Last week Jailhouse Lawyers Speak put out a call to those in solidarity in recognition of Burn Day on this upcoming Friday the 13th. Traditionally Friday the 13th is a day of bad luck omens and misfortune, I’ve never been superstitious but I do agree this this Friday is an unfortunate day as the 25th anniversary of Joe Biden’s Crime bills being signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The tough-on-crime rhetoric that landed us into this situation is no longer a valid argument in conversations about criminal justice and corrections. People now understand that to lock them up and turn away the key isn’t at all socially or fiscally responsible. Since tough-on-crime ideologies are dead how is it that the bills that were born of this ideology continue to plague the lives of millions of our incarcerated citizens? It seems as though we’ve allowed for the abuse that was perpetuated by legislators more concerned with securing votes then saving lives not to be held accountable for the lives that have been restored.
Sample Posts for the Burn Biden Bill Opposition Day 9/13/19
National Hashtags: #94CrimeBill #OppositionDay #EndMassIncarceration
On September 13th 2019, we are asking citizens of this nation to take a stand with us, highlight the National #PrisonStrike Demands. How can you help? Hold a forum, do a noise demo, participate in the tweet storm, retweet, like, share your stance committed to prisoners demands
The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, yet has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. If the prison population were a state, it would be the 36th largest — bigger than Delaware, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. -@JailLawSpeak #94CrimeBill #BurnBidenBill
Mass incarceration is not only unnecessary to reduce crime but is also ineffective. According to the @BrennanCenter The criminal justice system costs taxpayers $260 billion a year…incarceration contributes to as much as 20 percent of the American poverty rate. #94CrimeBill
President Clinton celebrated the #94CrimeBill and & saw it as his greatest accomplishment, which greatly accelerated the U.S to the number one nation on earth in imprisonment. At no point in human history has this level of imprisonment ever been known. -@JailLawSpeak
Hillary Rodham Clinton in her 1996 speech called us “super predators,” who were beyond rehabilitation and “must be brought to heel.” but now that we know that no human is beyond rehabilitation will we bring the #94CrimeBill to a heel? #BurnBidenBill https://sawarimi.org/archives/3381
#94CrimeBill initially included $8.7 billion for prison construction for states that enacted “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which required people convicted of violent crimes to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.-@JailLawSpeak
This single #94CrimeBill created the incentive for dozens of states to build prisons and create laws for longer sentencing. -@JailLawSpeak
“As prisons began to be built and filled, complaints increased of inhumane conditions and brutal treatment of prisoners. In a move by government officials to muffle our voices, the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) was passed.” -@JailLawSpeak #94CrimeBill #BurnBidenBill
#PrisonStrike Demand#3, “The Prison Litigation Reform Act must be rescinded, allowing imprisoned humans a proper channel to address grievances and violations of their rights” In 1996 PLRA ended judicial oversight of Prisons & protection over the rights of prisoners. #94CrimeBill
For 22 years now prisoners’ protections stripped from them by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) that restricted prisoners ability to defend themselves in the courts, silencing prisoners suffering from physical, sexual & other abuses. #94CrimeBill https://sawarimi.org/archives/2336
There’s no class of people in more need of legal protection than prisoners. PLRA delays prisoners ability to hold officials accountable by cutting off judicial oversight of prison activity. PLRA lightened the court load but made prisons much less safe thanks to the #94CrimeBill
Prisons like many schools & hospitals, house individuals that are dependent on political oversight but unlike these institutions no light is being shinned on prison activity that allow us to regulate and protect those that are there. The #94CrimeBill encourages prison abuse
The #94CrimeBill encourages prison abuse by imposing longer sentences, stripping prisoners of their civil rights & eliminating access to higher eduction. Biden’s bills make prisons less safe and prisoners more vulnerable to abuse without holding anyone accountable #OppositionDay
Reverse the Mass Incarceration Act by rescinding the #94CrimeBill, fulfilling @JailLawSpeak’s National #PrisonStrike demands, funding pell grants, ending mandatory minimums & restoring prisoners #Right2Vote. 25 years is too long to hold on to ineffective tough-on-crime ideology
Our nation took the absolute wrong turn by enacting the Prisoner Litigation Reform For us to turn to the right direction we must rescind the #94CrimeBill and open the doors of the courts to prisoners. True #CJReform requires transparency & accountability! #EndMassIncarceration
The #94CrimeBill placed restrictions on prisoners seeking to find justice, many cases of innocent prisoners go unaddressed, “There are people in prison with constitutional issues that they can’t get heard in the Federal courts because they are barred by AEDPA” – D. Foster (MDOC)
AEDPA, known as Clintons ‘other #94CrimeBill’, “was signed into law on April 25, 1996…He said he didn’t know the effect it would have on prisoners” Many politicians have no idea of the consequences of the bills they sign, but once we realize those laws should be rescinded
When advocating for the #94CrimeBill Biden said, “It doesn’t matter whether or not they were deprived as a youth, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are the victims of society…So I don’t want to ask ‘what made them do this?’ They must be taken off the street” what about now?
When advocating for the #94CrimeBill Biden said “unless we do something…tens of thousands of them born out of wedlock without parents, without any conscience developing, they will or a portion of them will become the predators 15 years from now. They are beyond the pale.”
Biden used racist, bigoted, tough-on-crime rhetoric when advocating for the #94CrimeBill. His language would be completely unacceptable now so why not this bill? Its time that we throw the baby out with the bathwater and rescind Biden’s Bills #OppositionDay #EndMassIncarceration
While advocating for the #94CrimeBill Biden said, “I don’t care why someone is a malefactor in society. I don’t care why someone is antisocial. I don’t care why they’ve become a sociopath. We have an obligation to cordon them off from the rest of society.”
#RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill #RepealThe94CrimeBill
Take A Stand Against the Mass Incarceration Act Now
Now is the time to call out the injustices that were established before many of us were aware. Truth-in-sentencing sounds too good to be true and the fear of crime prevailed over our commitment to rehabilitation for years. Now we’re facing a monster that’s out of control. With millions of people suffering and a new realization of the issues that have enveloped into the public-school-to-prison pipeline fueling the Prison Industrial Slave Complex (PISC) we now realize the severe consequences of the 94 Crime bill and all of the legislation that it inspired across the country. Politicians like Kamala Harris and even Joe Biden have published criminal justice reform that do little to nothing to rectify the plethora of issues that they created and maintained throughout their careers. The realization of a problem isn’t enough, with the 25 year anniversary of the bill here now is the time to be vocal take a stand like never before and call out the devastation that has occurred. We must hold politicians accountable and demand solutions. Please join us in participating in Burn Day where we refuse to continue to allow these issues to hide behind a false sense of safety or security. Mass incarceration never made our nation safer, it made conditions worse for millions and on Friday the 13th we as a nation will demand that Biden’s Crime Bills of 1994 be burned.
Images and Graphics
