The Prison Business: Who Pays? Who Profits?

Prison Forums presents the first of a series The Prison Business: Who Pays? Who Profits? Thursday, March 14th 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM Delancey Street Foundation 600 Embarcadero, San Francisco, California seven blocks south of the Embarcadero BART station a panel presentation followed by discussion moderator: John Irwin - ex-convict, author, and activist panelists: " James Austin: the national prison business picture James Austin is the director of the Institute on Crime, Justice, and Corrections at theGeorge Washington University in Washington, D.C. Before joining GWU, he was the Executive Vice President of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for 20 years. He began his career in corrections in 1970 as a correctional sociologist at Joliet and Stateville prisons in Illinois. He has more than 25 years of experience in criminal justice planning and research. He serves, or has recently served, as director for several U.S. Department of Justice funded research and evaluation programs. Some of his most recent studies include national evaluations of Three Strikes and Your Out laws, privatization of prisons, juveniles in adult corrections, and prison classification systems. He also conducted evaluations of several major local jail systems (Seattle, New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and D.C.). He directed studies in 25 states to develop correctional populations projections based on current and proposed sentencing reforms. " Ruthie Gilmore: impact of the Prison Industrial Complex on rural communities Born in 1950, Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a life-long activist for social justice. She has been doing frontline anti-racist work since age ten when she was sent to desegregate a school on her own. In the past decade Gilmore has specialized in helping form grassroots organizations that link issues of prison expansion, criminalization, racism, and sexism with the wide and deep consequences of governmental and capital abandonment that has left enormous numbers of people stuck in impoverished urban and rural communities. She has written numerous articles, and a forthcoming book (Golden Gulag, University of California Press) about the political economy of prison expansion in urban and rural context, and the cultures of opposition of those who are fighting prison growth. Organizational affiliations include: Critical Resistance, California Prison Moratorium Project, Families Against California's Three Strikes, California Prison Focus, Mothers Reclaiming Our Children, the Union of Radical Political Economists, and the National Writers' Union. Gilmore is Assistant Professor of Geography at U.C. Berkeley. " Deborah Vargas: the power of prison guards' unions Currently, Deborah Vargas works with the Justice Policy Institute of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice as a researcher and policy analyst. She holds two bachelors degrees, one in Psychology (emphasis on adolescent psychology) and one in Social Science, with a minor in Criminal Justice. She is also a graduate student in Public Administration at San Francisco State University, concentrating on criminal justice administration. She recently completed a study on the power of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association in her capacity as a researcher and policy analyst with the Justice Policy Institute. Hosted by Delancey Street Foundation; Presented by the Crimiinal Justice Consortium, the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, Critical Resistance, and the Smart on Crime Coalition For more information contact Virginia at: 415/753-6602 or virgie@worldnet.att.net consider having dinner at the Delancey Street Restaurant after the forum Critical Resistance 1212 Broadway, Suite 1400 Oakland, ca 94612 Phone: (510)444-0484 Fax: (510)444-2177 rose@criticalresistance.org crnational@criticalresistance.org