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Dismantling the prison industry and ending the exploitation of those it targets.
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Oct 31, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
This Halloween, we're pulling the mask off of the prison industry and exposing the ways in which it manipulates language. Prison profiteers use crafty language to make their predatory tactics more palatable for those who know no better. But we do, and now you do too. THREAD 🧵 Image They say: “Video visitation”

But in reality, they’re just expensive video calls that prison telecom providers convince correctional administrators to replace actual visits by paying them kickbacks.
Aug 25, 2023 16 tweets 4 min read
Have you heard of the Texas Two-Step? It's a controversial tactic used by corporations to avoid paying legal settlements. Corizon—one of the nation's largest private correctional healthcare providers—is using it to get out of 475 malpractice suits. 🧵
businessinsider.com/corizon-health… Here's how it works: Facing legal troubles, a corporation splits into two. One successor gets all the assets, like revenue generating contracts, and continues business as usual. The other gets all the liabilities and then files for bankruptcy, claiming inability to pay them.
Mar 23, 2023 16 tweets 8 min read
Last year, hundreds died in AL prisons, where death rates are the highest in the nation. The response? Gov @kayivey wants to build new prisons using public debt and COVID relief funds and the price tag just increased to a BILLION dollars. (THREAD 🧵)
alreporter.com/2023/03/17/opi… To start, AL’s corrections department doesn’t even notify families of their loved ones death or publish regular death statistics any more. Alabamians must rely on incarcerated people, the people that represent them, and journalists news and numbers.
alabamaappleseed.org/author/eddie-b…
Oct 12, 2022 11 tweets 7 min read
NEW! There are 4,000+ corporations in the prison industry, it's about time we knew who they are. We just released an interactive database exposing them all. Here's a glimpse at just a few. 🧵

Visit data.worthrises.org to dig deeper into the dark web of prison profiteering. 1/ @3M is recognized for brands like @Postit & @Scotch. 3M helps prisons across the country build license plate factories, where incarcerated people work for pennies an hour. They also supply millions of dollars of raw materials to prisons for the manufacturing.

HARM SCORE: 14
Sep 17, 2022 15 tweets 4 min read
Over the past 13 days, from Labor Day to Constitution Day, we have released one story each day from someone who has been forced to labor under the exception in the 13th Amendment. Here are all their stories. 🧵

Take action to abolish slavery for all at EndTheException.com! Except for Johnny

Jul 28, 2022 7 tweets 4 min read
ANNOUNCEMENT! We just released two new tools for the fight for prison phone justice — a game-changing, real-time rate map and a national PSA featuring NBA coach and former player Caron Butler @realtuffjuice that reminds of the people behind the numbers. Let's #ConnectFamiles! 🧵 @realtuffjuice The PSA follows Euriya, one of the 1 in 29 children in the US with an incarcerated parent, as his family navigates the financial hardship of staying connected. The burden is too much for him and his mom, so he misses out on doing homework with dad and often hearing "I love you."
Feb 8, 2022 12 tweets 5 min read
Predatory prison telecom Aventiv (parent of @SecurusTech & @JPay_com) once offered prison college programs free access to its tablets but not anymore. Why? The ban on Pell grants for incarcerated students was just lifted, and they see $$$.

THREAD
motherjones.com/crime-justice/… In 1994, Biden’s infamous crime bill, banned Pell grants for incarcerated students. Within a year, the number of incarcerated college students fell by an estimated 44%. By 1997, out of 772 prison college programs that operated in the early '90s, only eight were left.
Feb 3, 2022 10 tweets 4 min read
Did you know that the 13th Amendment, celebrated for abolishing slavery, includes an exception for criminal punishment? Neither do 88% of Americans.

teenvogue.com/story/slavery-…

Worth Rises' @BiancaTylek explains in @TeenVogue. Help end slavery at endtheexception.com. After the passage of the #13th, Southern and other states used ‘Black Codes’ to criminalize and re-enslave newly-freed Black folks — these were laws that prohibited Black people from owning land, moving freely, being unemployed, and more.
nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/b…
Sep 30, 2021 5 tweets 4 min read
“I am writing to your company, Global Tel Link, but I seek to appeal to a human being. How you have treated me and my family...through your business practices has caused us great harm.” - Miguel, San Quentin

Read this powerful letter to @GTLCorporate & @AmerSecurities. THREAD Image Miguel hasn’t seen his family for more than a year.

“Covid isolation has meant sporadic and limited phone calls with poor sound quality that are... interrupted every few minutes by needless recordings, without privacy... and on 12 phones for 700-800 individuals.” Image
Feb 28, 2021 8 tweets 5 min read
Imagine getting a hand drawn birthday card from your kid. Now, imagine that instead you got a photocopy of that birthday card -- or worse, just a small digital copy on a tablet -- AND that someone threw your kid's card in the trash in some corporate warehouse.

Angry? THREAD. PA did it first: replaced direct mail in prisons with privatized mail photocopying. Now, this cruel practice is quickly spreading. It's already been rolled out in many local jails, and is being piloted in the federal prison system and in MA prisons.
Feb 19, 2021 7 tweets 3 min read
"I was in prison on my daughter’s 8th birthday... I had seen it happen over and over to the men around me: active and willing fathers who lost their babies because of the cost of a call." - Jewu

You minced no words with this one, Jewu @ctbailfund!
ctpost.com/opinion/articl… "That’s right, amid a fight over prison calls, the state signed a second predatory contract with the same corporation to further exploit families with incarcerated loved ones. But what can we expect when the state has its hand in the cookie jar?"
Aug 26, 2020 13 tweets 6 min read
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was created by the first #COVID19 stimulus bill to help small businesses retain employees. Only 5.7% of US businesses received a PPP loan, but among them, infamous corporations in the prison industry. These may shock you…or not. (THREAD) While many are struggling to pay for calls with their incarcerated loved ones, the corporations exploiting them are getting bailouts. NCIC received a $1-2 million PPP loan while charging families $7.50 for a simple 15-minute local phone call.

act.freepress.net/sign/justice_p…
Jun 9, 2020 9 tweets 6 min read
Yes, we must #DefundPolice. We cannot reform a system designed to brutalize and exploit Black people. We must dismantle it. We do that by removing its financial power.

It's time we unpack how police and prisons are funded.

(Thread) 1) Rightfully the focus of most demands to #DefundPolice, legislative budgets are the largest source of police and prison funding. These budgets are proposed, negotiated, passed, and signed at the federal, state, and local level.