Greene County Democrat

Category: Health

  • Fighting an unjust system, The Bail Project
    helps people get out of jail and reunite families

    Members of The Bail Project

    By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    As public support for criminal justice reform continues to build — and as the pandemic raises the stakes higher — advocates remain vigilant that it’s more important than ever that the facts are straight, and everyone understands the bigger picture.
“The U.S. doesn’t have one ‘criminal justice system;’ instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems,” Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner found in a study released by the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative.
“Together, these systems hold almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories,” the study authors discovered.
With hundreds of thousands of individuals locked up in jails almost daily, many find it challenging to pay bail. Recognizing America’s ongoing mass incarceration problem and the difficulties families have in bailing out their loved ones, a new organization began in 2018 to offer some relief.
The Bail Project, a nationwide charitable fund for pretrial defendants, started with a vision of combating mass incarceration by disrupting the money bail system.
Adrienne Johnson, the regional director for The Bail Project, told NNPA’s Let It Be Known that the organization seeks to accomplish its mission one person at a time.
“We have a mission of doing exactly what we hope our criminal system would do: protect the presumption of innocence, reunite families, and challenge a system that we know can criminalize poverty,” Johnson stated.
    
“Our mission is to end cash bail and create a more just, equitable, and humane pretrial system,” she insisted.
    
Johnson said The Bronx Freedom Fund, at the time a new revolving bail fund that launched in New York, planted the seed for The Bail Project more than a decade ago.
“Because bail is returned at the end of a case, we can build a sustainable revolving fund where philanthropic dollars can be used several times per year, maximizing the impact of every contribution,” Johnson stated.
In addition to posting bail at no cost to the person or their family, The Bail Project works to connect its clients to social services and community resources based on an individual’s identified needs, including substance use treatment, mental health support, stable housing, and employment.
Johnson noted that officials created cash bail to incentivize people to return to court. Instead, she said, judges routinely set cash bail well beyond most people’s ability to afford it, resulting in thousands of legally innocent people incarcerated while they await court dates.
According to The Bail Project, Black Americans are disproportionately impacted by cash bail, and of all Black Americans in jail in the U.S., nearly half are from southern prisons.
“There is no way to do the work of advancing pretrial reform without addressing the harmful effects of cash bail in the South,” said Robin Steinberg, Founder, and CEO of The Bail Project.
“Cash bail fuels racial and economic disparities in our legal system, and we look forward to supporting the community in Greenville as we work to eliminate cash bail and put ourselves out of business.”
Since its launch, The Bail Project has stationed teams in more than 25 cities, posting bail for more than 18,000 people nationwide.
Johnson said the organization uses its national revolving bail fund, powered by individual donations, to pay bail. The Bail Project has spent over $47 million on bail.
“When we post bail for a person, we post the full cash amount at court,” Johnson stated.
“Upon resolution of the case, the money returns to whoever posted. So, if I posted $5,000 to bail someone out, we then help the person get back to court and resolve the case,” she continued.
“The money then comes back to us, and we can use that money to help someone else. So, we recycle that.”
Johnson said eliminating cash bail and the need for bail funds remains the goal.
“It’s the just thing to do. It restores the presumption of innocence, and it restores families,” Johnson asserted

  • Newswire : Alabama is jailing pregnant marijuana users to ‘protect’ fetuses

    By: Moira Donegan/Guardian UK

    At a traffic stop, the police officer found a small amount of weed. Ashley Banks, a 23-year-old woman living in Alabama, admitted to the cops that she had smoked marijuana two days earlier. It was the same day that she learned she was pregnant. She was six weeks along. It was this disclosure – that she was pregnant – that led Etowah county officials to keep her in jail, without a trial, for the next three months.
    Alabama has an exceptionally high incarceration rate, locking up about 938 people per 100,000 residents. But even in a state with a disproportionate prison population, an arrest for small-scale drug possession would not usually lead to such an extended pre-trial jail stay.
    But Banks fell victim to a peculiar Alabama law that advocates say Etowah county enforces with special zeal: pregnant women who are arrested for drug offenses are not allowed to post bail and go free, the way other people are. They have to stay in state custody: either in jail, or in a residential drug rehab program. The logic is that the women are a danger to their fetuses: they need to be imprisoned by the state, and kept from their freedom, in order to protect their pregnancies.
    In Banks’s case, jail officials tried to send her to rehab, but after an assessment, the facility turned her away: Banks, they said, was merely a casual marijuana user, not an addict, and did not need in-patient drug treatment. Too healthy for rehab, but not trusted enough by the state to be set free, she was kept in limbo in jail. Meanwhile, Banks’s pregnancy wasn’t going well. She has a family history of miscarriages, and was experiencing bleeding in jail. At one point, jail officials assigned her to sleep in a bed that was already occupied by another prisoner; Banks slept on the floor.
    She’s not the only one. Another woman, Hali Burns, was taken to the Etowah county jail just six days after giving birth to her son, with police saying that she had tested positive for a drug used by pregnant women with opioid addictions to help manage cravings and withdrawal. When she was thrown in jail, Burns was still physically recovering from giving birth. But the jail had no facilities for her to pump or tend to her wounds. Her partner tried to bring pads and underwear to her, so that she wouldn’t have to bleed into her clothes, but Etowah county authorities wouldn’t let her have them. The risk for infection was great – the indignity was even greater.
    Stories like Banks’s and Burns’s – the needless and disproportionate incarceration, the loss of freedom and recourse inflicted on them on the basis of their pregnancies, the cruelty justified by authorities as “protection” for a fetus – are becoming more common. Alabama criminalizes more women for pregnancy than any other state. Just last year, Kim Blalock, a mother of six from Florence, Alabama, was charged with a felony for filling a longstanding prescription from her doctor while pregnant. Prosecutors charged that the medication, which Blalock was taking as prescribed, could have hurt her fetus, and that she should have known not to refill it. (Blalock later gave birth to a healthy baby boy.)
    But these jailings are not just an Alabama thing: the trend of imprisoning pregnant and postpartum women for supposedly endangering their fetuses is one that’s growing nationwide. Over 32 years, from 1973, when Roe v Wade was decided, to 2005, the United States saw a total of 413 pregnancy prosecutions throughout the whole nation, according to Afsha Malik, a research associate at the reproductive justice group National Advocates for Pregnant Women and the co-author of a recent report on pregnancy criminalization. But over just a 14-year period, from 2006 to 2020, there were more than 1,300 such cases. That steep increase happened while Roe was still in place; now that it’s fallen, pregnancy criminalization is likely to accelerate even more.
    “We know that we’re going to see more examples of pregnant people being criminalized for behavior that may be [seen as] justified for the general public, like using substances,” Malik told the Nation. “[Other] cases that we’ve seen are going to accelerate, like [for] falling down the stairs, having a home birth, not seeking prenatal care, having HIV, having a self-induced abortion, and experiencing a pregnancy loss.”
    Still, Etowah county seems to be a hotbed for this particular kind of misogynist cruelty. NAPW says that the county has jailed 150 pregnant women in recent years; as many as 12 are currently held in its jail.
    The Dobbs decision didn’t create this state of affairs, but it’s likely to worsen it. The policy in place in Etowah county and elsewhere reveals the warped logic and hateful absurdities of the anti-choice worldview. The movement claims to see embryos and fetuses as persons, and in practice they speak as if these “persons” are not women’s equals, but their superiors: the fetus is conceived of as more important than the woman, more worthy, less tainted by those things that make a pregnant woman so unappealing – her femaleness, her sexuality, her tendency to have human desires and human struggles, like irritation or addiction or anger. In the service of protecting and advancing this superior being of the fetus, the anti-choice movement claims, it is justifiable, even necessary, to steal the freedom of those lesser women.
    And yet the practice of imprisoning women to “protect” their fetuses and infants does not make sense on its own terms. Jails are dirty, desperate and violent places; Banks, who had a high-risk pregnancy, frequently bled during her incarceration and had no access to medical care. Burns, who was arrested just a few days after giving birth, was not able to care for her new son, or her toddler daughter. None of what the anti-choice movement is doing can be said to protect anyone – not the fictional “persons” imagined in an embryo or fetus, not the real, living children deprived of their mothers, and certainly not the pregnant and postpartum women, shamed and thrown into cages, still bleeding from giving birth. One begins to suspect that the only value the anti-choice movement really sees in fetal “persons” is the pretext that it allows them for misogynist sadism.

  • New South will hold 37th annual Fall Membership Convention

    Alabama New South Coalition’s 37th annual Fall Membership Convention will be held on Saturday, October 8, 2022 at the Maggie Street Dream Center, 642 Maggie Street, Montgomery, AL 36104 from 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM.
    Following the Convention’s theme, My Vote+Your Vote = Our Victory, the discussions will focus on voter education, registration and mobilization relative to the November 8 General election.
    Dr. Richard Arrington, first Black Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama and first State President of the Alabama New South Coalition, will be the guest speaker at the luncheon program.
    Registration fee for ANSC members is $30 and $40.00 for non-members.
    Pre-registration, scheduled to close September 23, is encouraged to allow for efficient planning.
    Special housing arrangements are extended to ANSC members at Homewood Suites by Hilton, 1800 Interstate Park Drive Montgomery, Alabama 36109 at a discounted group rate for studious at $124 per night and one bedroom for $134. This rate includes hot buffet breakfast. The contact number for the hotel is (334) 272-3010.
    Should you have additional questions, please feel free to contact the ANSC State Coordinator, Shelley Fearson, at 334-262-0932 or 334-799-9757.
    ANSC was organized in 1985 and Ms. Debra Foster of Anniston, AL currently serves as State President; Mr. Robert Turner, Sr. of Bullock County, AL is Board Chairperson.

     

     

  • COVID-19

    As of September 8, 2022, at 10:00 AM
    (According to Alabama Political Reporter)

    Alabama had 1,504,180 confirmed cases of coronavirus,
    (9,880) more than last week with 20,239 deaths (79) more
    than last week.

    Greene County had 2,109 confirmed cases, no more cases than last week), with 51 deaths

    Sumter Co. had 2,922 cases with 52 deaths

    Hale Co. had 5,336 cases with 109 deaths

    Note: Greene County Physicians Clinic has testing and vaccination for COVID-19;
    Call for appointments at 205/372-3388, Ext. 142; ages 5 and up.

  • Community seeks donations of water to fill truck for our neighbors in Jackson, MS

    The Greene County Community Associates of the Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF) initiated a program to fill an 18-wheeler trailer truck with water to send to Jackson, Mississippi. Over 200,000 residents of the City of Jackson have faced low pressure and contaminated water for several weeks due to flooding and the decay of their infrastructure.
    The BBCF Associates were able to enlist the support of the Greene County School System, the City of Eutaw, the Eutaw Police Department, the Eutaw Chamber of Commerce, local churches, and other allies, in the efforts to gather water donations.
    Miriam Leftwich, Coordinator of the BBCF Greene County Community Associates, said, “We are collecting bottled water, to fill up a trailer truckload to help our neighbors in Jackson, Mississippi, who face a devastating situation due to the failure of their water system.”
    Leftwich says you can bring cases of water to the Robert H. Young Community Center (former Carver Middle School) at 720 Greensboro Avenue in Eutaw from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, Monday through Thursday; and 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM on Fridays, through September 15, 2022.
    Leftwich is coordinating the water drive with a Black radio personality in Jackson, who will help distribute the water to people in need in Jackson.
    “We welcome any donations of water, from a single case to a pallet of cases of water, we want to fill the truck up, “said Leftwich.
    Mayor Latasha Johnson of Eutaw said, “We are asking all citizens of Eutaw to contribute to this worthy cause, and we have made our Robert H. Young Community Center available as a collection point. We also have our staff there aiding in the collection and loading of water.”
    For more information on the water drive, contact 205-496-2070 or 205-344-0739.

     

     

  • Newswire: Cleanup of oil ooze in Nigeria’s Ogoniland dismissed as ‘far from exemplary’

    Environmental devastation in Ogoniland;
    and Martha Agbani, wants to replant mangroves

    Sept. 5, 2022 (GIN) – There were high hopes for a one billion dollar cleanup of Nigeria’s most polluted region of Ogoniland when it got off the ground in 2019. It would address the greasy rainbow sheen over the 386 mile wetlands, the continual ooze from dormant wellheads and active pipelines, the once-lush mangroves coated in crude, and the smells of benzene while farmlands stood charred and barren.
     
    Support from the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP) and a funding pledge from the oil company Shell gave hope that some success would come from this most ambitious project.
     
    But an expose in Bloomberg News, called the project “far from being exemplary.” In fact, they say, “it is making one of the earth’s most polluted regions even dirtier.” Friends of the Earth International shared their disappointment.
     
    “We had hoped that the Ogoniland cleanup would set the standard for the cleanup in the Niger Delta as a whole,” said Mike Karikpo, an Ogoni attorney with the Friends of the Earth group. “But we’ve not seen any impact. There ought to be some impact on the lives and livelihoods of people whose lands and rivers were impacted by this oil.”
     
    In a scathing review of the Ogoniland cleanup efforts, the UN body painted a picture of rampant mismanagement, incompetence, waste and lack of transparency. They highlighted the haphazard storage of oil-soaked soil that lets chemicals seep into uncontaminated grounds and creeks, the contracts awarded to firms with little environmental-cleanup experience and proposals for millions of dollars in unneeded work.
     
    “The oil companies should be responsible for cleaning up the environment,” said Daniel Leader, a partner at the UK law firm Leigh Day that represents an Ogoni community in an ongoing case against Shell. They “have essentially deflected their legal obligations and created this para-statal that has failed to deliver.”
     
    Shell’s liabilities in the Niger Delta have been mounting — it paid $66.4 million to the Bodo community in 2015 and $109 million last year to compensate the Ejama-Ebubu community. The company’s efforts to sell onshore assets in the country have stalled pending a decision on $1.9 billion in compensation ordered by a Nigerian court in 2020 to pay to 88 plaintiffs.
     
    Shell is the largest oil operator in Africa’s largest oil-producing region where residents face high poverty rates and a largely degraded environment, owing to hundreds of spills every year.
     
    “We have groundwater polluted with benzene 900 times above the World Health Organization level, we have farmlands with poor yields, rivers that are barely fishable, neonatal deaths numbering thousands yearly as a result of spills,” Niger Delta activist Saatah Nubari told CNN.
     
    Meanwhile, at least one Nigerian is forging ahead with a plan to grow and replant mangroves despite little or no support from the authorities.
     
    From growing mangroves in her yard, Martha Agbani saw an opportunity to plant a nursery. By late 2019 she had 100 women mangrove planters.
     
    The Niger Delta is home to one of the largest mangrove ecosystems in the world, one that humans lived in harmony with for centuries. They filter brackish waters, protect against coastal erosion and provide a sheltered breeding ground for aquatic life, which in turn sustains humans.
     
    Like her mother, Mrs. Agbani worked for years for the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, set up in 1990 in response to the environmental destruction of the ecologically delicate area by multinational oil companies.
     
    And like her mother, she was inspired by the work of the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ogoniland’s greatest hero – executed by the Nigerian government under the military dictator Sani Abacha in 1995.
     
    Mangroves protect marine habitats from harmful nutrients and runoff that can harm seagrass, coral reefs and fisheries. The roots help filter water coming off from the land, including pollutants, heavy metals, pesticides and agricultural runoff, another NOAA report found. Mangroves therefore maintain water quality and clarity. They also control nutrient distribution to seagrass beds and coral reefs. Without natural filters like mangroves, dangerous conditions like red tide and sargassum and algal blooms can proliferate.
     
    Mangroves protect marine habitats from harmful nutrients and runoff that can harm seagrass, coral reefs and fisheries. Their roots help filter water coming off from the land, including pollutants, heavy metals, pesticides and agricultural runoff.
     
    Without natural filters like mangroves, dangerous conditions like red tide and sargassum and algal blooms can proliferate. w/pix of M. Agbani
     

  • Newswire :13 states set to tax student loan forgiveness

    According to an analyst by the Tax Foundation, as many as 13 states will consider President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness a taxable event, levying as much as $1,100 in taxes to some borrowers who receive a $10,000 break.
    
When announcing plans to forgive as much as $20,000 in student loans, Biden said provisions in the American Rescue Plan would render the forgiven debt non-taxable.
    
However, the law doesn’t exempt loan forgiveness at the state level.
“As a general rule, a discharge of indebtedness counts as income and is taxable,” Jared Walczak wrote for the Tax Foundation.
    
“Under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), however, the forgiveness of student loan debt between 2021 and 2025 does not count toward federal taxable income. States which follow the federal treatment here will likewise exclude debt forgiveness from their own state income tax bases.
    
“But, for a variety of reasons, not every state does that. There are at least six relevant interactions with the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) for purposes of the treatment of student loan debt cancellation.”
    
Those receiving $10,000 in loan forgiveness are now facing the following tax penalties in the following states:
• Arkansas: $550
• Hawaii: $1,100
• Idaho: $600
• Kentucky: $500
• Massachusetts: $500
• Minnesota: $985
• Mississippi: $500
• New York: $685
• Pennsylvania: $307
• South Carolina: $700
• Virginia: $575
• West Virginia: $650
• Wisconsin: $530
Walczak said those amounts double for individuals receiving $20,000 in debt relief.
He noted that in several other states, tax officials have indicated that there will be no tax on student loan debt discharge despite ambiguity in state law.
    
“California, for instance, does not conform to a post-ARPA version of the IRC but has a provision in existing law exempting student loans canceled according to income-based repayment programs,” Walczak wrote.
    
“Legislation expressly conforming to the new federal law failed, but state revenue officials seem to be taking the position that the forgiveness announced by the Biden administration will be covered by the existing law.”
    
Similarly, Walczak noted that officials in Pennsylvania have announced that the Biden administration’s cancellation of student loan debt is not taxable.
    
In the coming weeks and months, Walczak added that it’s likely that additional states would issue guidance on the treatment of discharged student loan debt and perhaps even adopt legislative fixes, causing this list to dwindle.
    
While the debt – if retained – would have been paid over a period of years, the debt cancellation is included in taxable income in the year it is forgiven.

  • Newswire : White House announces September 28, as date for Historic Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health

    White House with End Hunger Now button

    By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent


    The Biden-Harris Administration announced it would host the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health on Sept. 28 in Washington, DC.
As the President announced in May, this will be the first Conference of this kind in more than 50 years.
“Millions of Americans are afflicted with food insecurity and diet-related diseases —including heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes —which are some of the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S. Lack of access to healthy and affordable foods is one of many factors impacting hunger and diet-related diseases,”  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote in a statement.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges further,”

    She said the conference would bring government leaders, academics, activists, and Americans from all walks of life together to achieve the goal of ending hunger and reducing diet-related diseases in the U.S. by 2030 – all while reducing disparities among the communities who are impacted the most by these issues.
    
“We will announce a national strategy at the conference that identifies actions the government will take to catalyze the public and private sectors to drive transformative change and address the intersections between food, hunger, nutrition, and health,” Jean-Pierre said.
    
The first White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health occurred in 1969. Many considered it a pivotal event that influenced the nation’s food policy agenda for the next half-century. The White House said President Biden’s goal is to do the same with this year’s conference.
    
“Hunger, diet-related disease, and the disparities surrounding them impact millions of Americans, and the COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on the urgency of addressing these issues,” said Ambassador Susan Rice, the Biden Administration’s Domestic Policy Advisor.
    
“No one should have to wonder where their next meal will come from,” Rice continued. “We must take bold steps now—with government, the private sector, non-profits, and communities working together—to build a healthier future for every American.”
    
To learn more and join in taking bold action to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases and disparities, visit whitehouse.gov/hungerhealthconference.

  • Newswire : Jackson’s water crisis was triggered by floods and compounded by racism

    By: Joseph Lee/Grist/Readers Supported News

     
    
Nearly 200,000 people in Mississippi’s capital don’t have water
    to drink, flush toilets, or fight fires.
    
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has declared a state of emergency in Jackson, with 180,000 people in the area facing low or no water pressure, and water unsafe for drinking. “Do not drink the water,” Governor Reeves said in an emergency briefing. “Be smart, protect yourself, protect your family, preserve water, look out for your fellow man and look out for your neighbors.”
    The city and state have already begun distributing bottled water to residents, but the crisis could also disrupt other essential services. “Until it is fixed, we do not have reliable running water at scale,” Reeves said in the briefing. “The city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to flush toilets and to meet other critical needs.” This week, Jackson has temperatures over 90 degrees and city schools have switched to virtual classes because of the situation. 
    Heavy rains and flooding from the Pearl River have caused serious complications with one of two treatment plants that provides water for Jackson. With the plant not functioning as normal, raw reservoir water is being pushed into pipes that feed Jackson’s water supply, leading to the governor’s warning. According to a statement from Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, who also declared a state of emergency, the shortage is likely to last “the next couple of days.” 
    Flooding comes amid an increase in devastating climate change-driven floods in Kentucky, Missouri, and other communities across the country. The Pearl River floods are also impacting communities beyond Jackson, including the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, which issued a boil water advisory on Monday. 
    The city of Jackson has been dealing with a substandard water system for years. In March 2020, the EPA found the system had the potential for bacteria like E. Coli in the water, issued an emergency order to address the system’s deficiencies, and has been working with the state and city since then to improve the system. After a storm froze pipes across the city in 2021, many residents lost access to clean water for weeks. Last October, lawyers representing hundreds of Jackson children sued the city over water system failures and mismanagement that led to “hundreds, if not thousands” of children to be poisoned by lead across the city. Since July, Jackson has been under a boil water advisory because tests revealed potentially contaminated water. 
    Local advocates say that the city’s water problems are rooted in a history of racism and neglect. The city suffers from old infrastructure that was designed to support a larger population. After the civil rights movement led to the integration of schools and other public facilities in the 1960s, white people fled the city by the thousands. According to the Jackson Free Press, nearly 20,000 white people left the city between 2000 and 2010. When white people left, the city lost both tax revenue and institutional support. Today, the city is roughly 80 percent Black. Similar circumstances have led to water crises in Flint, Detroit, and other cities. 
    That history has also contributed to tensions between the city and state governments. Lumumba, who is Black, has clashed with Reeves, who is white, and other state officials over funding and management of Jackson’s water system. In the wake of the 2021 freeze crisis, weeks passed before any coordinated effort between the state and city to fix the situation took place. Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann has previously blamed water issues on Black leadership in Jackson. Lumumba, who has said the issue has always been state funding, was not invited to Reeves’ briefing on Monday. 

  • COVID-19

    As of August 31, 2022, at 10:00 AM
    (According to Alabama Political Reporter)

    Alabama had 1,494,300 confirmed cases of coronavirus,
    (14,695) more than last week with 20,160 deaths (112) more
    than last week)

    Greene County had 2,109 confirmed cases, 19 more cases than last week), with 51 deaths

    Sumter Co. had 2,922 cases with 52 deaths

    Hale Co. had 5,336 cases with 109 deaths

    Note: Greene County Physicians Clinic has testing and vaccination for COVID-19;
    Call for appointments at 205/372-3388, Ext. 142; ages 5 and up.