z47\doc\web\2001\01\aspris.txt ------- start of forwarded message ------- Path: brokaw.wa.com!nwnews.wa.com!nntp2.savvis.net!newsfeed.nwlink.com!news.aa.net!nntp.frontiernet.net!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gblx.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail From: drydem Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american Subject: Re: Queries about Asians (Americans? ) in prisons Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 15:28:25 GMT Organization: Deja.com Lines: 205 Message-ID: <95426f$shc$1@@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <952stc$u2f$1@@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>o NNTP-Posting-Host: 172.168.131.168 X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Jan 29 15:28:25 2001 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x55.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 172.168.131.168 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDwalter_lee Xref: brokaw.wa.com soc.culture.asian.american:353131 In article <952stc$u2f$1@@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>, "tasm" wrote: > Being that the prison system is about the most segregated > institution in the US (so much for the strength of > diversity), I wonder how Asians do in prison. Prisoners > find protection in their race, and with so few Asians in > prison, how do they find protection? Does the prison > system give Asians a special protected status where > they are isolated from all the other prisoners like > how it is done for child molesters? If there are no > provisions for these needs, then I bet Asians are the > first to become the people's boys. On a more > positive note, I think this is a great incentive > for Asians not to commit crimes. FYI... There are three systems of incarceration: 1) federal - convicted federal offenders, INS 2) state - convicted state offenders 3) local and private - convicted local offenders, temporary incarceration (e.g. waiting for trial ) 4) juvenile - convicted offenders under 18 years old. offenders are released by the time they reach 18-21 years old (and their records are sealed). usually each system of incarceration has two levels of security 1) minumum - non violent offenders which can be very nicely appointed if your the ex governor of Maryland or Rhode Island... 2) maximum - violent offenders The law requires that violent offender be kept separate. In certain cases some prisoners are kept in solitary confinement because they are 1) a danger to other prisoners 2) a danger to the outside world (because a regular prison has some access to the outside world, e.g. visitors, mail, telephone, internet, etc)... can you say Wen Ho Lee three times very fast? Of all the types of criminals that have a rough time in prison - I have heard that prisoners despise prisoners convicted child molesters the most - I am not sure if that make life worst for them or not... To find out more about Prison Conditions you might want to do a search on "Prisoner's Rights" ALCU Prisoner's Rights Page http://www.aclu.org/issues/prisons/hmprisons.html Cornell Law Library On Prisoner's Rights http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/prisoners_rights.html California's Prison Rights Website http://www.prisonlaw.com/eventsc.htm The charter to alt.prisoner.rights which is a newsgroup devoted to prisoner's rights http://www.thebird.org/newsgrps/chart7.html you might want to followup on this documentary... -------------- Bui Doi: Life Like Dust (1994) 28 min. (ZVC 7761) This film takes us inside the mind on Ricky Phan, once a gang leader in Southern California. He relates his immigration from a Vietnamese refugee camp to California, his entry into American schools, his subsequent involvement with Asia American gangs followed by criminal activity and prison Yuri Kochiyama: A Passion for Justice (1993) 57 min. (ZVC 7731) For the past forty years, the work of this tireless political activist has touched thousands of lives in diverse communities across the United States. Yuri Kochiyama's story begins with her internment as a young woman during World War II. She has been involved with world wide nuclear disarmament, Malcolm X Black Liberation and the International Political Prisoner Rights Movement. From: gary colmenar, colmenar@@library.ucsb.edu, 3/1/00 Msg. No: 411, Sent by Email: Yes Topic: General here is another url that came up on the radar scope.... ##################################################### ASIAN ACTIVISM IN THE POLITICAL PRISONER AND PRISON MOVEMENT Santa Barbara & Los Angeles, March 2-4, 2000 http://origin.org/afj/forum/afj090i.cfm?V100=411 Featuring leading Asian American political prisoner activists WAYNE LUM and MO NISHIDA. Come hear what Asian American activists nationwide are doing to resist unjust incarceration. Contrary to the myth of passivity, Asian Americans did resist the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Today, Asian Americans are affected by the racist and classist patterns of imprisonment. And today, we continue to resist injustice. Two leading Asian American activists speak about their work to support political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal and to stop Proposition 21. Inspired by long-time activist Yuri Kochiyama, WAYNE LUM is a leader in two New York-based Asian American organizations supporting political prisoners: Asians for Mumia/Jericho and the Yu Kikumura Support Committee. Framed in an anti-imperialist context, Mr. Lum will discuss the work to defend the only officially recognized Asian American political prisoner Yu Kikumura. Mr. Lum also supports David Wong, a Chinese immigrant prisoner who was convicted on shaky evidence in a racially biased trial. Veteran activist, MO NISHIDA will connect the current incarceration of Asian Americans and the expanding prison industrial complex to the history of Asian American imprisonment. Mr. Nishida works with the Jericho Movement for political prisoners in Los Angeles. SANTA BARBARA Thursday, March 2, 7-9 pm UCSB's Asian American Studies Conference Room, 5th floor HSSB Organized by ASIAN! (Asian Sisters & Brothers for Ideas in Action Now!). For more information call: 800/730-8103 NORTHRIDGE Friday, March 3, 12 noon California State University at Northridge, Location TBA. LOS ANGELES Saturday, March 4, 6-9 pm People's Core, 300 W. Cesar Chavez, at Broadway For more information about the Northridge and Los Angeles events, call the Organizational Committee of Asian Pacific Ethnics for Mumia & Jericho at 323/295-0687. ########################### Asian American Gangbanger Stereotype Sentences UCI Student to 15 Years in Prison by Daniel C. Tsang Copyright © 1995, All Rights Reserved Irvine -- UCI sophomore Dan Trung Hoang thought he was just helping a friend out. Last November 15, rushing to get to his Organic Chemistry class where he faced a quiz, Dan decided to avoid the "hassle" of finding on-campus parking, and lent his car to a 16-year-old friend, who had been crashing at his Campus Village apartment. Later that evening, the friend brought the car back, and with others, they went out to Westminster to eat, then decided to head toward the beach. They did a detour back to Irvine to pick up some soft drinks at Ralph's on Alton Square at Alton and Jeffrey. What followed is in dispute, and Dan's trial, just ended in Superior Court, left too many questions unanswered. It turned out his friend was no choir boy; he had left a gun in the car (with ammo in the trunk), and during a confrontation outside near Ralph's that Dan says was a "racial attack," gunshots were fired, and two of the apparent "attackers" were injured. The victims recovered fully and testified against Dan in the two-week long trial, which ended April 6 in Dan's conviction on three attempted murder charges with gang enhancement thrown in. After the verdict, I visited him in OC Jail; he had shaved his hair; the prosecution had claimed he had red hair (gang colors!) when in fact everyone in court could see the streak in his hair was yellow. In jail, he told me he wants to clear his name. The irony is that Dan did not shoot anyone, and as he told KUCI's Subversity listeners April 3 in a taped interview from jail, he had never handled a gun before the incident.... Hoang was found guilty of three other counts of attempted murder. The California Street Terrorism Act is draconian: A minimum 15 year state prison term without parole for anyone..... [see url http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~dtsang/stereot.htm for the rest of the story ] ######## A three part story on the U.S.A penal system. http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98dec/prisons.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98dec/pris2.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98dec/pris3.htm ####### I could not find any reports or statistics on criminal behavior within the prison systems but the USA does provide demographic data on the prison population at U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice statistics http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/correct.htm Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ------- end of forwarded message -------