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Thursday, August 8, 2013

2013 Mobile Justice Tour Visits Harrisonburg

Lantern Books
The Virginia Alliance Against Mass Incarceration, along with four other state organizations, will conduct a forum at the Massanutten Regional Library from 1-3 pm Tuesday, August 13, as one of fourteen stops by the 2013 Mobile Justice Tour.

According to their flyer, among the issues highlighted will be legislation that restores the rights of qualified non-violent ex-offenders, fair hiring practices for those who have been incarcerated, earned sentence credits for prisoners who take advantage of therapeutic, educational and vocational class opportunities, and temporary public assistance for up to nine months for newly released persons.

According to a recent New York Times article, the number of people incarcerated in the US has actually begun to decline, not only because of the financial burden prisons place on state budgets, but because more and more people are seeing a need for alternatives to mass incarceration as a response to crime. While some people certainly may need some form of "time out" for their own or others' protection,  too often the prison system has become what author and 27-year inmate Jens Soering refers to as "An Expensive Way To Make Bad People Worse", the title of one of his books.

We need you to attend, and to help spread the word!

Click on this link for more posts on prison and criminal justice issues, including one on my brief meeting with author Jens Soering at the Buckingham Correctional Center.

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