By John Cole Vodicka
Donald D. is my neighbor. I’m the one though, with a roof over my head. Donald D. is homeless. He will tell you he “sleeps on the concrete.” I sleep in a king-sized bed. Still, Donald and … Read the rest
“We have a system of justice that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.”
-Bryan Stevenson
… Read the rest“The problem with money bail, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is that it puts a price tag on freedom. It says to someone who is wealthy that no matter how dangerous you are you
“The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs—it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society,
No more in bondage shall they toil;
– traditional African American Spiritual
Let my people go!
Let them come out of Egypt’s spoil;
Let my people go!
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt’s land.
Tell old Pharaoh
Let my people go!
By Steve Williams
On Wednesday, May 19, Joshua J. appeared in Superior Court before Judge Patrick Haggard, cuffed … Read the rest
I thought about all those people whose suffering had been erased, and I thought, “Why can’t they speak? Why can’t I undo some of that erasure?”
–Jesmyn Ward
By John Cole Vodicka
Jesmyn Ward is, in my estimation, one of the best writers on the planet. I encourage folks to read anything and everything she’s written. Two of her books … Read the rest
By John Cole Vodicka
Donald Dewayne Carnes died this past December in a prison nursing home in Milledgeville. He was … Read the rest
… Read the rest“We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from a nation that has buried its head in the sand, waiting in vain for the needs of its poor, its elderly and its sick to disappear and just blow away. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education
… Read the rest“Incarceration is sustained, lifetime lynching, meant to discard your soul and make a shell of you in plain life. Make you into your monster self, the beast that comes out when you are forced to survive in the absence of love and safety. Never mind that most of us come broken and traumatized, we still are no longer worth our
“As long as we retain the idea of a ‘criminal’ – along with entrenched, racialized ideas about who is a criminal and what they look like – alternatives will always involve the idea of putting people Somewhere Else. As long as we are creating the category of a human being who is lesser, who is marked as unfit for
“I remember when they put ’em on the block to sell ‘m. The ones ‘tween 18 and 30 always bring the most money. The auctioneer he stand off at a distance and cry ’em off as they stand on the block. I can hear his voice as long as I live.”
– W.L. Bost, age 87, Asheville, North Carolina
By John Cole Vodicka… Read the rest