Prison Detention Divestment Call to Action

This invitation was received today by Decarcerate the Garden State - please forward widely:

Hello Bob,

 

My name is Erica Gbur,  I'm an AFSC intern working with Alix Nguefack,  and I am emailing you on behalf of the AFSC and Enlace to invite you and  Decarcerate the Garden State to join our Prison Divestment Campaign. Our campaign is centered around researching the effects that private prisons and detention centers have had on our communities, and encouraging other organizations, schools, and businesses to divest from corporations that run these facilities. We are also inviting you to come join our #End the Quota Rally at Elizabeth Detention Center on August 13th, from 11 am to noon. 

 

There is more information about our campaign, as well as information on how to sign up, in the attached document. And if you have any more questions you can email Daniel Carrillo at daniel@enlaceintl.org or Alix Nguefack at  ANguefack@afsc.org . And we will be calling next week about a NY strategy session in September, and to answer any questions. We look forward to working with you, deadline to sign on is August 25th.

--

Erica Gbur

New Jersey Prison Divestment Campaign

Vision/ Mission

We are a diverse set of students, immigrant and criminal justice grassroots, advocacy and faith based organizations in New Jersey coming together under the arc of Prison Divestment to connect Black Lives Matters, Immigrant Rights, and Prison Human Rights Movements. We strive to impact the lives of New Jersey Black, Brown, and indigenous communities.

Our campaigns will:

• Involve Students to highlight the School to Prison Pipeline.
• Address anti-Blackness in the immigrant rights movement, while also connecting Police Brutality and Polimigra fights.
• Look at the impact of using the prisons, detention, county jails and halfway houses to generate profit for corporations and revenue for local governments, including per diem rates per prisoner from federal contracts, exorbitant phone rates, and inflated pricing for commissary items, on the families and children in New Jersey’s communities.
• Research where our tax dollars are going and what undue financial or political influences are responsible for the increase in prison populations of black and brown people including campaign contributions from prisons, detention, county jails and halfway houses
• Demand greater transparency for prisons, detention, county jails and halfway houses by strengthening New Jersey’s sunshine and pay to play laws.
• Demand the State of New Jersey divest from prisons, detention, county jails and halfway houses and reinvest those resources in the community, for example, education and healthcare.

Proposed Campaign Focus

The New Jersey Prison Divestment Campaign will focus on three areas:

1. Developing a campaign jointly targeting prisons, detention, county jails and halfway houses
2. Developing and supporting university prison divestment campaigns, beginning with Rutgers
3. Utilize testimony from prisoners and their families and friends to raise awareness about how public dollars are used by corporations to profit from mass incarceration and how public penal facilities raise revenue from incarcerated people.

How to get involved

1. Sign On to the 1 pager on the campaign
2. Attend the September Strategy and Action Planning Wednesday September 9th from 10am- 1pm at AFSC Newark Office (89 Market Street, 6th Floor Newark, NJ 07102)

a.    At this session we will discuss the proposed campaign focus and consider any other possible components so that we can develop an action plan.

Sign on to the Campaign

Organization:

Name:

Email:

Phone: