This weekend, the American Correctional Association (ACA) kicked off its annual summer conference. An organization of corporations that profit off of the prison industrial complex, the ACA began its week of lectures, workshops, and its featured trade show, where vendors that supply American's prisons meet their customers amongst the ACA's 20,000+ members.

Abbott Laboratories which regularly uses the conference as an opportunity to spotlight sodium thiopentol, a key ingredient in the lethal injection, is mysteriously absent from this year's convention. The company has come under heavy criticism from the Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty who had threatened non-violent, direct action to protest their sale of the drug for illegal use in prisons.

At approximately 5:45 this morning activists called attention to this week's meeting of the American Correctional Association by hanging a banner off a train trestle that crosses busy Rt. 76 (the Schuylkill Expressway). The banner, reading "Crime is a Commodity, Corporations Profit," called motorists' attention to the prison industry group, which activists accuse of valuing profit over the well-being of those incarcerated in America's prison system. Community members plan to voice their dissent against the collaboration between for-profit industry and the prison system tonight with a "March For Justice."

Activists and community members gathered in Philadelphia for a Counter Conference, two days of workshops, lectures, and discussions dedicated to formulating alternatives to the US prison industrial complex. Discussions ranged from criticism of the ACA to denouncement of the death penalty to the criminalization of sex workers.

On Sunday morning, a press conference, ironically situated next to the liberty bell, introduced a new report jointly produced by the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives and Justice Policy Institute which reveals that Pennsylvania leads the nation in racially disproprionate incarceration rates.

There are two conventions being held this weekend in downtown Philadelphia. One is the annual trade show and ``congress'' of the American Correctional Association (formerly known as the American Prison Association). This conference will cost anywhere between $110-$290 to attend. It will feature, along with keynote speakers, lectures, and workshops, a traditional trade show, where vendors of any and all products of use to America's prisons will find their customers in representatives of ACA's 20,000+ members. Opportunities to express family togetherness and win awards and prizes (scroll down to August 15th) will abound. Unofficial activities will certainly include expensive dinners inside and around their hotels, strolls around quaint Chinatown and nightlife.



There is an alternate way to spend your weekend...

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
A call and fax blast is planned for Friday, August 10th, in support of PublixTheatre, demanding their release. [ Article ]

Twenty-Five members of the PublixTheatre
Caravan, including three U.S.
citizens, among them Bryn Mawr student Susanna Thomas,
were arrested on July 22th
while attempting to leave Italy following the
demonstrations against the G8 Summit.
Participants in the theatre group will remain in
prison until the next judicial hearing on
August 13th, and authorities have threatened to keep
them in pretrial detention for up to
six months. Police, classifying the troupe’s
performance props as deadly weapons, have
accused the theatre activists of vandalism,
endangering public safety, and “affililiation
with the black bloc”. PublixTheatre was one of several
No Border No Nation caravans
traveling throughout Europe this summer. These groups
participated various political
and cultural events intended to highlight the
increasing repression at national borders and
a variety of problems associated with globalization.

The Coalition Against the American Correctional Association held its first in a series of press conferences today to announce its intentions in conjunction with the Annual meeting of the ACA August 11th-15th in Philadelphia. Listen to the press conference that the corporate media chose not to attend. Listen to the audio from the press conference here.

Last year, the Independent Media Center (IMC) of Philadelphia and its
newspaper, the Unconvention, provided Philadelphians and visitors with
an alternative to the commercial media's terrible coverage of the
Republican National Convention and the protests that surrounded it. Now
that another convention's coming to town, we're getting ready for a
repeat performance.

Updated 22:37 GMT:

Today demonstraters in a mass action of organized civil disobedience headed by the
Italian Ya Basta! movement, attempted to break through the sealed off 'Red Zone'
security barriers. There has been one confirmed death in Genoa today of a young
Genovese man. There is still an unconfirmed report of another death of a woman. There
is also a report and picture of a woman run over by a police vehicle. At least two other
men received serious hits in the face by the 40mm tear gas canisters being shot at the
protesters. IMC-Italy has a picture sequence which shows someone being shot. IMC-Print
has released a special edition on the protesters' deaths, which you can download for distribution here.

Last month in tiny township of Caanan in Wayne County, PA, several dozen citizens participated in a “last walk” along one of the
community’s oldest roads, slated to be closed later this week by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Bureau plans to build a “penitentiary
complex” in Caanan as part of the largest expansion in the history of the federal prison system. The protest walk was organized by the
Organization of Concerned Citizens (OCC) of Wayne County, a coalition of farmers and local community groups who want to see the
preservation of land for agriculture and sustainable economic development. The OCC contests the government’s right to the land, which is
designated as eligible to be a National Historic Register District.

The Brandywine Peace Community organized a gathering around the Radisson Hotel and Valley Forge
Convention Center, June 28 and 29, to protest a large conference of weapons manufacturers involved
with the "Star Wars" programs. The conference, entitled "Defending the Northeast, the Nation, and
America's Allies from Ballistic Missile Attack," was scheduled to cover "proliferation and the missile threat; the ABM treaty and missile
defense; technology options and architectures for missile defense; priorities and programs, timelines, and cost; and allies and coalition
partners and missile defense" (from the conferance agenda).