Friday, Aug. 7, call Jerry Brown and tell him to drop the appeal!

by Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB)

prison-overcrowding-Cali-SP-LA, Friday, Aug. 7, call Jerry Brown and tell him to drop the appeal!, Abolition Now! On Tuesday, Aug. 4, a federal three-judge panel issued a final historic ruling in the California prison health care lawsuits. The panel ordered the state to release 44,000 people in prison.

This decision is a huge opportunity to improve prison health care, parole, sentencing laws, prison construction and re-entry conditions and shift budget priorities to education, health and safety net services. We need to insure that this order is implemented so we can begin reinvesting in our communities during the enormous budget crisis.

“Tough on crime” organizations are mobilizing already to reverse this decision – so we need to make ourselves heard loudly right away.

Please call and fax Attorney General Jerry Brown all day Friday, Aug. 7, and demand that he not appeal the ruling.

Tell your friends, coworkers and neighbors! We need the calls and faxes to keep coming. If you want more information about the ruling and our work to reduce the number of people in prison in California, we want to work with you!

By phone

Call Jerry Brown at (916) 322-3360; hit #7 for comments. Sample script:

I am calling to demand that Attorney General Jerry Brown refuse to appeal the three-judge ruling in the prison population lawsuit. We need to reinvest in our communities, and release people from prison.

By fax

Fax Jerry Brown at (916) 323-5341. Sample letter:

Dear Attorney General Jerry Brown:

I am writing to share my support for the three-judge panel’s decision ordering California to release 44,000 people in prison. This decision is a huge opportunity to solve some of the interconnected problems we face: prison health care and conditions, parole, sentencing laws, prison construction and re-entry. We also need to make sure this order is implemented so we can reinvest in our communities during the enormous budget crisis. We need to release the people and the resources California is locking up.

Sincerely,

Name

Address

To learn more about the CURB Alliance and get involved in our organizing, find us here:

• Northern California, (510) 444-0484

• Southern California, (323) 951-0436

Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is a broad based alliance of over 40 organizations seeking to CURB prison spending by reducing the number of people in prison and the number of prisons in the state. CURB urges readers to forward this notice widely.