Press Room
DARE Block Party To Highlight Failed War on Drugs PDF Print E-mail

For Immediate Release

DIRECT ACTION FOR RIGHTS & EQUALITY

Contact:

Rachel Miller (401) 351-6960

Jordan Seaberry cell (773) 332-0451

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

www.daretowin.org

What: Community Calls for an End to the Failed War on Drugs during day long block party.

When: Saturday, June 18th, 3pm – 4 pm Full Schedule attached

Who: Lt. Jack Cole, Board Chair, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition; Tina Reynolds , Women On the Rise Telling Her Story;

Community Leaders & Members

Where: Behind 340 Lockwood Street (Hayward Street Between Lockwood and pearl ), Providence, RI 02907

June 18th: DARE’s Block Party

to Highlight the FAILED War on Drugs

40th Anniversary of Nixon’s Declaration of a “War on Drugs”

This June marks forty years since President Richard Nixon, citing drug abuse as “public enemy No. 1”, officially declared a "war on drugs." A trillion dollars and millions of ruined lives later, the war on drugs remains an abject failure.

 

Drug policy reform advocates all across the country will commemorate this date with a day of action to raise awareness about the failure of drug prohibition and call for an exit strategy to the failed war on drugs.

 

Direct Action for Rights and Equality is marking the day with a community block party, a family-friendly space open at no charge for the whole community, with live music, face painting, a bouncy house and free BBQ. DARE will also bring together local and national leaders who are working together to end 40 years of failed drug policy.

 

“In the Southside, our community faces so many challenges- we are hosting this event as an opportunity to bring people together, to celebrate our strengths and also to educate our community about 40 years of policy that has torn up families and ruined lives, ” said Jordan Seaberry, DARE’s Behind the Walls Prison Committee Organizer.

 

The Block Party comes at a time when DARE will celebrate, with coalition allies, the passage of the Healthy Pregnancies Act, sponsored by Senator Perry and Representative Walsh. Tina Reynolds, a national leader who sparked the movement to stop shackling pregnant prisoners after giving birth while shackled, will speak on the importance of this as a step in recognizing health issues for prisoners.

 

Lt. Jack Cole, the Board Chair of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) will keynote the 3:00 pm rally, sharing his experience as a veteran drug-warrior turned against the war. Lt. Cole’s career as an undercover narcotics officer with the New Jersey State Police spanned the spectrum of possible cases, from street drug users and mid-level drug dealers in New Jersey to international "billion-dollar" drug trafficking organizations. Lt. Cole is passionate in his belief that the drug war is steeped in racism, that it is needlessly destroying the lives of young people, and that it is corrupting our police.

 

DARE is hosting this day of action in coordination with the national Drug Policy Alliance. Events will be held in 15 states, and in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and New Orleans. The day of action will be highlighted with a large-scale event with elected officials in Washington, DC.

 

“Some anniversaries provide an occasion for celebration, others a time for reflection, still others a time for action,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Forty years after President Nixon declared his war on drugs, we're seizing upon this anniversary to prompt both reflection and action. And we're asking everyone who harbors reservations about the war on drugs -- to join us in this enterprise.

###

 

Direct Action for Rights and Equality is a membership based organization serving low-income communities of color in Rhode Island. DARE’s Behind the Walls Prison Committee works to connect inmates and formerly incarcerated people, those on probation and parole and their families to organize for systemic changes in the criminal justice system. DARE is celebrating the passage of the Healthy Pregnancies Act, organizing for probation reform and to ban the box on job applications that asks, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony.”

 

LEAP is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who are speaking out about the failures of our existing drug policies. Those policies have failed, and continue to fail, to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, especially the problems of juvenile drug use, the problems of addiction, and the problems of crime caused by the existence of a criminal black market in drugs.

 

A full schedule of the Block Party events include:

 


12:00 pm Music and Performers

12:30 pm Sheila Wilhelm, Opening Remarks

12:30-1:15 pm Music and Performers

1:15 Meko Lincoln, DARE member, introduces Andres Idarraga, ACI ’04, Brown University, ’08; Yale Law School ’11

1:30 Music & Performers

1:45 pm John Prince, former DARE Board Chair, introduces Luis Estrada, RI Coalition for Addiction Recovery Efforts, Board Member.

2:00-3:00 pm Music and Performers

3:00 pm Rally with Rosalina Collazo, DARE Board Chair; Faith Torres, DARE Member; Tina Reynolds, WORTH; Keynote by Lt. Jack Cole, LEAP

4:20 pm Performers & Close


 

 
 
From Rhode Island to Pelican Bay, People Stand in Solidarity for Human Rights PDF Print E-mail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  (RI) Jordan Seaberry, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , 401-351-6960
(CA) Dorsey Nunn- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , (415) 516-9599
www.PrisonerHungerStrikeSolidarity.wordpress.com
www.daretowin.org


WHAT: RHODE ISLANDERS HOST PUBLIC EVENTS DURING 24 HOUR FAST IN SOLIDARITY WITH HUNGER STRIKERS

WHEN & WHERE:  WEDNESDAY, JULY 20 2:00 pm OUTREACH in KENNEDY PLAZA, PROVIDENCE
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20 3:30 pm RALLY at the ACI COMPLEX


From Rhode Island to Pelican Bay, People Stand in Solidarity for Human Rights

On July 1st, 2011, prisoners in the Secure Housing Unit (SHU)at Pelican Bay State Prison, CA went on indefinite hunger strike to protest conditions that have been characterized by the UN as "inhumane and degrading."  In the Pelican Bay SHU inmates are typically held for 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, often for years on end; for many the only hope they have of changing their situation is through the process “de-briefing.”*  Throughout the past two weeks the hunger strikers have been joined by thousands of prisoners in at least a third of California’s prisons, along with reported strikers in OH, PA, GA and Canada.  
On July 20th, people in Rhode Island will fast for 24 hours and host public actions in solidarity with the hunger strikers, and to call attention to the human rights violations in American prisons, particularly shining a light on the inhumane practice of long-term solitary confinement, perpetuated in RI’s ACI and in prisons across the country.  

Members of Direct Action for Rights & Equality, including former prisoners and family members of current prisoners, will be in Kennedy Plaza raising awareness from 2-3pm, and will hold a rally at 3:30 pm at the ACI Complex.


“What’s happening in California is an outrageous abuse of human rights,” said John Prince, a member of Direct Action for Rights and Equality and a former inmate at the ACI.  “We’re taking these actions together because it’s important to shine a light on how prisoners are treated, not just in California but across the country.  We need to push people to ask if incarceration is really a solution to the problems in our communities, or another thing that perpetuates them.”


“The purpose of the Hunger Strike is to combat both the…psychological and physical torture, as well as the justifications used of support treatment of the type that lends to prisoners being subjected to a civil death.  Those subjected to indeterminate SHU programs are neglected and deprived of the basic human necessities while withering away in a very isolated and hostile environment,” said Mutope Duguma, a Pelican Bay prisoner in a written statement.


A source with access to the medical condition of the hunger strikers in California, who asked to remain anonymous, told lawyers with the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition that the health of the prisoners is quickly and severely deteriorating.  


The Pelican Bay prisoners’ Five Demands are modest, including: (1) An End to Group Punishment and Administrative Abuse; (2) Abolish the Debriefing* Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria; (3) Comply with Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an end to Long-Term Solitary Confinement; (4) Provide Adequate Food; (5) Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.


Rhode Islanders are hosting these events to show solidarity with the Strikers in California, as well as our brothers and sisters at the ACI, and to highlight the link between the struggles of prisoners on the West Coast with the struggle of prisoners across the country.  The SHU is an extreme model of prisoner segregation, but solitary confinement is a widespread issue across the country.  
#30


* The practice of “debriefing,” or offering up information about fellow prisoners particularly in regard to gang status, is often demanded in return for better food or even release from the SHU. Debriefing puts the safety of prisoners and their families at risk, because they are then viewed as “snitches.”

Direct Action for Rights and Equality is a membership organization based in the Southside of Providence. We work for political, economic, racial and social justice.  DARE’s Behind the Walls Prison Committee has been integral in campaigns for voting rights for former inmates, in the recent Unshackling Pregnant Prisoners Legislation and in last years reforms to 32F probation violations.
 
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