Join Millions for Prisoners and demand an end to the criminal INJUSTICES being done to New Mexicans every day across the state.
Selinda Guerrero, prominent local organizer and activist who represents Millions for Prisoners, Save the Kids, Building Power for Black New Mexico, and Strong Families will be joined by Kelly Garcia Chavez and Justin Allen, Field Organizers with Millions for Prisoners, to share truths, personal stories and actions we can all take during our PDA February 13th community gathering.
Get to know Millions for Prisoners at https://www.facebook.com/MillionsforPrisonersNM/
About: In solidarity with all being held behind the walls and by oppressive institutions, laws and policies, we seek to unite activists, advocates, prisoners, ex-prisoners, their family and friends. Abolish the 13th!
Read their media here: http://sawarimi.org/about/amani-discovering-amani-sawari-ara-re?subscribe=opted_out#blog_subscription-2
Mass incarceration includes such issues as the prison industrial complex, privatization of prisons, disproportionate imprisonment of people of color, school push-out of students of color, the school-to-prison pipeline, mandatory minimum sentences, and legalizing marijuana.
Did you know . . .
- 25% of the world’s prisoners are imprisoned within our country’s borders yet Americans account for only 5% of the world’s population?
- Today in the U.S., nearly SEVEN MILLION people are incarcerated, on probation or on parole?
- New Mexico has the largest number of private prisons in the nation?
- The profits for private prisons operated by for-profit corporations have increased more than 500% in the last 20 years?
- ICE is now effectively in our schools? Without any legal changes, schools have become the start of a law-enforcement chain that lets ICE agents on transnational-crime task forces arrest and deport youth who are merely suspected of gang affiliation? (Hannah Dreier, ProPublica)
- Here in NM, you can have your parole violated and be sent back to prison if a beer can is thrown in your yard and a parole officer notices it? More prison time FOR A BEER CAN that isn’t even yours!
- Even though NM law states that people who have finished their time behind the walls can regain the right to vote, it is rarely happening? Hear Justin’s recent experience of the struggle to regain his basic right to vote!
What can I do right now? Support HB57 (introduced by Rep. Gail Chasey). This grassroots campaign for the “Right 2 Vote NM” will allow all New Mexicans over 18 years to vote – regardless of incarceration status. Isn’t the fundamental freedom of our constitution the right for our voices to be heard through voting? Isn’t voting the primary freedom of speech? If passed, NM will be the first state to reaffirm the rights of all citizens to vote.
Call/email your NM Legislators right now and ask them to support HB57 (Senate version coming soon!
Read more about criminal justice reform here:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/622-criminal-justice-reform
https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson
