mil
CW 1
Groups ask U.S. Justice Department to Close
Prison Pipeline in Wake County Schools
By Sharon McCloskey ncpolicywatch.com
Handcuffed for stepping out of line in the cafeteria. Pepper-
sprayed in the eyes, TASERed in the chest, violently tackled to the
■ ground or pushed into walls. Interrogated and searched without con-
I sent, parental or attorney involvement.
Sounds like the stuff of a youth detention facility on lockdown,
I except it’s happening in Wake County schools — a pattern of police
| misconduct that’s more often landing students in the criminal courts
• than in the principal’s office.
And it has to stop, said Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Advocates
I for Children’s Services.
1 Yesterday the group, along with a coalition of local, state and na
tional advocacy organizations, asked the U.S. Department of Justice
to step in. In a detailed 74-page complaint filed on behalf of eight
■students and others in Wake County schools who’ve been subjected
ito excessive school police practices, the groups have asked the De-
I partment to investigate the police departments involved and order the
district to revamp its discipline practices.
Hundreds ofNC NAA CP Members
Come Together at Winter Conference to
Recognize its 2013 Effort
RALEIGH - Hundreds of North Carolina NAACP
members met in Raleigh on Sat., Jan. 25 at the organiza
tion’s annual winter conference to push the organiza-
■ tion’s campaign against the state’s immoral and uncon-
stitutional legislative policies forward into 2014.
Youth and adult leaders engaged in a day of training
Hand workshops
centered on the critical issues of our time. They will
I be trained in voter mobilization and voting rights and
how to continue to build and support this powerful
movement growing in North Carolina.
“In 2014, North Carolina is on the front line in this
I nationwide struggle for equality, justice, and economic
opportunity,” Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II said. “And
so this year, the winter conference theme is 'We Shall
Not Be Moved: Holding on to Past Victories as the
Fight for Equality and Justice Continues.’ The NC
NAACP will be ready to stand alongside the hundreds of
thousands of North Carolinians who are ready to move
forward together.”
The conference was held at Abundant Life Church of
| God in Christ & Life Center, 4400 Old Poole Rd. Ra
leigh.
Mrs. Lorraine C. Miller, the Interim President & CEO
of the National NAACP, was scheduled to address the
conference during the Lunch Keynote Speech. Other
I speakers included Kevin Myles, director of the NAACP
■ Southeastern Region V, and Ms. Penda Hair, the na
tionally-acclaimed attorney and Advancement Project
Co-Director. Ms. Hair and her team of lawyers help to
represent the NC NAACP in the critical challenge to the
state’s unconstitutional voter-suppression law—a law that
Iwas pushed through the NC General Assembly in the
first year after the U. S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
On Saturday evening, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
presented the NC NAACP 2014 Humanitarians of the
■ Year award to the over 100 volunteer attorneys who
have given countless hours of their expertise and their
] services to represent the Moral Monday arrestees.
i“I am pleased to announce the winners of our most
prestigious award will be the scores of volunteer attor
neys who are valiantly representing more than 940 of
us in our struggle to vindicate our constitutional rights
to peaceably petition the government for redress of our
grievances,” Dr. Barber said. “In making this fight, they
breathe fresh Oxygen into these fundamental rights for
all of us.”
Their steadfast work has opened a dialogue in North
Carolina’s courts and over its kitchen tables over what it
means to participate in a
democratic government. Just this week, a prosecutor
dropped all charges against the arrestees in more than 50
I cases.
At Saturday’s banquet, the attorneys join the ranks
of other renowned recipients, including Dr. John Hope
Franklin, National Poet Laureate Dr. Maya Angelou,
Governor Jim Hunt, and others who have championed
the cause of human rights in North Carolina.
Dr. Barber will present the award, on behalf of tens of
thousands of members of the NC NAACP, the hundreds
of thousands of members of the 160 partner-organiza
tions who are part of the Forward Together Moral Move
ment and Historic Thousands on Jones Street People’s
Assembly Coalition, and the over 940 people who were
arrested for exercising their constitutional rights during
the Moral Monday demonstrations last year.
“The Wake County Public School System’s over-reliance on un
regulated school policing practices, often in response to minor infrac
tions of school rules, results in the routine violation of students’ edu
cational and constitutional rights,” the groups said in the complaint.
Those practices are disproportionately directed at students with
disabilities and African-American students, they added, with devas
tating and lifelong consequences, since North Carolina is the only
state that treats all 16- and 17-year-olds as adults when charged with
criminal offenses.
“Even in the event that a frivolous school-based criminal charge is
later dismissed for lack of merit, students age 16 years and older must
still bear permanent negative repercussions as the result of having
an adult criminal arrest record that will resurface anytime a criminal
background check is run.”
In recent years, the increased presence of police and other security
officers at Wake County schools has led to an increase in the percent
age of school-based delinquency complaints there. During
(Continued On aPge 12)
NATIONAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF HILLSIDE HIGH SCHOOL -The e Board of Directors of the National Alumni As
sociation of Hillside High School (NAAHHS) presenting a check to Hillside High School for its Fund-Raising efforts in 2013. For its
2013 efforts the Alumni Association has been able to give back S9.189.00 in direct support and scholarships. Over the past 5 years
NAAHHS has been able to give back to Hillside over $30,000,000.
Pictured from left to right are NAAHHS Board Members are: Steve Avery, Dr. F. Vincent Allison III (President), Gloria Doyle
(Vice President), Ernestine Turner, Allen Gattis (Chaplain), Thelma F. Hamilton, William Turner (President Emeritus), Jessie Giles
(Acting Secretary), Frederick “Stoney” Brown (Treasurer), Teresia Parker, Veta McNeill-Best, H. Michael Spears. Board Members
not pictured: Debra Williams (Asst. Secretary), C. Ray Jones (Asst. Treasurer), Dr. Teresa Daye, Timothy Faison.
For membership information to the NAAHHS email naahhs@gmail.com or visit www.naahhs.org. The mission of the National
Alumni Association of Hillside High School is to advance the cause of education and to establish a mutually beneficial relationship
between Hillside High School and its Alumni and friends.
Guards May Be Responsible for Half of
Prison Sexual Assaults
By Joaquin Sapien
ProPublica
A new Justice Department study shows that allegations of sex abuse in the nation’s prisons and jails are increasing - with cor
rectional officers responsible for half of it - but prosecution is still extremely rare.
The report, released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, takes data collected by correctional administrators representing
ajl of the nation’s federal and state prisons as well as many county jails. It shows that administrators logged more than 8,000.
reports of abuse to their overseers each year between 2009 and 2011, up 11 percent from the department’s previous report, which
covered 2007 and 2008.
It’s not clear whether the increase is the result of better reporting or represents an actual rise in the number of incidents.
Allen Beck, the Justice Department statistician who authored the reports, told ProPublica that abuse allegations might be in
creasing because of growing awareness of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act.
“It’s a matter of speculation, but certainly there’s been a considerable effort to inform staff about the dangers of sexual mis
conduct, so we could be seeing the impact of that,” said Beck. '
The survey also shows a growing proportion of the allegations have been dismissed by prison officials as “unfounded” or
“unsubstantiated.” Only about 10 percent are substantiated by an investigation.
But even in the rare cases where there is enough evidence to prove that sexual abuse occurred, and that a correctional officer
is responsible for it, the perpetrator rarely faces prosecution. While most prison staff shown to be involved in sexual misconduct
lost their jobs, fewer than half were referred for prosecution, and only 1 percent ultimately got convicted.
Roughly one-third of staff caught abusing prisoners are allowed to resign before the investigation comes to a close, the report
concludes, meaning there’s no public record of what exactly transpired and nothing preventing them from getting a similar job
at another facility:
“These findings point to a level of impunity in our prisons and jails that is simply unacceptable,” said Lovisa Stannow, execu
tive director of Just Detention International, a prisoner advocacy group in California. “When corrections agencies don’t punish
or choose to ignore sexual abuse committed by staff members’ people who are paid by our tax dollars to keep inmates safe - they
support criminal behavior.”
The lack of punishment may deter inmates from reporting. When the Justice Department has surveyed inmates directly, as
opposed to the administrators that oversee them, the reports of abuse have been far greater. A 2013 survey estimated that more
than 80,000 prisoners had been sexually victimized by fellow inmates or staff over a two-year period, roughly five times the rate
reported by administrators.
“Inmates don’t report because of the way the institution handles these complaints: they’re afraid if they do report, then the
staff will retaliate,” said Kim Shayo Buchanan, a law professor at the University of Southern California who studies the issue.
“Even if you report and they believe you, which they probably won’t, the most likely thing to happen is that the person will be
suspended or maybe fired.”