Vol. 80/No. 33      September 5, 2016

 

Letters

 

Solitary confinement
In March a group of Florida civil rights and mental health advocates, religious leaders and journalists sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking for an investigation of the Florida prison system’s “overuse” of solitary confinement, racial discrimination in its application and abuse of incarcerated individuals.

The group states that one in eight prisoners is in solitary, some 12,500 people. Black men are overrepresented by 10 percent, Black women by 20 percent. Some 22 percent of mentally ill prisoners are in solitary as are one-third of the 138 children under 18 held in adult prisons.

Jim Kendrick
Miami, Florida

Oregon refuge occupation
You wrote in the Aug. 8 issue on the Oregon refuge occupiers. Ten defendants have pled guilty, one Bundy acknowledged his involvement, and another tried to escape from prison. Ryan [Bundy] has also declared himself a sovereign citizen not subject to federal law.

I’d have more sympathy for the occupiers if they cared about the land they’d occupied, protesting government misuse, but they didn’t. The occupiers destroyed public property and paved a road through the wildlife sanctuary, despite having benefited from government subsidies for years.

These aren’t the heroes or victims we’re looking for.

Heath Row
Los Angeles, California

 

Editor’s note: Whatever you might think of the actions of the ranchers and their supporters who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to protest federal attacks on their rights and livelihood, and to oppose the unjust imprisonment of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, working people should stand up and protest their imprisonment and the cop killing of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.

 
 
 
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