Prisoner Support Network

March 2011 Issue Now Available!

2011-03-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

Download the PDF, or if you would like physical copies to distribute, please let us know.

General Interest Meeting

2010-09-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

Monday September 20th
At 7:00 pm in the GSO Lounge
(next to the elevators on the ground floor of Library Tower, Binghamton University)

* Concerned about the criminal (in)justice system? *
* Want to help provide a voice for the voiceless? *
* Interested in developing your publishing and layout skills? *

We are a small group of volunteers who recently relaunched OFF
Magazine!, a free publication written primarily by and for prisoners.
We get many submissions, letters of appreciation, and even donations
from people incarcerated near to Binghamton as well as all over the
United States. **We need your help** reading mail and compiling new
issues of the magazine. No experience necessary, and even a little bit
of help can make a big difference!

PSN Benefit Show July 23, 2010

2010-07-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

Members of the Prisoner Support Network (PSN) are currently organizing a benefit show / fundraiser for PSN. All proceeds of the benefit will go toward publication of the next issue of the OFF! Magazine.

The show will be awesome and includes musicians from NYC / Toronto / California as well as from Binghamton / Great Britain. Plus: we will be providing free info and literature on the US prison system and sell hard copies of the first OFF! magazine.

Also, for the first time we will be introducing the newly founded support group for Broome County, Sister 2 Sister - Women Re-Entering Together. Find out what we are all about and get involved! We will also talk about another project of PSN, TV Behind Bars, an open access TV show for prisoners. Here too, we can need all the help we can get, including knowledge and skills from interested people in the Binghamton community who want to support our work.

The benefit show will be held at 7pm at the Two Rivers Bookstore (153 Conklin Ave.) on Binghamton's Southside (just next to the Crowley's factory and Zipper's). For directions click here.

We are asking for a $5- $10 donation at the door (although no one will be turned away for lack of funds).

If you cannot make it to our fundraiser, you can send a check made payable to Prisoner Support Network and mail it to the following address:

Prisoner Support Network
c/o Graduate Student Organization
LN 2441
SUNY Binghamton
P.O. Box 6000
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000

(Donations of US postage stamps are welcome as well and can be sent to the same address.)

The OFF! Magazine is Back!

2010-05-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

The first issue of the new OFF! Magazine is published and mailed out to our subscribers on the inside. Those who do not receive the OFF! Magazine in the mail can download an electronic copy (PDF file) from our Blog here. We hope you'll enjoy the read.

For suggestions, help, submissions, or stamp donations, email: prisonersupportnetwork@gmail.com

First issue of the new OFF! Magazine coming soon

2010-03-06T14:16:00.000-08:00

The Prisoner Support Network is currently preparing the first issue of the new format of the OFF! magazine. We hope to publish and distribute this first issue by the end of March 2010. If you are incarcerated and are interested in subscribing to the OFF! magazine or would like to submit content for publication in one of the coming issues of OFF!, please send your mail to:

Prisoner Support Network
c/o Graduate Student Organization, LN 2441
SUNY Binghamton
P.O. Box 6000
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000

No costs are involved for subscribing to or publishing in the OFF! magazine. Note that submissions to OFF! should approximately be 1 page (for artwork, poetry, and fiction) and can be up to 1500 words for other texts.

Prisoner Letter Writing Event March 4th, 2010, at SUNY Binghamton

2010-02-24T17:28:00.000-08:00

"This place is really lonely and spirit killing when a prisoner had no one on the outside. But we have our ways of shining in the dark..." (letter to PSN, Nov. 2009)

The Prisoner Support Network is hosting a letter writing event to incarcerated people on Thursday, March 4th, from 5pm - 7pm at SUNY Binghamton (in the GSO Lounge / LN 1104 - on the main floor of the Glenn G. Bartle Library building near the coffee kiosk and elevators). Please come out and share some words with someone on the inside!

Cards and refreshments will be provided. We are thankful for donations of stamps for this event.

Everyone needs human contact. Don't let walls and bars keep us apart.

2009-11-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

This recent piece from the Times-Tribune is a frightening example of what can happen when medical complaints by prisoners go unheeded.

A Lackawanna County Prison inmate made half a dozen requests seeking medical help for a severe skin condition, but was ignored until the American Civil Liberties Union intervened, an ACLU attorney said Thursday.
The inmate's condition became so severe it shocked Valerie A. Burch, an attorney with the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
"He looked like a burn victim," she said. "He had severe psoriasis all over his body. His skin was cracked and bleeding. It was immediately apparent this man was not getting the treatment he needed."

You can read the rest of the article here.

Thanks to pressure from the ACLU and other groups, the prisoner's condition has improved. The report makes it seem that the problem revolved around the prisoner's inability to secure health care treatment. But you have to wonder about the role of the private health care provider, Correctional Care Inc. CCI is in a dispute with the county over billing and transparency, as this article indicates.

With over 2.3 million incarcerated people in the U.S., health care is an enormous but largely invisible issue. Increasingly, health care of prisoners is being turned over to private companies, further removing the State from responsibility toward and accountability for those whom it has deemed in need of "correction."

Stamp Drive!

2009-09-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

The revitalized Binghamton Prisoner Support Network (PSN) has several activities planned, including re-establishing contacts with incarcerated people we have written to in the past; putting together the OFF! Magazine for people on the "inside;" beginning new correspondences with prisoners; and some time in the future also sending literature, books and legal resources to people on the inside, and so on.

All of these things require funds, which we are raising, and one major expenditure of those funds is postage. Stamps are necessary for basically everything we do, and here's where YOU can help in a real and immediate way.

We are asking for donations of stamps. If you're on the BU campus, drop by the Graduate Student Organization office, LN 2441, to leave your donation. If you're not in the area, you can mail your donation here:

Prisoner Support Network
c/o Graduate Student Organization
Library North / LN 2441
SUNY Binghamton
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000

We will accept any postage, in any amount, but we prefer first-class "forever" stamps because of constantly rising postage rates.

Make today the day that you make a difference!