PSU & Decarcerate PA go to Harrisburg for the People’s Hearing!

Last week, Governor Corbett’s budget address included plans to pour more money into the state’s prison system. His budget would increase the DOC’s budget by $78 million. This would take the amount Pennsylvania is investing in its prison system over $2 billion for the first time ever. The governor’s budget would spend $423 million more on prisons than on higher education. We know from experience that when they build more prison beds, they plan to fill them. Students are hear to say, “NO!” to prison spending. We demand fulled funded education in PA, not more money for the Prison Industrial Complex.
With $1 billion in budget cuts to education during Governor Corbett’s term and the privatization of the school system, and what do you get? You get a vivid picture of what is happening to our city: the takeover of our institutions by the profiteering elite class of businessmen. We know that the young people of Philadelphia need re-investment into public education, not the prison system. With the shutdown and privatization of schools and the expansion of the prison-industrial complex for the benefit of a few in power, one can see that our institutions are being reconstructed after profit driven models at the cost of our lives and education. All students deserve the right to a high quality public education, but we can’t get that if more and more money is spent on criminalizing us, rather than educating us.
As part of our work to end the School-to-Prison Pipeline, PSU is joining with Decarcerate PA (http://decarceratepa.info/) and we are going to Harrisburg for the People’s Hearing!
The People’s Hearing in Harrisburg is demanding an end to the building of prison cells, a reformation of policy that perpetuates the school to prison pipeline, and a redirecting of investment from the prisons to the local communities, education, healthcare and jobs.
Although Decarcerate PA’s initial goal was to bring two buses of people from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, it has achieved its goal and is working on securing the funds for the third bus! The movement against incarceration is growing and students are leading the way!
The People’s Hearing is cosponsored by a growing list of organizations, including:
Philadelphia Student Union
Youth United for Change
The Center for Returning Citizens
Juntos
Boat People SOS
Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project
ACT-UP
Haverford College: Rethink Incarceration Group
University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia at Temple
Up Against the Law Legal Collective
Prison Health News
Philly Independent Media Center
National Lawyers Guild- Philadelphia Chapte
r National Lawyers Guild-Temple Chapter
Philly Survivor Support Collective
ExitUs Reentry
Global Women’s Strike
Payday Men’s Network
Every Mother is a Working Mother Network
AIDS Policy Project
Human Rights Coalition
The CHARLES Foundation
DreamActivist PA
1LoveMovement
Reconstruction Inc.
Books through Bars
Teacher Action Group
Artists for Recovery
NAACP of PA
Fight for Philly
Aids Policy Project
Art for Justice
Point Breeze Organizing Committee
MoveOn
Neighborhood Networks
Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers