By Charles D. Owens, II | Lakesville, MS The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC), under the leadership of the new Commissioner Marshall Fisher, has revived the practice of group punishment. Under this revived practice, entire prisons re punished for an individual’s misconduct. Recent examples include an incident where a single inmate fought with a single guard […]
Author Archive: Communications Director
Chicago Community Bond Fund: Harm Reduction in a Prison Nation
By Sharlyn Grace and Max Suchan, NLG-Chicago On any given day, around 500,000 people in the United States are behind bars for one simple yet horrifying reason: they cannot afford bond. In Chicago, a determined group of mothers of pretrial detainees, community activists, and NLG lawyers and legal workers have worked since December 2014 to […]
Flint Inmates Forced to Drink Lead-Contaminated Water
By Shanna Merola, NLG Detroit and Michigan Chapter Legal Observer Coordinator On January 8th, Detroit activists called for a “solidarity road trip” from Detroit to Flint, Michigan to “Arrest Governor Snyder.” That evening, local residents and social justice groups from around the state converged on the front lawn of Flint’s City Hall to demand the […]
Prisoner Paralegals: Our Struggle to Find Justice
By Hunter Lee Weeks | Sterling, CO In prison, there are those of us who spend time, effort, and funds to acquire a formal education in law. Most of us have no education, while a few of us have Certificates of Paralegal Studies, and even fewer have degrees with legal emphasis. Our designated term of “Jailhouse […]
Inmate Advisory Counsel: A Cruel Hoax
By Rodney B. Barno | Corcoran, CA I was the Inmate Advisory Counsel (IAC) Chairman at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (CSATF) in Corcoran, California. My responsibility was to advocate for the population of my facility and for the IAC to be a vehicle of communication between the administration and population. When issues arise […]
The Flint River Lead Poisoning Catastrophe in Historical Perspective
By Tom Stephens, NLG Detroit and Michigan Chapter The facts of the Flint River lead poisoning are essentially undisputed. Enabled by Michigan’s unprecedented “emergency management” policies affecting primarily African-American cities, it’s a case of spectacular regulatory failure at all levels of government. The big remaining question is why has this disaster happened? Investigators have focused […]
Kentucky’s “Corruptional” System
By Christopher L. Young | La Grange, KY I am grateful to be a member of the NLG and a Guild Notes subscriber and looking forward to receiving the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook—I appreciate the chance to get my voice heard while beng a political prisoner incarcerated in Kentucky. This is why I’m committed to challenging and […]
NLG Attorneys Challenge Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law
By Henry Schneider and Cynthia Heenan, NLG Detroit and Michigan Chapter Recent crises have focused national attention on Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law. In fall 2015, news broke that Flint’s 100,000 residents had been consuming lead-contaminated water for two years. Flint began drawing its water supply from the Flint River in 2012 to save money under […]
President’s Column: NLG at Forefront of Civil Rights Struggles in Michigan
By Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, NLG President On February 14, I spent my birthday surrounded by a couple hundred people paying tribute to the warriors of Detroit’s activist community at the NLG Michigan and Detroit Chapter’s Annual Dinner. That night, the room was filled with activists young and old, law students, veteran advocates, movement lawyers, […]
Guild Notes: Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter 2015)
NLG Ohio and Partners Get Cases against Protesters Dropped NLG-NYC Chapter Leads Delegation to Cuba Liz Fink, Rest in Power NLG Asks Obama to “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” on Cuba Many Hands Make Positive Change at Wayne State Guild Member Wins Peabody Award for Albie Sachs Documentary Food Justice and Intersectionality Black […]
