PRISON NATION -Gallery Guide

Prison Nation—Posters on the prison Industrial Complex
41. Sexual Extortion is a Crime
Not a Sentence
Mary McGahren
Digital Print, 2006
Boston, MA
Every year over 200,000 adults and
children in U.S. prisons are raped and
sexually abused. Although it is the job
of prison staff to keep inmates safe,
they are among the main perpetrators
of sexual abuse. Prisoner rape is
a crime and a human rights violation.
In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination
Act was signed into law by President
George W. Bush, requiring the U.S.
Bureau of Justice Statistics to collect
and analyze data on rape in prison and
requiring the Department of Justice
to make prison rape prevention a priority.
Despite the intent of this law,
sexual extortion against women, children,
men and LGBTQ individuals is
an ongoing epidemic in prisons.
Solitary confinement is an increasingly
common practice in most U.S. prisons.
Prisoners may be held in solitary
cells for 23 hours a day or more; have
very limited contact with other people;
endure little or no contact with family
members; receive little or no access to
rehabilitation or educational resources;
and receive inferior physical and mental
health care. During solitary confinement,
prisoners may develop Special
Housing Unit Syndrome—visual and
auditory hallucinations, hypersensitivity
to noise and touch, insomnia
and paranoia, uncontrollable feelings
of rage and fear, distortions of time
and perception and increased risk of
suicide. Once released, many prisoners
experience Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD). Pelican Bay’s Special
Housing Unit (SHU) is notorious for
its solitary confinement practices. (See
poster #68).
44. 3 Strikes
Kevin McCloskey
Woodcut, 2010
Kutztown, PA
California’s 1994 Three Strikes law
created mandatory sentencing of life
in prison for anyone convicted of a
third felony, even for such petty crimes
as writing a bad check or shoplifting
socks. On November 6, 2012,
Californians passed Prop. 36 to amend
the law so that it only applies to “serious”
or “violent” felonies. Prop. 36
allows the possibility of 3,000 sentences
to be reduced and may save
the state as much as $90 million per
year. However, the terms “serious”
and “violent” are extremely vague and
the Three Strikes law continues to be
misused to expand the prison industrial
complex.
Some inmates said they saw bodies
floating in the floodwaters as they
were evacuated from the prison. A
number of inmates told Human Rights
Watch that they were not able to get
everyone out of their cells. Several
corrections officers told Human Rights
Watch that there was no evacuation
plan for the prison, even though the
facility had been evacuated during
floods in the 1990s.
Many of the men held at the jail had
been arrested for minor offenses including
criminal trespass, public drunkenness
or disorderly conduct. Many had
not even been brought before a judge
and charged, much less convicted.
New Orleans Sheriff Marlon Gusman
and other city officials are trying to
push forward the expansion of the
notorious Orleans Parish Prison (OPP)
which would add 5,800 new beds,
extend the prison 9-10 city blocks and
cost $250 million. OPP is already the
largest per capita county jail of any
major U.S. city, while resources for
housing, education, job training and
healthcare continue to be cut or remain
deeply underfunded.
In an effort to stop construction and
shrink the prison system in the city,
The Critical Resistance New Orleans
chapter has been working with allies
and community members trying to
build people power in order to shift
vital resources away from the prison
industrial complex and toward building
thriving, sustainable, self-determined
communities.
48. iRaq
Forkscrew Graphics
Silkscreen, 2004
Los Angeles, CA
iRaq combines the infamous photograph
of a prisoner tortured in Abu
Ghraib, the U.S. run prison in Iraq,
with the graphics of the internationally
distributed iPod ad. The poster was
produced soon after the photograph
was first seen by the U.S. public in
2004. This is one of a series of four
posters mimicking the iPod ads. The
posters were inserted into rows of real
iPod ads in Los Angeles, so that the
viewer would do a double take when
passing by. An almost identical appropriation
of the iPod ad was simultaneously
produced by New York artist
Copper Greene, who also inserted his
posters into the rows of iPod ads in the
subways and on the walls of New York.
This is a very effective form of culture
jamming—once someone sees the
parody or politicized version, they can
rarely see the real advertisement without
thinking of the politicized one.
HEALTH CARE NOT DEATH CARE
42. End the Attack
on Our Communities!
Melanie Cervantes
Justseeds
Silkscreen, 2008
Oakland, CA
CRUEL & UNUSUAL
In 1791, the Eighth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution was ratified stating
that, in regards to imprisonment,
“Excessive bail shall not be required,
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel
and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Since then, activists have challenged
the mistreatment of prisoners based on
this statute.
43. Bound
Josh MacPhee
Stencil, 2006
Troy, NY
45. $15.4 Billion Spent on
Incarcerating Californians
José Jimenez
Silkscreen, 2010
San Francisco, CA
46. Left to Die
Kelly Hickman
Digital Print, 2005
Frostburg, MD
During Hurricane Katrina, the sheriff’s
department deserted the New Orleans
Parish Prison, abandoning 6,500 men,
women and children left in their care.
As floodwaters rose in the prison
buildings and power went out, entire
buildings were plunged into darkness.
Deputies left their posts leaving prisoners
in locked cells, some standing
in sewage-tainted water up to their
chests. Many were not evacuated until
Thursday, September 1st, four days
after flood waters in the jail had reached
chest level. Inmates interviewed by
Human Rights Watch said that they had
no food or water from their last meal
over the weekend of August 27-28,
until they were evacuated on Thursday,
September 1. By Monday, August 29,
the generators had died, leaving them
without lights and sealed in without air
circulation. The toilets backed up creating
an unbearable stench.
"They left us to die there," Dan Bright,
an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told
Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish
Prison, where he was sent after the
evacuation.
16.
47. Guantanamo Bay
Luxury Resort
Sixten
Stencil, 2003
Melbourne, Australia
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, at the
southeastern end of Cuba, has been
used by the U.S. Navy for more than
a century under a lease set up in the
wake of the 1898 Spanish-American
War. The Cuban government continues
to denounce the lease on grounds
that Article 52 of the 1969 Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties
voids treaties procured by force or its
threatened use.
Since 2001, the naval base contains
a controversial detention camp
for militant combatants captured in
Afghanistan and later Iraq. After stories
of torture and abuse were revealed,
the U.S. government said that these
prisoners were not covered by the
Geneva Conventions—which include
prohibiting the torture of prisoners of
war—because the prison is located
outside the U.S. The justification of
torture by the Bush administration
received intense criticism both domestically
and internationally. On January
22, 2009, President Obama’s first day
in office, he signed an executive order
to close the Guantanamo Bay prison
within the year but Congress passed
laws thwarting the order. It remains
open. This poster uses irony to focus
on the conditions.
49. In America
Derek Luciani
Digital Print, 2006
Boston, MA
From the mid-1950s to the late 1990s,
many mental health institutions
throughout the U.S. were closed leaving
patients with no access to mental
health care. As a result of this policy,
called “deinstitutionalization,” many of
these individuals end up in the criminal
justice system. In 2006, the Bureau of
Justice Statistics reported that 56% of
state prisoners, 45% of federal prisoners
and 64% of jail inmates had mental
health issues.