This Just In

Anti-solitary campaign expands

Stopping Supermax Torture

By LANCE TAPLEY | February 3, 2010

As the February 17 State House public hearing approaches on the bill to restrict solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), which sparked national debate about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, has announced its support. The group is contacting church congregations statewide asking them to become involved in the LD 1611 campaign.

The Maine Civil Liberties Union organized a well-covered January 21 press conference in Augusta at which the bill’s sponsor, Representative James Schatz, D-Blue Hill, and other supporters discussed the importance of the effort, which has drawn backing from the American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, Maine Disability Rights Center, Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians, Maine Psychological Association, Maine Council of Churches, Maine Jeremiah Project (an evangelical political group), Maine People’s Alliance, National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAACP, National Association of Social Workers Maine chapter, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland. Bill cosponsors include House speaker Hannah Pingree.

Upcoming events related to the bill:

-Ex-solitary-confinement Massachusetts prisoner Bobby Dellelo speaks; movie on solitary confinement | February 9 @ 7 pm | Talbot Auditorium, Luther Bonney Hall, University of Southern Maine, Portland. Also February 11 @ 6:30 pm | REM Center, 93 Main St., Waterville; and February 12 @ 7 pm, Turrets Auditorium, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor.

-Robert King speaks about 29 years in solitary in Louisiana before being exonerated | February 10 @ 7 pm | First Parish Church, 425 Congress St., Portland.

-Criminal Justice Committee hearing on LD 1611 | February 17 @ 1 pm | Room 436, State House, Augusta.

-Ex-solitary-confinement prisoner Ray Luc Levasseur speaks; film on solitary confinement | February 17 @ 6 pm | Belfast Free Library, Belfast.

-“People of Conscience Day of Action,” talks, lobbying; Reverend Richard Killmer, NRCAT executive director, speaks | February 23 @ 9 am-noon | State House Welcome Center, Augusta.

The bill limits solitary to 45 days, bans prison officials from sending mentally ill prisoners to solitary, and establishes a review process for prisoners in solitary. The Warren prison has 100 solitary-confinement cells in its Special Management Unit or “supermax.”

MainePrisonJustice.org | mclu.org | For articles in the Phoenix’s four-year series on torture in the Maine supermax, visit thePhoenix.com/Portland

A black leadership silent on abortion fabrications
Last month, controversial anti-abortion-rights billboards appeared in Georgia hinting that abortion is a tool of black genocide.
Radical night out in Portland
“People are upset about Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib,” Noam Chomsky told 750 people packed into the Woodfords Congregational Church last Saturday night, “but if you’re concerned about human rights, take a walk into a maximum-security prison.”
Moneybags Menino
Inside Boston’s political back rooms, there is a growing suspicion that Mayor Thomas Menino is sitting on millions of dollars — tens of millions, maybe as much as $400 million — that could be used to save vital city services, such as, among many examples, four branch libraries and eight community centers that are slated to be shuttered.
How Rhode Island can eliminate homelessness
Making it a reality is a matter of political will.
Notes from a Borderland
What we learn from immigrants
An immigrant song
Arizona has declared war on Mexico. SB1070, the incendiary new immigration bill signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer, has set off national boycotts, lawsuits, protests, and denouncements.
‘There are no rules’
On April 19, the Globe first reported that arbitrators had awarded the Boston firefighters union a 19-percent raise. By the next morning, both the Globe and the Herald were citing Menino administration figures of a $74 million cost.
Further thoughts on all things Stooge
Your superior correspondents were tempted to invoke the old cliché, “Great minds think alike.”
US Marine graffiti crew tags Hyde Park
This past week, the United States Marine Corps invaded Boston. Or, more accurately, they were invited into the community by Mayor Tom Menino to “showcase military equipment displays, perform community outreach projects, and honor local Marines during Marine Week Boston.”
The high cost of free markets
Free markets are not free. They always carry a cost.
A Providence non-profit loans out the future
Eva Jiménez came here from the Dominican Republic in September 2001.
Less

Topics: This Just In , Culture and Lifestyle, Health and Fitness, Hannah Pingree, More

| More

ARTICLES BY LANCE TAPLEY

LAWMAKERS MOSTLY STAND UP AGAINST ENVIRONMENTAL ASSAULT | May 23, 2012
Republican state Senator Thomas Saviello, at one point widely considered a foe of Maine's environment, may have just saved it. At the least, he was a leader in saving a good part of it.

‘30,000 DRONES’ OVER AMERICA AND OTHER STORIES | May 09, 2012
"You are now being watched by 30,000 drones," Second District congressional primary candidate Blaine Richardson dramatically told the 3000 people assembled at the Republican State Convention in Augusta on May 5.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE EAST-WEST HIGHWAY? | May 02, 2012
Eminent domain! The government's ability to seize land for a public purpose strikes terror into the hearts of many landowners.

GOP LEGISLATORS STICK WITH ALEC | April 25, 2012
Faced with a campaign asking him and seven other Republican legislators to quit the controversial conservative lobbyist-legislator coalition ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — House assistant majority leader Andre Cushing, of Hampden, says: "If they can give me a reason why this is harmful to the state, I'll consider it."

MAINSTREAM PROGRESSIVES GET OCCUPIED | April 18, 2012
"We are the 99 percent!" reverberates in the basement of the Portland Public Library on a Saturday morning. Ninety radicals — well, maybe damn strong liberals — are plotting to take over the government — well, in any case, to harass the one percent.