[imc-rochester] notes from last week!

[knight0440 at yahoo.com]

Hey folks! Here are the notes from 2/19/12. Our next meeting is this Sunday 2/26/12 at Equal Grounds Coffee shop at the corner of Caroline and South. Here's a map: http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=cafes+rochester,+ny&fb=1&gl=us&hq=cafes&hnear=0x89d6b3059614b353:0x5a001ffc4125e61e,Rochester,+NY&ei=6_pHT_eNBunr0gHmramZDg&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=image&ved=0CAgQtgM

The time will be 3pm - 5pm so that folks have time to go to the Health Fair at the Flying Squirrel.


We might need to select a consistent time and day of the week to have regular meetings at the Flying Squirrel. I suppose we could put that on the agenda for this week?


Sorry these are so late in getting out!

Ted-


Vision – Open Discussion: 
a)      Prison and police abolition, Restorative Justice
b)      Empower communities to deal with their challenges and end incarceration as a solution
c)       Show corporate profiteering, dismantle it, and educate people
d)      What does a world without prisons and policing look like?
e)      Abolition of slavery – prison as institution that was an alternative to corporeal punishment and death penalty
f)       Abolition is a negative freedom, what do we need to do to get rid of conditions that create need for it?
g)      When we say abolish prisons we don’t want to replace it with anything
h)      Prisons are concentration camps for poor people of color
i)        Living wage jobs: eliminate economic prisoners
j)        We have to look at who is in prison and why
k)      To identify the vision we need to identify the problem
l)        Poverty, Mental illness, Drugs 
m)    Prison conditions, Human treatment
n)      Lack of attorneys for poor people, white collar crime, private prisons, economic incentives to fill prisons, slave labor
o)      White supremacy, Keep people of color as second class citizens
p)      What really is a crime and what isn’t?
q)      Prison is a strategy for a lot of different things: crime, violence, profit. 
Have a critical and historical analysis. How did this structure emerge 
and transform?
r)       People focus on criminal element a lot, encourageables. Get to the point where there is no economic incentive to lock people up, then we would have 
solidarity to be able to deal with that.
s)       Goal to have an educational event. Broadening the discussion in the 
community around prisons and police. This discussion is fruitful, we 
should have the discussion as a community.
t)       Look at history. Look at definitions of prison industrial complex. Critical 
analysis to bring to educational event. Look at strategies and tactics 
to build alternatives.
u)      You can’t look at one part of the thing without looking at the other. 
Victims of crimes is an emotional thing. Poor people committing crimes 
against poor people. Black on black crime. Have to deal with it. 
Opponents will start with violence. Neutralize it.
v)      How can we hold people accountable for harm to others? Find a different way of being with each other so we can stop hurting and oppressing each 
other.
w)    Start a dialogue about the War on drugs.
5)      Agenda to start with:
a)      Check Ins
b)      Identify Individuals who may be interested in this
c)       Identify orgs and locations to recruit and invest
d)      Common Understandings/ Definitions
e)      Vision
f)       Goals/Focuses/Tactics & Strategies
i)        Identify laws that criminalize vulnerable people
ii)       Prison Labor
iii)     Federal Consent Decree
iv)     Stop and Frisk
v)      Aggressive Panhandling
vi)     Immigrant Imprisonment
vii)   For profit prisons
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