The Price of the Ticket: Uncovering the Real Cost of Mass Incarceration
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Jun. 20 12:00 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Jun. 20 1:15 PM (Eastern)
America’s addiction to incarceration has reached a crisis level. More than 2 million people are currently locked up, we spend more on lock-up than on higher education. One in 15 black men are behind bars. Join us for a panel that exposes the problem of mass incarceration. We’ll also explore how we can change the terms of the debate to turn the tide. The mainstream media labels whole classes of people as lifelong “criminals” and creates an atmosphere of fear that the beneficiaries of the prison economy use to quell reform. The Netroots can change that, and we’ll talk about how.
Moderator
Jakada Imani
Jakada joined the Ella Baker Center in 1999 and became Executive Director in 2007. Since taking over from the center’s founder Van Jones, Jakada has helped pass federal legislation (the Green Jobs Act), lead the organization in two successful state-wide ballot measure campaigns (No on Prop 6 in 2008 and No on Prop 23 in 2010), lunched the centers newest efforts, Soul of the City and Heal the Streets and grown the center’s budget, staff and board. Before becoming Executive Director, Jakada was a lead strategist and chief team member on some of Ella Baker Center’s most high profile campaigns, including serving as Campaign Director for Books Not Bars and Third Eye Movement, led the successful Stop the Super Jail Campaign, and served as the center’s Director of Programs.
Panelists
Lenore Anderson
Lenore Anderson is an attorney with extensive experience working to improve our criminal justice system. Before Californians for Safety and Justice, Lenore was Chief of Policy and Chief of the Alternative Programs Division at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where she spearheaded initiatives to reduce recidivism and improve public safety. She also crafted legislation to aid domestic violence victims, protect witnesses, reduce school truancy and reduce recidivism. Lenore also served as Director of Public Safety for the Oakland Mayor, overseeing the Mayor’s violence-reduction initiatives, and as Director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. Previously, Lenore served as the Director of the Books Not Bars campaign at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which contributed to significant declines in youth incarceration in California.
Julianne Hing
Julianne Hing is a reporter and blogger for Colorines.com covering immigration, education, criminal justice, and occasionally fashion and pop culture. In 2009 Julianne was the recipient of USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism fellowship, which funded a reporting project on the impacts of criminal deportation on immigrant families. She has covered police brutality issues from Oakland to New Orleans and in the summer of 2010 reported for Colorlines from the courtroom where Oscar Grant’s killer, BART cop Johannes Mehserle, faced trial. Julianne’s writing has appeared on AlterNet, Truthout, Hyphen Magazine’s blog, The American Prospect’s blog TAPPED and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog at The Atlantic, Racialicious, The Root and New America Media.
Luis Nolasco
Luis Nolasco is an undocumented queer organizer with the Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Coalition (IE-IYC) an affiliate of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (The NIYA), who through public campaigns has contributed to stopping deportations and shed light on the conditions of Immigration Detention Centers. Alongside 4 other undocumented organizers from the NIYA, they set up camp in South Florida to expose the injustices being held at Broward Transitional Center, an Immigration Detention Facility. Soon after, he went on to do similar work with North Georgia Detention Center in Gainesville, Georgia.
Now he resides in the Inland Empire where he is working on establishing a visitation program for Adelanto Detention Center in Victorville as well as working to pass pro-immigrant legislation such as the TRUST Act which would help abolish some of the unnecessary incarceration of Immigrants.