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 […]
Tag Archives: Mass Incarceration
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 […]
The Concrete Empire
By Carl H. Harrison | Susanville, CA In the 1980s, California began a prison- and jail-building boom. Concrete jails and prisons popped up all over the state, while laws were quickly changed to make it easier to lock people up. These facilities quickly filled up and people had to join gangs within the facilities in order […]
NLG Adopts Resolution Supporting Prison Abolition
“Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.” –Angela Y. Davis FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK—Following the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Law for the People Convention in October, NLG membership adopted a resolution calling for the dismantling and abolition of all prisons and of all aspects of systems and institutions that support, condone, create, […]
