with 16 years of incarceration. It’s time to set her free. Call on Governor Schwarzenegger to free Sara Kruzan now. For more information on Sara’s case, click here. And for more news and opportunities for action from this week in change, see the summaries from your favorite causes below. |
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Deporting Disabled Children in IMMIGRANT RIGHTS Hee Chun Kang’s parents are legal permanent residents who came to the United States when their son was 10. But he and his brother face deportation to Korea because of the snail’s pace of the immigration system: by the time the Kang parents received green cards, their children had turned 21 and aged-out of the family petition. Hee Chun also has Down syndrome, so he needs the support of his family looking after him, something he can’t get in Korea. Taxpayer dollars should not be spent on tearing children in need from their parents. Read more » |
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Police Threaten Rape Victim in WOMEN’S RIGHTS A South Carolina woman who reported being raped by a Marion police officer was subject to another assault when the officers who responded to her call threatened to put her in jail if she didn’t recant her story. Instead, they forced her to write the following: “Though I didn’t agree or consent to it (it) was not rape.” Non-consensual sex is rape – there’s no getting around it. And while the accused rapist has thankfully been sent on leave, the two officers who threatened to throw the victim in jail are sitting pretty. These officers need to be suspended for gross police misconduct pending investigation before they harass any other victims. Read more » |
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Halliburton Fracking Controversy in ENVIRONMENT To help the EPA complete the first-ever federal health and safety study of the dangerous gas drilling practice called “fracking,” 8 of 9 gas companies have voluntarily complied with a request to disclose their chemical brews. These formulas are a secret in the first place because Dick Cheney pushed through a provision called the “Halliburton loophole” in 2005. Take a wild guess which of the nine companies now won’t pony up the data. Halliburton wants us to trust it with our health. Will we say yes? Read more » |
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Fighting Racist Mascots in EDUCATION The University of Illinois retired Chief Illiniwek, the college’s costumed, dancing Native American mascot, in 2007 after pressure from the NCAA. But more than three years later, his ghost remains on campus. The administration has not named a new mascot and students still stage unofficial “chief” rallies, resurrecting a caricature that Native American groups have found offensive, racist and misleading. A coalition of student and community groups is pushing for a new mascot, saying this will help heal racial tensions and allow the campus to move on. Read more » |
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Recovering from Wrongful Imprisonment in CRIMINAL JUSTICE Gloria Killian spent more than 16 years behind bars for a murder she didn’t commit, a victim of prosecutorial misconduct and admittedly false testimony from a man who had struck a deal with the state for a shorter sentence. Her conviction overturned in 2002, Killian has gone on to campaign on behalf of other women unjustly imprisoned. But her activism is not a choice, she tells Change.org. “I’m compelled to do it,” she says. “If I don’t use my experience to help the women that I left behind, then that means my life was destroyed for no reason, and I’m not about to let that happen.” Read more » |
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| Have a great week,
– The Change.org Team
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