The 20th of February was a national day of action against the prison system and the "new Jim Crow." There were protests outside jails and prisons all over the US, plus protests and organizing inside some of these hellholes. In DC, Occupy DC and a number of community groups showed up ouside the DC Jail.

A specific demand of the protest was that plans at the DC Jail to replace face to face visitation with video "visits" over closed-circuit TV, the sort of thing one would expect from a Supermax facility!

Although the DC Jail is still owned by the actual DC government, the "Correctional Treatment Facility" next to it is owned by CCA, Corrections Corporation of America. CCA is the largest prison owning corporation in the world, followed by GEO Group (which Wells Fargo invests in) at number two.

One speaker at the rally pointed out that CCA is demanding as a condition of building one particular new prison in the US that they be guaranteed 90% of the prison would be occupied at all times. Needless to say, that kind of contract could influence judges to send more people to prison if crime rates drop, to avoid a breach of contract.

Both CCA and GEO Group own Federal prisons that DC inmates convicted of felonies, often by juries NOT of their peers. are routinely sent to. The DC Jail itself is also getting worse. Their latest construction project is a video conferencing center intended to totally replace face to face family visits for inmates in the DC Jail!