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

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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