CONFERENCE TARGETS PRISON SYSTEM

Group Suggests Alternative Ways To Fight Crime

Amid grim stories of social injustice and the brutality of prison life, the
Rev. Goat Carson chose to laugh.

It's a symbol of freedom, he announced Friday night inside Treme Center, at
the start of a weekend conference dedicated to ending the nation's reliance
on prison cells and razor wire to stop crime.

"I want to laugh in the face of this oppression," Carson shouted, rousing
the crowd to join him. "We are still here, we are still here. We are the
people."

Carson joins a host of activists, lawyers, former prisoners and artists who
came to New Orleans for Critical Resistance South: Beyond the Prison
Industrial Complex.

Critical Resistance, a national organization that opposes incarceration as
the answer to crime, welcomes the public to a series of workshops, films,
art exhibits and more throughout Treme. All events are free and run through
Sunday.

"We won't rely on prisons, police and other kinds of surveillance to solve
our problems," said Melissa Burch of Critical Resistance's Southern office
in New Orleans. "We're here to learn from each other."

While no one proposed to have all the answers, suggested alternatives to
prisons included rebuilding battered neighborhoods, increasing drug
treatment and improving public schools.

Friday night was part pep rally, part prayer service, as several former
prisoners took the stage calling for an end to a costly system in which 2.1
million people are imprisoned in the United States.

The crowd heartily welcomed Angela Davis, an activist and academic who
first came to international attention when she was tried and acquitted in
1972 in a politically charged murder case.

After criticizing the war in Iraq as "the cowboy diplomacy of George Bush,"
Davis urged the crowd to oppose the "military industrial complex" as well
as the prison system.

Prison reforms are critical, Davis said, but the movement can't stop at
improving prison conditions.

"The prison has become so naturalized, it's extremely hard to imagine life
without it," Davis said. "Our most important challenge today is creating
and exploring new terrains of justice where the prison no longer serves as
our major anchor."

Others at the conference consider themselves survivors of the criminal
justice system.

Dorothy Gaines of Alabama was pardoned by President Clinton in 2000 after a
national campaign exposed her 20-year drug sentence as an unjust byproduct
of the country's war on drugs.

Proclaiming her innocence, Gaines had rebuffed a deal from federal
prosecutors trying to link her to a drug-dealing ring that involved her
ex-husband. She got the toughest sentence of the bunch.

"I refused to snitch and do the government's job," she said.

Like many other inmates, Gaines was separated from her family. When her
mother died during her first month in prison, she wasn't allowed to attend
the funeral. Fellow inmates became her family, and she refused to buckle.

When a prison counselor used to ask her how she could smile when facing 20
years, Gaines replied, "They took my freedom. They didn't take my joy."

Patrick Banks of Tampa Bay, Fla., wound up serving time for grand theft
auto after being arrested at age 15 for driving his father's car. When his
father died, he wasn't allowed to leave prison for the wake.

At a Florida boot camp for juveniles, Banks and the others were made to
"earn their shoes" by working barefoot. His leg was broken during his time
there.

Too many people ignore the reality of prison life because it doesn't affect
their families, Banks said.

"Nobody really cares. Nobody outside of this room. There's a million cases
out there just like me."

Also appearing was Robert "King" Wilkerson, one of the "Angola Three," who
insist they were framed for murders behind bars and held as political
prisoners because of their Black Panther organizing days.

"We can't be fooled to believe that locking folks up will make our
communities safer," Wilkerson said, reading a statement on behalf of Albert
Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who remain at Angola, convicted of killing a
guard in 1972. "Stand up, organize and fight."

For information about the conference, visit www.criticalresistance.org.