SAMI-HU's mission is to raise awareness on Howard University's campus and the community of the prison industrial complex, existence of political prisoners, and recidivism.
The organization hopes to build a movement for the complete abolition of all prisons and freedom for all people imprisoned for their political beliefs and actions.
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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines overcrowd as, to cause to be excessively crowded: a system of consolidation that only overcrowded the classrooms, and defines overcrowding as a state of being filled with more people or things than is desirable; congestion.
Some people wonder about what are alternatives to incarceration. One of the ways some state prisons are dealing with overcrowding is by granting an early release for "small-time" offenders, while other states have participated in the interstate compact in which a state will transfer their inmate to another state.
Back in the late 80's, the state of Texas' answer was to build more prisons. It went from 30 prisons to nearly three times the number, almost over night. They felt that building more prisons were the answer.
In 2011, in states like California, where prison overcrowding has been a long-standing problem, the Legislative Analyst’s Office looked to state lawmakers to get more involved in reducing the number of inmates in California’s overcrowded prisons.
The U.S. Supreme Court got involved and upheld an earlier ruling that the state’s prisons are unconstitutionally overcrowded, and demanding the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has until roughly June 2013 to shed and estimated 34,000 inmates from their numbers.
Analyst Mac Taylor, suggests two ways for lawmakers to exercise their authority:
- Halt approval of new prison construction until the Legislature has reviewed plans to decide if the buildings will be needed after the prisoner reduction.
- Continue transferring inmates to private, out-of-state prisons.
Transferring inmates is a sticky issue because it would require lawmakers to alter Governor Jerry Brown’s budget plan because it limits the state to 10,000 inmates being held outside of California. By last count [PDF], the state already is paying to house 9,629 prisoners in Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Michigan.
Eventually, on October 1, California has shifted nonviolent criminals and parolees to counties. A RAND Corp. study [PDF], “Understanding the Public Health Implications of Prisoner Reentry in California,” released last year, said the plan to shift low-level offenders to county custody could strain local health care and social services programs that already have been ravaged by budget cuts.
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