Details via press release from KCD
Kentucky Citizens for Democracy is excited to announce that prison reform advocate, Kyle Ellison (See biography below), will be presenting at our general meeting on ICE Detention: Expanding the immoral exploitation of our county jails as profit centers.
The talk will be Tuesday, July 22nd at 6:30 PM, at the St. James Episcopal Church (Gleason Hall), 401 LaGrange Road, Pewee Valley, KY 40056
Ellison will talk about the profit motivation in Kentucky to overcrowd jails with ICE detainees. Watch soon-to-be-released documentary clip.
Migrant detention has become big business in Kentucky. Right here in Oldham and other counties around Kentucky, jails and detention centers are bringing in federal immigration prisoners by the van load.
Most citizens in Kentucky believe that the local jails, sheriff’s departments, and jailers, who are paid for with their tax money, are here to serve the needs of the county. They have no idea their resources are being used to profit off of migrants, many of whom have no criminal record, and were detained by ICE with no due process rights. This profit incentive will undoubtedly increase with the new spending bill, which has just passed Congress, resulting in an astronomical surge in ICE’s detention budget from $3.4 billion to $45 billion.
KCD believes it is immoral to profit from an agency (ICE) that makes the news every day for complete lack of respect for civil liberties, human rights, or basic human dignity. Those of us who care about this issue in Oldham County refuse to be complicit by being quiet. We ask Oldham County specifically to stop using our jail vans to traffic migrants from long distances so that we may profit off of them.
Michael E. Slider
Executive Director - Kentucky Citizens for Democracy
kycitizens.org
[email protected]
Kyle Ellison Biography
When Kyle Ellison returned from military service in 1972, he worked nine years as a Probation & Parole Officer for the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) and then worked as a Staff Training Officer for prison and jail personnel for seven years. He has done extensive research on the 225-year history of KDOC and has followed Kentucky's state prisons and county jail issues for over 50 years. He has published articles in The Kentucky Lantern, Louisville Courier-Journal, and The Kentucky Encyclopedia. He has spoken at forums, including those hosted by the League of Women Voters, Fellowship of Reconciliation, and Veritas. With the support of retired corrections employees, he works to inform reporters, elected officials, community activist groups, and educators about the billion-dollar per year jail and prison industry in Kentucky.
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