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In The Trenches

Safe Streets Arts Foundation: International Publicity for Our Prison Art Show

Canadian Radio Station Interview about our Upcoming Pano Prison Art Show

(Listen to It at Your Leisure)

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Listen to our interview

 live on Monday, June 8, 10:30 pm Eastern time on a prominent Vancouver, Canada radio station at www.coopradio.org or, if you miss it, listen to the podcast at www.rabble.ca.

 

The subject of the radio interview is

 our upcoming free art show featuring "Pano" art created in prisons across America. This is a special show called "Pano in American Tradition" at Takoma Park Community Center (Gallery 3), 7500 Maple Ave, Takoma Park, Maryland from June 12 to July 25, 2009. The art is part of the collection of the Safe Streets Arts Foundation, which operates the Prison Art Gallery in Washington DC. The opening reception will take place on June 12 from 6 to 9 pm, and will feature live music by ex-prisoner guitarist Dennis Sobin, who has performed at the Kennedy Center.
 
Paño art draws on the deepest emotions of prisoners whose artistic expression is limited only by the materials at hand. The word paño (Spanish for cloth or handkerchief) has come to mean the art form itself -- a ball point pen or colored pencil drawing on a handkerchief.
 
Scholars have yet to determine the origin of paño art but some believe that it emerged in the 1940s among Chicano prisoners in the Southwestern United States who drew on the handkerchiefs or torn bed sheets. They do this because finding materials for artistic expression is difficult.
 
The portable and economical aspects of the Paño (handkerchief) allow prisoners to share their work with family and friends, use in bartering, and to mentally escape prison life. Today paño art is associated with Chicano inmates around the country, both male and female, who neatly fold paños into envelopes and mail them to loved ones.
 
Paños typically depict prison life, loved ones, dreams, memories, or personal experiences. Paño artists take much of their imagery and inspiration from the larger visual arts vocabulary of Chicano art conspicuous in murals, posters, low rider cars, graffiti, and tattoos. 
 
Most prisons offer handkerchiefs for sale in the commissary and tacitly sanction the art. Panos are collected in great numbers by convict patrons. The Smithsonian Museum has a pano collection, recognizing the uniqueness of this art form.
 
The Safe Streets Arts Foundation, incorporating both the Prisons Foundation and the Victims Foundation, is the sponsor of the annual From-Prison-to-The-Stage Show at the Kennedy Center and the Prison Art Gallery in Washington, DC. It is supported through the generosity Lloyd S. Rubin, ex-prisoner and international arts consultant.


For more information about the free Pano art show sponsored by the City of Takoma Park and taking place at the Takoma Park Community Center (Gallery 3) from June 12 to July 25, 2009, contact Stéphan Janin at:  [email protected]

witherspoon

"The Safe Streets Arts Foundation, incorporating both the Prisons Foundation and the Victims Foundation, is proud to sponsor the annual From-Prison-to-The-Stage Show at the Kennedy Center and the Prison Art Gallery at 1600 K Street. NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC, three blocks from the White House."

In The Trenches

FedCURE NEWS: NCJCA ~ LIVE WEBCAST: 3:00PM, THURSDAY -- Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing Scheduled on Webb Bill to Overhaul America’s Criminal Justice System


Media Advisory for:                          Contact: Jessica Smith – 202-228-5185

Thursday, June 11, 2007, 3:00pm                        Kimberly Hunter – 202-228-5258

*** LIVE WEBCAST: 3:00PM, THURSDAY ***

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing Scheduled on

Webb Bill to Overhaul America’s Criminal Justice System

National Criminal Justice Commission Act charges comprehensive

 review of system, concrete solutions for reform

Washington, DC – On Thursday, June 11, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs will hold a hearing on Senator Webb’s legislation to comprehensively review and reform the nation’s criminal justice system. The hearing entitled “Exploring the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009,” will host a number of experts in the field to discuss the need for such legislation. Senator Webb will participate in the hearing.

On March 26, Webb introduced S.714 to create a blue-ribbon commission charged with conducting an 18-month, top-to-bottom review of the nation’s entire criminal justice system and offering concrete recommendations for reform. The legislation has received widespread bipartisan support and has 29 cosponsors in the Senate, including Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Ranking Member Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Judiciary Committee member Senator Orrin G Hatch (R-UT).

In the 110th Congress, Webb chaired two hearings of the Joint Economic Committee that examined various aspects of the criminal justice system. In October of 2008, he conducted a symposium on drugs in America at George Mason University Law Center.

The hearing will be webcast online at the Senate Judiciary Committee website. The watch live, please go to: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3906

WHAT:                       Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs Hearing: “Exploring the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009”

WHEN:                       Thursday, June 11th, at 3:00pm

WHERE:                    226 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC

                                    Or online at: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3906

WITNESSES:            Pat Nolan, Vice President, Prison Fellowship

Chief William Bratton, Los Angeles Police Department

Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Harvard Law School

Brian W. Walsh, Senior Legal Research Fellow, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, The Heritage Foundation

For background materials on Senator Webb’s legislation, please visit:  http://webb.senate.gov/email/criminaljusticereform.html

For  additional materials or to RSVP, please contact Kimberly Hunter at: [email protected].

Event
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Blog

Congress Calls on DOJ to Better Explain Medical Marijuana Policy

Via Ben Morris at MPP:

The House committee that oversees the Department of Justice (DOJ) passed an amendment today that adds language to the committee’s report urging the DOJ to clarify its position on state-legal medical marijuana. The provision is a non-binding recommendation, but carries weight given the committee’s role in funding the department.
…
The language, sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), states, “There have been conflicting public reports about the Department’s [DOJ] enforcement of medical marijuana policies. Within 60 days of enactment, the Department shall provide to the Committee clarification of the Department’s policy regarding enforcement of federal laws and use of federal resources against individuals involved in medical marijuana activities.”

Although federal interference with state medical marijuana laws has been sparse since Obama took office, we have seen evidence of a potential loophole in the attorney general's pledge to respect state laws. As long as charges are brought in federal and not state court, there exists no mechanism for determining that state laws were ever violated, thus DEA could theoretically raid legitimate dispensaries based on unverified claims that local laws were being broken.

That's why Hinchey's effort to ensure accountability is so important. Although public outrage has been a powerful force towards pushing federal medical marijuana policy in a more reasonable direction, we simply cannot count on DEA to execute the new policy in good faith. The more pressure that's applied early on, the better our chance of ensuring that the worst excesses of the war on medical marijuana are behind us.
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No More $$$ = No More Prisons

Amidst the surging debate over our nation's draconian drug policy and general over-reliance on incarceration, there is one important factor that even the most diehard law & order ideologues can't just brush aside…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Michigan officials said Friday that the state is closing three prisons and five prison camps in hopes of narrowing a $1.4 billion budget gap for fiscal 2010.

If you can't afford to maintain giant iron cities full of people that must be fed, clothed and monitored 24-7, then you have to stop building them and start closing down the ones you have. This reality is finally beginning to sink in across the country:

Michigan is not alone in turning to its prison system for savings. Some 25 states cut spending on corrections in fiscal 2009 and another 25 are proposing to do so in fiscal 2010, as they struggle to address massive budget shortfalls.

"It's a trend we'll be seeing more and more of in coming months given the dire revenue situation states are in," said Sujit CanagaRetna, senior fiscal analyst at the Council of State Governments, a research group.

Well, bring it on. This isn't exactly what we had in mind when we started calling for criminal justice reform, but we'll take it.

We should never underestimate the extent to which our hideously bloated prison population owes much of its existence to a reversible pattern of public hysteria and reactionary political idiocy. The number of inmates in U.S. prisons has increased more than five-fold in my lifetime, and I was born in the 80's. It just wasn't all that long ago that our prison population was relatively manageable and there's no real reason we can't return to that. Indeed, we may have no other choice.
Blog

Khat is a Harmless Plant. So Why is D.C. Trying to Prohibit it?

As if we don’t already have enough crime problems to worry about here in the Nation's Capital, the D.C. City Council is trying to create one out of thin air. As we reported in Friday's Drug War Chronicle:

Last fall, at the urging of DC US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) introduced a proposal to criminalize fresh khat as a Schedule I drug, as it is under federal law. The DC City council is currently considering the proposal as part of its 2009 Omnibus Crime Bill and is likely to act on the measure before its session ends July 15.

Khat use is such a total non-problem that many people don't even know what it is, thus I should probably explain that khat is a mild stimulant used similarly to coffee in parts of East Africa. It isn't dangerous or particularly popular in the U.S., so the drug's prohibition under federal law can be attributed almost entirely to ignorance and racism. Seriously, the arguments against khat are so weak and sparse that law enforcement officials have resorted to the factually-vacant implication that khat might be funding terrorism.

Tragically, the D.C. City Council has thus far failed to grasp the absurdity of all this and will be banning khat entirely within a matter of weeks if we don't stop them. If you live in D.C. please click here to tell the council that prohibiting khat doesn’t make sense.
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Canadian House Passes Anti-Crime Bill With Mandatory Minimums for Pot, Other Drug Offenses

The Canadian House of Commons today passed the Conservative government of Prime Minister Steven Harper' C-15 crime bill, which will institute mandatory minimum sentencing for some marijuana and other drug offenses. The vote, in which after dilly-dallying for days, the opposition Liberals joined in, came despite hearings in which no witnesses favored such a tough on crime approach north of the border. It's not a done deal yet. The bill must still be approved by the Canadian Senate, which issued a report several years ago calling for the government to head in the opposite directoin. But the Senate, which is appointed, is not known for bucking the government and the House of Commons. That the Liberals buckled for fear of being "soft on crime" and supported the Conservatives in this giant step backward is disappointing but not surprising. Oh, Canada! Once we looked to you for a progressive example on drug policy. I will be writing about all this for the Chronicle later this week, as well as focusing on our other border with a feature article on the Obama administration's new initiative to thwart the Mexican so-called drug cartels.
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