Mother's Day Card to the Governor, Demanding that 4,500 Women are

Please forward widely!
Happy Mother's Day? It depends on us!

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Sign the Mother's Day Card to the Governor, Demanding that 4,500 Women are
Released from Prison!

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The State of California Believes that 4,500 Women No Longer Belong in State
Prison.

We Agree.

Let’s Send Them Back Home.
Sign our huge Mother's Day card to support the release of 4,500 women from
California prisons here!

What Do Mothers Really Want this Mother's Day? Though a little different for
everyone, the answer is simple and obvious: Mothers want to be free with
their loved ones.

This Sunday, May 14, from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., we will take a HUGE Mother
’s Day card to the Century Regional jail in Los Angeles and ask people
waiting in line to visit loved ones in the jail to sign the card. Even if
you can't make it, you can sign our card here: http://www.criticalresistance.org/index.php?name=mothersday

We will deliver the signed card to the Governor, demanding that 4,500 women
be released from state prison rather than creating 4,500 new prison & jail
beds. This is responding to a bill in Sacramento that has proposed moving
4,500 women from state prison into smaller privately-run prisons, many of
which will be located in Los Angeles County. The bills target women who the
system has determined do not "need" to be in prison. But these measures
would put the women in new “community” prisons, called “Community
Corrections Facilities.” These are simply privatized prisons: new name, new
cell, same cage.

We believe that these 4,500 women should be released, rather than building
4,500 new prison beds. Our demand would reduce the women's prison population
by 40%. Please! Sign the Mother's Day card today, and forward this message
on to your friends!

THE MOTHER'S DAY ACTION:

If you are in Los Angeles, please join us this Sunday, May 14, 7:00 a.m. to
3:00 p.m. at the Century Regional Detention Facility, (map & directions at
http://www.lasd.org/divisions/correctional/crdf/crdf_location-map.html) .
We will be taking a HUGE Mother’s Day card to the jail. We will ask people
waiting in line to visit loved ones in the jail to sign the card. We will
then deliver the signed card to the Governor, demanding that 4,500 women be
released from state prison. Organizations: if you can send a minimum of
three people for a two-hour shift, you can be listed as a co-sponsor. Please
email micol [at] mindspring.com to coordinate. (Individuals can simply show
up).

IF YOU CAN'T BE THERE:

If you can't be there, please sign your name to this card here, to support
the release of these 4,500 women, along with any message you care to send to
the Governor. We will deliver your message to the Governor along with the
enormous Mother's Day Card.

BACKGROUND: THE BILLS .Two bills now before the legislature, AB 2066 & AB
2917, propose moving 4,500 women out of prison. The bills target
“nonserious, nonviolent female offenders,” acknowledging that they do not
"need" to be in prison. But these measures would put the women in new
“community” prisons, called “Community Corrections Facilities.” These would
simply be smaller prisons: new name, new cell, same cage.

These bills would build up to 4,500 new cells for women prisoners, expanding
the number of cells. Experience shows that when the state builds more cells,
it fills them. This plan will allow the state to lock up more women and men,
not fewer.

The governor's plan shows that he understands that 40 percent of the women
in California prisons don't need to be in prison. If they don’t need to be
in prison, why not let them go home?

Facts: Women in Prison There are 11,615 women locked in California prisons
(as of April, 2006). This is an increase of 7.8 percent in the last year
alone. Forty percent of this figure is almost exactly the number of new beds
being proposed. Coincidence? The system is racist: of the 300,000 people in
the state system last year, 36% were Hispanic and 29% were African American,
way out of proportion to the general population.

Solution: Let them go home! These 4,500 women should be released, rather
than building 4,500 new prison beds. This would reduce the women's prison
population by 40%.

Instead of wasting money expanding our dysfunctional prison system by
building and staffing more prison cells, we should put those funds into more
programming and more services for paroled women.

Putting women into locked “treatment centers” is not releasing them. It is
not sending them home. It is not helping them to re-enter society. Building
more prisons is a waste.

Public or private, larger or smaller, closer to home or further away, prison
wastes the lives of prisoners. It wastes the lives of their families. It
wastes taxpayer money that could be used to get them back on their feet. It
wastes an opportunity to make real changes in our broken prison system
before it wastes the lives of another generation. Bringing 40 percent of
women prisoners home is a good first step to reverse the course of our
prison system that for the last 25 years has grown like a cancer and
destroyed so many lives.

No New Jails is a coalition of social justice organizations. Co-sponsors of
this event: Critical Resistance, the Labor Community Strategy Center, Global
Women's Strike, Adelante!, the CSULA Peace & Justice Coalition, California
Prison Moratorium Project, LACAN, the Youth Justice Caolition, United
Coalition East Prevention Project, and others. For more information, please
email crla [at] criticalresistance.org or call 323-238-0596.


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY? IT DEPENDS ON US!

**************************
MEMBERSHIP IS POWER

Become a dues-paying member of Critical Resistance! Every donation - big
and small - is vital to sustaining CR's fight to end the prison industrial
complex. Go to https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=6817, or
mail checks to Critical Resistance, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 504,
Oakland, CA 94612. Thank you for your contributions to this struggle.
***************************

Sitara Nieves, Organizer
Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin Street, Suite 504
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: 510-444-0484
Fax:510-444-2177
http://www.criticalresistance.org

_________________________________________________________________

MEMBERSHIP IS POWER

Become a dues-paying member of Critical Resistance! Every donation - big
and small - is vital to
sustaining CR's fight to end the prison industrial complex. Go to
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=6817, or mail checks to
Critical Resistance, 1904
Franklin Street, Suite 504, Oakland, CA 94612. Thank you for your
contributions to this struggle.