US Protesters To March Against Deaths Caused by Prison System

US Protesters To March Against Deaths Caused by Prison System
Fecha de publicación: 
1 November 2017
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On Nov.2, protesters in four U.S. cities will mark the Day of the Dead with marches against the country's prison system and its impact.

The protests are being organized in Atlanta, Georgia; Louisville, Kentucky; Hendersonville, North Carolina; and Durham, North Carolina by Southerners on New Ground (SONG), an Atlanta-based Queer Liberation organization.  

"Día de los Muertos is a tradition of remembering our ancestors and loves ones we’ve lost,” Alan Ramírez, a regional organizer with SONG, told Remezcla. “This tradition also pushes us not to forget who or what is separating our families. Our hope with this action is to highlight the deaths and displacement caused by the Prison Industrial Complex throughout communities in the South."

 According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly 22 percent of the population in the U.S. prison system is Hispanic.

The protesters will march against the conditions in the prison industrial complex and the increased privatization of the prisons that are churning profits at the cost of human lives.

According to a July study by Washington D.C.-based think tank Urban Institute, the average number of years prisoners spend in jail has increased.

Between 2000 and 2014, the average time served rose by around 37 percent. And the 10 percent who have been in prison for the longest period, mostly serving sentences for violent crimes, saw their jail time increase by 42 percent.

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