Building Communities of Resistance

Against Prison Expansion in Britain

A Community Organizing and Strategizing Event

PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE:

Now: Sunday 22 November 2009

2-5:00pm Networking, Strategizing and Discussion Session

5:00pm Food / social gathering

5:30 pm Special Performance of "Prison?" by Charlie Ryder

Charlie performs using puppets, masks, physical theatre and silences to shine a light on his 8 months in prison. This show will be followed by a question and answer session.

Location: LARC - London Action Resource Centre - (LARC) 62 Fieldgate St, Whitechapel, London E1 1ES

Location is wheelchair accessible including toilet. Wheelchair access through side entrance.

Please note event is limited to 40 people: To reserve a spot, please email by October 31: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Get involved in a grassroots campaign to stop the new prisons!

Background:

The British Government is currently embarking on a £3.2 – £4.6 billion prison-building spree. The government plans to create places for more than 10,500 new prisoners by 2014, on top of an existing 9,500 place expansion program. These new prisons will be privately financed, built and run, taking vital resources out of our communities and investing them in a prison industry that wants to profit from locking people up.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 November 2009 12:08

We Don’t Need More Prisons in Britain!

We are living in a time of global mass incarceration. Prisons are overflowing, imprisonment rates are skyrocketing and prison costs are spiraling out of control.

Despite these trends, prisons have failed to make our communities safer. Prisons have failed to protect our neighbourhoods and have failed to stop violence against women, migrants, people of colour, poor communities, queer and trans people, children, youth and people with disabilities and mental health issues. Prisons have instead fostered more violence and oppression. With the government currently embarking on a massive prison building spree, which will see the creation of 20,000 new prison spaces by 2014 (at a cost of £3.2-4.6 billion!) the failure of imprisonment is only going to get worse. The time to act is now.

We are calling on everyone with an interest in stopping violence and building towards social, economic and racial justice to join in the movement to stop prison expansion in Britain.

Come to our next meeting:

Bent Bars Project Letter Writing Night - third Thursday of each month

CoRe Meeting Saturday November 14, 2009

10 Reasons to Stop Prison Expansion in Britain

On December 5, 2007, the British Ministry of Justice announced a massive prison expansion program to create 10,500 new prison spaces by 2014. This is in addition to the 9,500 spaces previously announced. The government originally planed to build three massive new US-style “Titan” prisons, which will hold up to 2,500 prisoners each, but because of widespread opposition, the government changed its plan and now intends to build 5 “mini-Titan” prisons instead (to hold 1,500 each). Proposed locations for the first two mini-Titans include Beam Park West (East London) and Runwell, Chelmsford (Essex). We don’t need more prisons – here’s why:

1. More prisons won’t reduce crime and may increase re-offence rates.
Criminologists warn that building more prisons is likely to increase rather than decrease re-offence rates. A study by former senior Home Office researcher Carole Hederman, for example, found that re-offence rates are increasing in tandem with prison population growth. Since 1993

Attachments:
File	Description	File size
Prison Expansion	Stop prison expansion flyer	381 Kb

Last Updated on Wednesday, 02 September 2009 19:28