I have a son in Florida's "youthful offenders" program tried as an adult sentenced to 2 years & judge recommeded "boot camp" but the wait for camp is longer that the sentence!! This "system" is crazy. The only way I have to locate my son if they decide to move him is the net. I miss him terribly. He's my only child. God help us all to get thru these trying times. The holidays will be hell. I pray for you all. cll

Florida is horrible to children!!!!!! My boyfriend was 15 years old , tried as an adult and given LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE ... he had never been in trouble before. He just turned 20 years old and got moved to the adult prison. Anyone feel like signing a petition to stop the injustice being done to our nations children and to give John a chance at life outside of prison please visit :

http://www.petitiononline.com/jsilva/petition.html

John also has a message board at : http://www.johnsilva.netfreehost.com/

Yes FL is catching up with texas and virgina, the state, for murdering their incarcerated.

This is good:
"By Toni on Friday, April 30, 2004 - 04:56 pm:
Selling Prisoner and Prisoner Family Rights To America

T.K. Cyan-Brock
www.prisonersoflove.com
April 30, 2004"


I have taken the time to cut and paste highlights that i liked + some:

"Prison has gone from a punishment for violent and chronic criminal behavior to being a storehouse for the mentally ill, drug addicted and the nation?s poor. Equally important to exposing the American Public to this information is letting them know that over 90% of the people who are currently incarcerated will come home to our communities. Awareness of the effects of incarceration on the individual, the family and the community must also be made a topic at every level of discourse. Prisoner and prison family issues need to be elevated to the status of an under represented even persecuted group. The goal is to neutralize the effects of the ?Get Tough On Crime? rhetoric. Radio ads that reflect the fact that incarceration effects the lifetime earnings of even discharged prisoners and their families and communities should be highlighted. Every time corporate board meetings are held our communities should present hiring practices that push pro-second chance programs. Not one time, but every time in every corporation in America. In congress, there should be pro-convict hiring and anti foreign market job placement agendas.

There needs to be a carefully calculated public relations propaganda campaign. The belief that ignoring the current escalation in incarceration, recidivism and intergenerational imprisonment is bad for our Nation is the seed corn of this program. It is imperative to manipulate and control public discourse in order to unite and legitimate the plight of prisoners and prison families even if it means putting the needs of this population ahead of the rest of the Nation?s population for the sake of gaining ground for the future of prisoners and prisoner families issues and turning the tide of building a prison industrial complex. A 5 second public service announcement showing tattooed hands through prison bars and a statement that drives home the figures that it takes several times the money to imprison a person than to educate them would be an example of a cost effective ad campaign raising awareness of the ineffective and costly spending of money on our prisons. But of greater influence is to get the topics of concern into the public forum. Every time a school board, or education budget comes into the public view prison issues should be linked to the problem. Capitalize on every educational story to bring up the waste of money that could be used to educate our Nation?s children. Provide facts such as an inmate that receives their B.A. while incarcerated is 90% less likely to go back to prison proves that education makes a difference.

The goal is to force acceptance of prisoners and prisoner family issues into the main stream. It is also geared to silence opposition to prison reform, therapeutic and restorative justice programs and to ultimately convert American society from ?Crime and Punishment? nation, to a ?Restorative Justice? nation.
There is a three-fold way of addressing the issues facing prisoners and the families of the incarcerated and it has been used successfully by other groups in recent history with great success.

Jamming is psychological terrorism meant to silence expression of or even support for dissenting opinion. It?s a marketing technique used with success not only in the market place but also in the courtroom and social arenas. It is designed to shut down opposition to prison family issues and make those who oppose our agenda look uncaring and insensitive and even un-American.
America has 1/20th of the world?s population and 1/4th of the world?s prison population and the American people need to be made to know that putting people in prison is bad for America and the continued persecution of parolees, and those who have discharged their sentence has resulted in an approximately. 50% recidivism rate and at the current rate of incarceration 7 out of 10 Americans will have been in prison. If that continues not only will we have to send our jobs out of the country but also we will have to import people to keep our country going based on current unforgiving hiring practices. Americans need to be made aware of how negative stereotypes and negative hiring practices are conspiring to ruining our country especially in urban areas where the negativity is being embraced as a cultural norm that is self-propagating. By raising the public awareness of how negative views of prisoners and their families affect the people involved to the point that to say something against this group is considered poor form.
Conversion
Conversation of the average American?s emotion, mind and will, through a planned psychological attack in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media. The get tough on crime group is shown images of his crowd hang out with the families of prisoners in good fellowship. The repeated exposure of people who will recognize themselves in friendly relationships with prisoners, parolees and their families will change their thoughts about prisoners and stop the objectification and marginalization, and discounting of the projected approximately 10 million prison families.
Another tactic is to show that famous historical figures were prisoners. There are ample examples of former prisoners becoming public icons. This associates prisoners and prisoner?s families with positive images just like advertisers use celebrity endorsements

Politicians who have been caught doing bad things who voted for get tough on crime or their family members who got off easier than the main stream population need to be exposed and publicized and paired with images of typically incarcerated individuals. In essence, use the images and icons and not actual words for their influential appeal.

Link our prison images with images from prisoner of war camps, Nazi death camps and other images that illicit a strong visceral response that parallel incarceration, including American civil rights images of oppression and intolerance to make an emotional appeal for change."

email me at asonsmom@yahoo.com