#prison industrial system

[hellyeahheroes]

Fuck the Police by F. D. Signifier

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall Free

"Maryland Gov. Wes Moore issued a mass pardon of more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday morning [June 17, 2024], one of the nation’s most sweeping acts of clemency involving a drug now in widespread recreational use.

The pardons forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people in what the Democratic governor said is a step to heal decades of social and economic injustice that disproportionately harms Black and Brown people. Moore noted criminal records have been used to deny housing, employment and education, holding people and their families back long after their sentences have been served.

[Note: If you're wondering how 175,000 convictions were pardoned but only 100,000 people are benefiting, it's because there are often multiple convictions per person.]

A Sweeping Act

“We aren’t nibbling around the edges. We are taking actions that are intentional, that are sweeping and unapologetic,” Moore said at an Annapolis event interrupted three times by standing ovations. “Policymaking is powerful. And if you look at the past, you see how policies have been intentionally deployed to hold back entire communities.”

Moore called the scope of his pardons “the most far-reaching and aggressive” executive action among officials nationwide who have sought to unwind criminal justice inequities with the growing legalization of marijuana. Nine other states and multiple cities have pardoned hundreds of thousands of old marijuana convictions in recent years, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Legalized marijuana markets reap billions in revenue for state governments each year, and polls show public sentiment on the drug has also turned — with more people both embracing cannabis use and repudiating racial disparities exacerbated by the War on Drugs.

The pardons, timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Juneteenth holiday, a day that has come to symbolize the end of slavery in the United States, come from a rising star in the Democratic Party and the lone Black governor of a U.S. state whose ascent is built on the promise to “leave no one behind.”

The Pardons and Demographics

Derek Liggins, 57, will be among those pardoned Monday, more than 16 years after his last day in prison for possessing and dealing marijuana in the late 1990s. Despite working hard to build a new life after serving time, Liggins said he still loses out on job opportunities and potential income.

“You can’t hold people accountable for possession of marijuana when you’ve got a dispensary on almost every corner,” he said.

Nationwide, according to the ACLU, Black people were more than three times more likely than White people to be arrested for marijuana possession. President Biden in 2022 issued a mass pardon of federal marijuana convictions — a reprieve for roughly 6,500 people — and urged governors to follow suit in states, where the vast majority of marijuana prosecutions take place.

Maryland’s pardon action rivals only Massachusetts, where the governor and an executive council together issued a blanket pardon in March expected to affect hundreds of thousands of people.

But Moore’s pardons appear to stand alone in the impact to communities of color in a state known for having one of the nation’s worst records for disproportionately incarcerating Black people for any crimes. More than 70 percent of the state’s male incarcerated population is Black, according to state data, more than double their proportion in society.

In announcing the pardons, he directly addressed how policies in Maryland and nationwide have systematically held back people of color — through incarceration and restricted access to jobs and housing...

Maryland, the most diverse state on the East Coast, has a dramatically higher concentration of Black people compared with other states that have issued broad pardons for marijuana: 33 percent of Maryland’s population is Black, while the next highest is Illinois, with 15 percent...

Reducing the state’s mass incarceration disparity has been a chief goal of Moore, Brown and Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, who are all the first Black people to hold their offices in the state. Brown and Dartigue have launched a prosecutor-defender partnership to study the “the entire continuum of the criminal system,” from stops with law enforcement to reentry, trying to detect all junctures where discretion or bias could influence how justice is applied, and ultimately reform it.

How It Will Work

Maryland officials said the pardons, which would also apply to people who are dead, will not result in releasing anyone from incarceration because none are imprisoned. Misdemeanor cannabis charges yield short sentences and prosecutions for misdemeanor criminal possession have stopped, as possessing small amounts of the drug is legal statewide.

Moore’s pardon action will automatically forgive every misdemeanor marijuana possession charge the Maryland judiciary could locate in the state’s electronic court records system, along with every misdemeanor paraphernalia charge tied to use or possession of marijuana. Maryland is the only state to pardon such paraphernalia charges, state officials said...

People who benefit from the mass pardon will see the charges marked in state court records within two weeks, and they will be eliminated from criminal background check databases within 10 months."

-via The Washington Post, June 17, 2024. Headings added by me.

[politijohn]

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[brettdoesdiscourse]

A big argument with the pro death penalty crowd is, "well what about the people who actually are guilty?" And the answer is always, "well what about the people who are actually innocent?"

I would rather spare the lives of a 100 guilty people rather than execute 1 innocent person.

And functionally, the death penalty doesn't really do anything.

There's no evidence to suggest that states that have the death penalty see a decrease in crime, so it isn't a deterrent. The only thing it functionally does is attempt to make people feel better.

A life sentence will functionally accomplish the same thing a death penalty does, it will keep that person away from the public.

With life sentences, an innocent person has the opportunity to be found innocent and released. You can't bring an innocent person back to life if you find out after their execution that they're actually innocent.

*Stop tagging this post as pro life. I'm pro abortion, this post is pro abortion. If you like and/or reblog this post, you're pro abortion too*

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

""That's right, pal," says Number Seven. "And take it in these shops. If they'd even teach a guy a trade - make him learn a trade you wouldn't mind. Then a guy would have something to fall back on if he felt like hitting the straight and narrow. But what do they do? They put you to work making automobile plates, or something that's only done in prisons; stuff you couldn't get a job at outside if you wanted to; and the machinery is all twenty years out of date; and the instructors don't know anything about up-to-date methods; and the materials you get to work with are so lousy that you can't learn to do decent work even if you want to. Here I am. I've been working in the shoeshop for five years. What good will that do me? In the first place, the work I'm doing is done by women and children outside; it don't pay any- thing; and if I tried to get away with the lousy kind of work I've been taught to do, I wouldn't last two hours in an outside shop. The print shop is the only shop in here where a guy could learn a decent trade; but Christ, there's only room for forty guys in that shop, and you have to be a high-school graduate to get in there. That don't do the rest of us any good. There's a thousand men here, and only room for forty or so over in the print shop. And not only that, but So-and-So was always threatening to close the print shop because it didn't show enough profits. That's all they think about here. They damn about us learning a trade; all they is having the industries show a profit!"

"And take a guy when he gets out of here," says Number Ten. "Times are lousy outside. Even guys who know their trades, guys that can get swell references, can't get a job nowadays. And if they can't get work, how in the name of Christ are we going to get it even if we want it? And the jobs you can get don't pay anything - not enough to live on. A guy might better be in here than out there starving to death. How the hell is a guy going to live on twenty-five or thirty bucks a week, especially if he's married?"

- Victor F. Nelson, Prison Days and Nights. Second edition. With an introduction by Abraham Myerson, M.D. Garden City: Garden City Publishing Co., 1936. p. 213-214.

[natjennie]

god american vandal is so good. when peter and sam have to look into each other as suspects and peter actually presents a compelling case about sam's potential crush on gabi but then it like. changes genre as sam gets frustrated with peter for making him look bad and you get this like shocking look at the real consequences of peter's investigation. the moments of like. oh these are real people and his meddling affects the real people in his life and his friendships are falling apart in his search for the truth. fuck I love you american vandal.

[venacoeurva]

I have no faith in B*den or H*rris as people and politicians in general regardless, but oh my goddd now is not the time to plop a woman as the nominated Dem after 2016, we can girlboss at a different time especially not when misogyny (and racism) can sway shit so hard(er) in the fash direction

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

Using food as punishment is cruel, unusual, and inhumane. Especially when said punishment has caused vomiting and intestinal bleeding. But prisons continue to get away with it because despite the fact that it was made to be as unappetizing as possible, it was also made to be as nutrient dense as possible so that inmates couldn't say that they're lacking nutrition in their punishment food.

These are human fucking beings, and they don't deserve subhuman treatment.

Add onto that a large portion of inmates are mentally ill and several neurological differences result in the body reacting negatively to gross food (vomiting on bad food taste and texture).

-fae

[commiepinkofag]

[glassdovescene]

in honor of spending the past four days trying to explain the corruption of the police/carceral system to people on Tik Tok and still being met with "but not ALL cops are bad 🥺🥺🥺🥺" and "but we NEED cops 🥺🥺🥺" god I'm so sick of this place 🥲🔫

[hellyeahheroes]

Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete? Chapters 1&2 by Audio Anarchy

[reasonsforhope]

"Expanding freedom and opportunity to millions

Over a decade ago, researchers, policymakers, journalists, and individuals and family members harmed by prisons and jails helped define American mass incarceration as one of the fundamental policy challenges of our time. In the years since, policymakers and voters in red, blue, and purple jurisdictions have advanced criminal justice reforms that safely reduced prison and jail populations, expanding freedom and opportunities to tens of millions of Americans.

After nearly forty years of uninterrupted prison population growth, our collective awareness of the costs of mass incarceration has fundamentally shifted–and our sustained efforts to turn the tide have yielded meaningful results.

Since its peak in 2009, the number of people in prison has declined by 24 percent (see figure 1). The total number of people incarcerated has dropped 21 percent since the 2008 peak of almost 2.4 million people, representing over 500,000 fewer people behind bars in 2022. Absent reforms, more than 40 million more people would have been admitted to prison and jail over this period. The number of people on probation and parole supervision has also dropped 27 percent since its peak in 2007, allowing many more people to live their lives free from onerous conditions that impede thriving and, too often, channel them back into incarceration for simple rule violations.1

"Absent reforms, more than 40 million more people would have been admitted to prison and jail over this period. [2008 to 2022]"

Make no mistake: mass incarceration and the racial and economic disparities it drives continue to shape America for the worse. The U.S. locks up more people per capita and imposes longer sentences than most other countries. Nearly 1-in-2 adults in the U.S. have an immediate family member that has been incarcerated, with lifelong, often multigenerational, consequences for family members’ health and financial stability. Yet the past decade of successful reforms demonstrate that we can and must continue to reduce incarceration. These expansions of freedom and justice–and the millions of people they have impacted–help define what is at stake as public safety has reemerged as a dominant theme in American public and political conversation.

...We have a robust body of research built over decades showing that jail stays and long prison sentences do not reduce crime rates. And fortunately, we have an extensive and expanding body of research on what does work to reduce crime and keep communities safe. The evidence is clear: our focus must be on continuing and accelerating reductions in incarceration.

Black imprisonment rate drops by nearly half

People directly impacted by incarceration and other leaders in the criminal justice reform movement have persistently called out how the unequal application of policies such as bail, sentencing, and parole (among others) drive massive racial disparities in incarceration. The concerted effort to reduce our prison population has had the most impact on the group that paid the greatest price during the rise of mass incarceration: Black people, and particularly Black men.

The Black imprisonment rate has declined by nearly 50 percent since the country’s peak imprisonment rate in 2008 (see figure 2). And between 1999 and 2019, the Black male incarceration rate dropped by 44 percent, and notable declines in Black male incarceration rates were seen in all 50 states. For Black men, the lifetime risk of incarceration declined by nearly half from 1999 to 2019—from 1 in 3 Black men imprisoned in their lifetime to 1 in 5.

While still unacceptably high, this reduction in incarceration rates means that Black men are now more likely to graduate college than go to prison, a flip from a decade ago. This change will help disrupt the cycle of incarceration and poverty for generations to come.

Expanding safety and justice together

The past decade-plus of incarceration declines were accompanied by an increase in public safety. From 2009-2022, 45 states saw reductions in crime rates, while imprisoning fewer people, with crime falling faster in states that reduced imprisonment than in states that increased it.

This is in keeping with the extensive body of research showing that incarceration is among the least effective and most expensive means to advance safety. Our extremely long sentences don’t deter or prevent crime. In fact, incarcerating people can increase the likelihood people will return to jail or prison in the future. Public safety and a more fair and just criminal system are not in conflict.

Strong and widespread support for reform

We have also seen dramatic progress on the public opinion front, with a clear understanding from voters that the criminal justice system needs more reform, not less. Recent polling shows that by a nearly 2 to 1 margin respondents prefer addressing social and economic problems over strengthening law enforcement to reduce crime. [In simpler terms: people are twice as likely to prefer non-law-enforcement solutions to crimes.]

Nearly nine-in-ten Black adults say policing, the judicial process, and the prison system need major changes for Black people to be treated fairly. Seventy percent of all voters (see figure 3) and 80 percent of Black voters believe it’s important to reduce the number of people in jail and prison. Eighty percent of all voters, including nearly three-fourths of Republican voters, support criminal justice reforms.

This is not only a blue state phenomenon. Recent polling in Mississippi indicates strong support across the political spectrum for bold policies that reduce incarceration. For example, according to polling from last month, 72 percent of Mississippians, including majorities from both parties, believe it is important to reduce the number of people in prison (see figure 4). Perhaps most tellingly, across the country victims of crime also support further reforms to our criminal justice system over solutions that rely on jail stays and harsh prison sentences...

We are at an inflection point: we can continue to rely on the failed mass incarceration tactics of the past, or chart a new path that takes safety seriously by continuing to reform our broken criminal justice system and strengthening families and communities."

-via FWD.us, May 15, 2024

[zigcarnivorous]

SAVE MARCELLUS WILLIAMS!!!

https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/

[xxdrowninglessonsxx]

The switch up of y’all is so funny. I understand now why other communists like me say they can’t stand libs. You libs were so against the Biden/Harris campaign until Joe dropped out, and suddenly y’all want to vote for her even when she’s complicit in a literal genocide. Make that make sense.

“She’ll keep our government from reverting!” Okay? Our government has been reverting, and it wasn’t good to begin with. This is a country built on the backs of black and brown people. This is a country that was stolen from indigenous communities. She’s not the savior you prayed for. She’s a human being with flaws, and we shouldn’t ignore those flaws.

The caste system will continue to be enforced, and the people who live paycheck to paycheck will continue to struggle to survive. Also, what about Palestinian lives? Do they suddenly not matter? Not saying I’m not going to vote for her, but you can’t just sit there and ignore the fact that she’s a warmonger like every other US president. (I honestly don’t know if I will vote, but I was intending on voting 3rd party as I did in the primaries.) Nothing is going to change until the people actually step up, and if you think this system can be “fixed,” it won’t be until it’s torn apart and rebuilt by the poor.

It’s like what Malcom X said, “If something is yours by right, fight for it or shut up.” Until you people start rioting and get fed up with what the government is doing, you won’t see change. I’m not talking about peaceful protests. I’m talking about riots. Riots and protests are the only thing that have changed the outcome of anything in this country because the people outnumber the 1%. They’re so scared that they have to send the pigs out to handle it. Yes, I said pigs. It’s time to wake the fuck up and take the power into your own hands.

Not to mention prisons are legal slavery, but I don’t see any president or senator taking about how they’re going to change that. You know why? Because our government officials benefit from it. Not to mention, black people have the highest incarceration rate, but I don’t see that as a talking point. The right to abortion is already threatened if not totally banned in many US states. Not to mention the Project 2025 bullshit.

I understand why voting for her is appealing, as if there’s no other option. Do you really think she will win though? Let’s be real. When has this country ever elected a woman, let alone a woman of color? She’s entered the race very late, and Biden already wasn’t going to win, and if you thought he’d win, you’re very stupid. Why would his Vice President win when everyone hated him? The vote is already going to be divided, and as we all know the electoral college loves to take liberties. I believe you democrats are getting your hopes up. Do you forget that Trump already went against a woman before, and many (stupid) people are going to want him in office purely because of gas being cheaper when he was in office? (It was mostly due to Covid and the stay at home order, which is why it was cheaper.)

The fact that we have pick and choose a “lesser evil” is just one example of how fucked up this country is. We are not a true democracy. Kamala Harris is not going to wave a magic wand and help you keep your rights. She will probably sit idle in the Oval Office and do nothing because the president doesn’t care about you. No government official cares about you. Bernie Sanders, a millionaire does not care about you. (This one’s for the republicans!) Donald Trump, as well, does not care about you. They care about power.

What we need to focus on is community because if she doesn’t get elected, and Trump wins, which is still entirely possible because of the shooting. We need to focus on actually organizing and demanding change. Not asking politely. Demanding. He’s already stacked the Supreme Court with people of his choosing which caused the overturn of Roe V. Wade. Even with Kamala possibly becoming a president, we need to organize to stand an actual chance against this tyrannical government. Our rights in West Virginia are already been threatened due to incompetent politicians, but I’m sure none of y’all voted in the primaries, right?

Also, if you libs suddenly decide not to care about the genocides that the US continually funds just because a woman is in charge, it will just show how performative you people are.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on for hours if I had to, but I’ll stop here.

Here’s some books you should read if you agreed with anything I just said:

Capital by Karl Marx

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

On Palestine by Noam Chomsky

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcom X

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Night by Elie Wiesel

The Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcom X

Here’s a link to The Marxist Internet Archive

Also, I’m still learning about communism and anarchism, so if any comrades want to correct me on anything I said, feel free. Idc what libs have to say.

[stardew-bajablast]

TW: sexual abuse

95 people are involved in this lawsuit. 95 children were subjected to decades of systematic sexual violence and physical abuse at the hands of those who had been entrusted with their care

and those are just the ones who are suing. there are certainly more.

ABOLISH THE POLICE

ABOLISH PRISONS

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"While prison administrators boasted that prisoners were able to earn money while in prison, their assertions were somewhat misleading. In a 1924 article in the Baltimore Sun, Henry C. Raynor, a former prisoner who served a three-year sentence in the Maryland Penitentiary in the early 1920s, complained that prisoners often were forced to spend portions of their wages to purchase necessary items such as bedding, underwear, and clothing—items that many would consider the responsibility of the state to provide. These expenses prevented prisoners from saving more of their wages while engaged in the prison workshops.

The low-wage labor system generated enough revenue to the state to allow the Maryland prison system to operate mostly on a self-sufficient basis and return a profit to the state. The balance for the combined earnings of the Maryland Penitentiary and House of Corrections for 1927 resulted in a surplus of over $33,000 paid to the state treasury. A considerable portion of the surplus came from the profits of prisoners laboring in contract shops and state-use industries. Taxpayers in Maryland during the 1920s contributed little to the general upkeep of the prisons. A 1928 Baltimore news article lauded the convict labor system in the Maryland Penitentiary for being largely “self-sustaining” and noted that the prison “costs the taxpayers of the State less than $60,000 annually.”

While the prison labor system was celebrated by state officials for its rehabilitative benefits, it is clear that the revenue it generated substantially motivated the continued reliance on prison labor. Labor union members were concerned with the competition of prison-made products on the open market. Labor leaders agitated for the ending of private prison contracts and advocated for state-use industries. Labor leaders believed that the state-use system was favorable because it meant that prison-made products would be sold directly to states outside of the free market and thus pose less of a threat to workers in labor unions. Evidence of efforts made by prison administrators to bolster state-use industries can be seen in some of the Board of Welfare minutes. For example, in April 1923, the warden of the Maryland Penitentiary and members of the Board of Welfare discussed a plan to employ female inmates in the House of Correction in laundering the clothing of the inmates in both the Maryland Penitentiary and House of Correction. This motion reflected both the desire to find employment for prisoners and to provide traditional gendered work assignments. During this time, women sentenced in the Maryland prison system were kept apart from male inmates. This separation influenced the type of labor that was considered appropriate for female prisoners, thus reflecting the gender norms of labor that were imposed by the prison administration. The Board of Welfare approved the laundry plans, and in the fall of 1923, laundry equipment was moved to the House of Corrections for the use of female inmates.

Male inmates, on the other hand, were seen as fit workers for labor-intensive manufacturing and road construction. Members of the Board of Welfare sought ways to expand the state-use automobile production, and in the spring 1923, held a meeting in the Maryland Penitentiary “in which all parties interested in the making of automobile tags…were present.” Prison administrators sought to secure auto tag making contracts in states outside of Maryland, and signed a contract with the State of Florida to manufacture automobile tags in the Maryland Penitentiary state-use shops. However, this expansion did not supply enough work to keep all inmates employed, and additional work for inmates was secured by hiring out inmates on state road construction projects. Throughout the summer and fall months, prisoners were taken outside of the prison and transported to road construction sites in various Maryland counties.

True to Progressive Era bureaucratic principles, prison administrators focused attention on the prison conditions and rehabilitation of inmates. One prisoner, Henry C. Raynor, who served a prison sentence in the early 1920s, pointed out the need for better ventilation and temperature control in the cells. Overall, however, he seemed satisfied that conditions in the prison system were improving. Raynor described conversations he had with “old-time” inmates in the prison who spoke of improved food and work conditions compared with those of years earlier. The prison warden enacted clear policies about appropriate disciplinary methods to rein in power abuses of prison guards. Officers who oversaw work in the prison shops were restricted by new prison policies from using undue force to control the prisoners. One officer complained that he had once been able to beat a prisoner in order to instill discipline, but was now prevented from “knock[ing] his block off as he pleased.” This illustrates a shift in prison discipline from a reliance on physical force to more humanitarian policies. In addition, it reveals the expansion of bureaucratic rules and procedures used to govern the actions of guards and civil servants employed at the prison. … In regards to the full implementation of these progressive policies, much depended on the attitudes and behaviors of the prison guards. Raynor remarked that the warden was limited by his inability to automatically dismiss guards from service without major cause. Guards who were resentful of the restrictions placed on them found ways to unfairly punish prisoners anyway through nonviolent means. For example, one domineering officer forced inmates on his watch “to stand in driving rain or snow for ten minutes at a time, for no reason except that to show his power.” While prison policies and punishments were more humanitarian in principle, the attitudes and actions of prison guards responsible for enforcement varied the actual treatment of the prisoners. In similar manner, the ethics of some private contractors at the prison were also suspect. Raynor described how one contractor of a pants workshop would strategically require prisoners to load products during lunch or dinner time as a way to eke out extra work without pay. Another contractor, angered by new terms which required the payment of a higher wage to experienced inmates, attempted to shirk the requirement by rotating inmates through tasks to avoid paying them the higher wage, and a shirt-making firm attempted to “evade the payment of any wage at all to their men, and constantly tried to raise the daily task.” Prisoners brought grievances to the warden in regards to the shirt contractor, and one day the inmates found the “the contract cancelled, the contractor gone, and another in his place who was more fair.” Such accounts reveal that prisoners actively negotiated for fair treatment and that their grievances held some weight with the warden. While the reforms of the 1920s largely improved prison conditions, like other aspects of progressive reform, new prison policies also sheltered racially prejudiced social science recommendations, medical opinions, and merit-based grading systems. Raynor, himself a white male, described his alarm at being seated in the dining hall between rows of black inmates. He learned from fellow prisoners who had been sentenced to the Penitentiary years before, that the “mixing of races” in the prison used to be more standard, but in more recent years “ha[d] been partially corrected.” This “correction” resulted in increased segregation. Revealing racial prejudice as the normative social view of the time, Raynor published evidence of increased segregation in the prison to further his argument that prison conditions were better in the 1920s than they were years before.

Moreover, racial prejudice also affected services that were rendered by private reform groups that operated outside general state jurisdiction. The Prisoners’ Aid Association provided many services for recently released inmates at the John Howard Center boarding house. This center provided temporary housing and shelter and assisted inmates in finding stable employment. However, the housing, meals, and resources at the John Howard Center were only available to white male ex-convicts. The Association reports that similar resources were made available to women and “colored men” through “private houses or other agencies,” thus signaling the separation of resources on a gendered and racially segregated basis. Progressive Era science also led to troubling medical policies and procedures, including sterilization of prisoners deemed as “feeble-minded.” During the 1920s, members of the Board of Welfare and the Board of Mental Hygiene arranged for semiannual joint meetings. The two boards, responsible for the security of those deemed criminal and mentally ill, often communicated regarding the transfer of inmates from the prison system to hospitals and mental care units if they were found psychically unstable. At a joint meeting of the boards on February 17, 1927, the administrators discussed the “sterilization of certain insane and feeble-minded under proper safeguards and with the consent of the patient or his guardian or next friend” and motioned that such “should be authorized by Act of the General Assembly.” Discussions such as these highlight the troubling ethics of progressive reforms. State oversight of normative categories severely restricted the freedom and rights afforded to marginalized inmates and mental health patients. While progressive penologists and civic reformers may have insured better living and working conditions in the Maryland state prison system, such reforms came at the cost of greater state control over those deemed unproductive, both in terms of their labor and their reproductive capabilities.

- Erin Durham, “In Pursuit of Reform, Whether Convict or Free: Prison Labor Reform in Maryland in the Early Twentieth Century,” Master’s thesis, University of Maryland, 2018. p. 60-67.