Prison is not the answer
By DAN CHARD | December 27, 2006
Cheers to Lance Tapley for his quality reporting on the Maine State Prison and the apparent political persecution of Deane Brown (see “Lockdown,” December 15). Unfortunately, punishment for political organizing is common practice not just in Warren, but in prisons across the country. If you don’t believe me, then just ask anyone who has ever been inside.
Readers should also be aware that incarceration rates nationally and in Maine have increased dramatically over the past fifteen years despite declining crime rates. The vast majority of those incarcerated come from poor and working-class backgrounds, and even in the predominantly white state of Maine, a disproportionately high number are black, Latino, or Indian.
Meanwhile, President George W. Bush breaks federal and international law by lying to Congress (about weapons of mass destruction and false connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda) and by initiating an unwarranted attack on a sovereign nation, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Bush, along with his cabinet and complicit senators and representatives (from both major parties) act with impunity from justice.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
The fact is that the laws and courts are set up to protect the rich and punish the powerless. The mostly nonviolent offenders who fill state and federal prisons and county jails need opportunities for rehabilitation, self-improvement, and economic livelihood. No one is made safer by locking 2.1 million Americans in cages.
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- Stonewalling is normal
I could cite many examples of the difficulty in reporting to the Maine public what goes on behind the cement and bureaucratic walls of the public’s prison system — especially, in reporting brutal practices. I will give just a few.
- Lockdown
If you were a reporter and you received a letter like the one excerpted below, what would you make of it? Lance Tapley discusses reporting the prisons
- An insult to justice
Portland Phoenix freelancer Lance Tapley was given the Maine State Bar Association's Excellence in Legal Journalism Award last week at the association's annual meeting.
- Prison ‘troublemaker’ confronts racism, medical abuse
Vacillating between grit and despair — between aggressive lawsuits and suicide attempts — Deane Brown, the prisoner who in 2005 blew the whistle on the torture of mentally ill inmates at the Maine State Prison’s solitary-confinement “Supermax” unit, is struggling against prison conditions in Maryland, where he was exiled by the Baldacci administration.
- Press behind bars
As a reporter, I can attest that the rules the state agreed to in the 1970s on news-media access to prisoners have been violated by the Corrections Department in its recent practices.
- Deane Brown defense team enlarging
A lawyer for prison-abuse whistleblower Deane Brown has announced plans to train a research team to aid in a planned federal civil-rights suit to force the state to bring Brown back to Maine from a Maryland prison and collect monetary compensation for the harsh treatment he says he suffered in the Maine State Prison’s Supermax — officially, its Special Management Unit.
- Three years and counting
For the past three years, Portland Phoenix contributing writer Lance Tapley has been the only reporter in Maine to pay attention to the appalling conditions suffered by inmates in the Maine State Prison
- Phoenix freelancer honored by Maine lawyers
Lance Tapley, a longtime freelancer for the Portland Phoenix , has been honored with the Excellence in Legal Journalism Award from the Maine State Bar Association, recognizing his work investigating inmate abuse at the Maine State Prison.
- Less
Topics:
Letters
, George W. Bush, Criminal Sentencing and Punishment, Prisons, More
, George W. Bush, Criminal Sentencing and Punishment, Prisons, Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Deane Brown, Less
