TO THE EDITOR:
This year we’ve seen heightened national attention on anti-black police brutality, but let’s not forget that the police are mouths that feed into our prison system. Since March of 2015, inmates in the Durham County Jail have been confined for extended periods of time, receiving as little as six hours per week outside their cells.
As someone who was previously in the jail, I saw firsthand the harm such conditions do to people’s minds. Since the lockback began, I witnessed multiple people attempting suicide. These incidents have gone unreported. Like many who were locked up, a criminal record means great difficulty in finding a job for myself. Like many who were and are locked up, I am a black man living under institutional racism and the revolving door of homelessness, unemployment and incarceration.
People who care about homelessness and poverty in Chapel Hill, I urge you to support the work of the Inside-Outside Alliance, a group working to advance the struggles of those currently and formerly incarcerated in the jail and their family and friends.
The group has drafted a set of demands calling for an end to the lockback and deplorable, torturous conditions inside the jail. A key demand is an independent investigation of living conditions, conducted by doctors, mental health practitioners, nutritionists, lawyers and Durham residents.
Sign their online petition, and join them every Friday at 6 p.m. outside the jail to demand an end to the lockback: https://www.change.org/p/end-the-lockback.
Ricky Alston
Inside-Outside Alliance
