Home Articles posted by Brandon Smith

Inside Coalinga: California’s Worst Shadow Prison

     The American criminal justice system operates upon a very simple principle: Any person who commits a crime is to serve a sentence, and once they serve that sentence, they have paid their dues to society. However, our criminal justice system does not always adhere to this philosophy. The United States has a system of involuntary civil confinement facilities, a detestable system designed to incarcerate people even after they have served their prison sentences, and Coalinga State Hospital is one of the biggest perpetrators of this atrocity. Coalinga is one of the country’s largest shadow prisons, housing an appalling…

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Punishment Without Crime: Technical Violations Drive Mass Incarceration

Introduction   The use of supervised release to oppress formerly incarcerated people is among the American legal system’s most egregious injustices. America is very creative in finding ways to suppress the rights of people living in the community who are on supervised release. Approaches like the notorious sex registry are infamous examples of the American penal system oppressing formerly incarcerated people with draconian, unjust, and objectively unsupportable methods. One of the criminal justice system’s more subtle forms of human rights suppression comes in the form of “technical violations” — infractions of rules imposed by the state on people who are…

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VCBR Coronavirus Outbreak Prompts Virginia’s National Guard to Take Action

    The Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR), a shadow prison in Burkeville, Virginia operating under the guise of a treatment facility, is currently in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak; and many people locked within the facility are fearful for their health.      As of October 14th, twenty-two “residents” and six staff members at the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation have tested positive for the coronavirus. The National Guard was called in by the governor to provide tests after an outbreak of fifteen cases occurred in one of the facility’s living units. There are numerous firsthand accounts suggesting that…

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Federal Judge Orders IRS to Issues Withheld $1,200 Stimulus Checks to Persons in Carceral Settings

BREAKING: Earlier this week in the Northern District of California (NDCA),  a federal judge issued an injunction against the Trump Administration for withholding COVID relief funds from incarcerated people. The presiding judge, Phyllis J. Hamilton, ruled that the Treasury Department could no longer withhold CARES Act emergency relief “based solely on the basis that they are incarcerated.” Although both incarcerated and formerly incarcerated peoples were eligible to receive EIP (economic impact relief) under the CARES Act, the federal government still failed to provide them with this relief.   Earlier this year, the coronavirus pandemic took the nation by storm, causing…

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