June 21, 2005
TOPIC: A conversation about Prisons in America
GUESTS: David Matlin, poet, essayist, novelist, author of “Prisons: Inside the New America – from Vernooykill Creek to Abu Ghraib”
For ten years, David Matlin taught at a maximum-security prison in New York State – until educational programs for prisoners were cut by the crime bill passed under President Bill Clinton in 1995. Based on his experiences, novelist, essayist, and poet David Matlin has written a book called “Prisons: Inside the New America – from Vernooykill Creek to Abu Ghraib” which examines the history of prisons in the United States and shows the price our prisons inflict on inmates and society as a whole. Noam Chomsky said of the book: “… a really impressive piece of work, which captures with wrenching vividness the torture we inflict on others, and ultimately on ourselves.” The book has a foreword by Ishmael Reed who said if Matlin “were addressing an enlightened population, this book would energize prison reform the way Ralph Nader went up against the automobile industry… it would rank with Upton Sinclair’s expose of the meat-packing industry.”
David Matlin will be speaking at 2000+ Books on Tuesday June 21st at 7 pm. 2000+ Books is located at 309 Pine Avenue in Long Beach.
TOPIC: Women in Prison
GUESTS: Dortell Williams, Uprising commentator
Dortell Williams is an inmate at Lancaster State Prison here in California and a regular listener of Uprising and other KPFK programs. He filed today’s commentary about women in prison. Dortell can be reached at dortellwilliams@cellpals.org.
TOPIC: Puente Program in Danger
GUESTS: Dr. Jose Moreno, professor of Chicano Latino Studies at Cal State Long Beach, and Irma Gomez mother of two Puente students at Katella High School.
Concerned parents in the city of Anaheim are organizing to save the Puente Project at their children’s local high schools. The Puente Project serves four high schools in the district; Katella, Savanna, Anaheim, and Magnolia; and academically prepares Latino students for entry into four-year universities. Seventy-One percent of the district’s Puente students graduate with Cal State UC eligibility as compared to the overall district proportion of twenty-four percent; seventeen percent for Latinos. The Anaheim Union High School District has been considering eliminating this program for the next school year. In response, parents of Puente students requested a series of meetings in order to learn the district’s rationale for elimination and to convince them of the necessity of the program.
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