On Sunday, May 14th, from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., No New Jails 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. People can sign the card online if they will not be able to go to LA.

The card, which will be addressed to the governor, will demand that 4,500 women be released from state prison, rather than creating 4,500 new prison and jail beds. The card is in response 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 AB 2066 and AB 2917 target women who the system has determined do not "need" to be in prison. 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. No New Jails' demand would reduce the women's prison population by 40%.

No New Jails wants the state to put prison funds into more programming and services for paroled women. It says that putting women into locked “treatment centers” is not really releasing them, sending them home, or helping them to re-enter society.

Read more on Indybay's California and Police and Prisons News Pages