| Human Rights Defense Center | |
| Type: | Non-profit, NGO |
| Founder: | Paul Wright |
| Headquarters: | Lake Worth Beach, Florida, United States |
| Key People: | Paul Wright(Executive Director) Susan Schwartzkopf (Chief Financial Officer) Dan Marshall (Litigation Director) |
| Area Served: | United States |
| Product: | Non-profit human rights advocacy |
| Focus: | Criminal justice reform, free speech |
| Homepage: | humanrightsdefensecenter.org |
Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that campaigns on behalf of prisoner rights across the United States. The organization advocates for the rights of people in "state and federal prisons, local jails, immigration detention centers, civil commitment facilities, Bureau of Indian Affairs jails, juvenile facilities and military prisons."[1] Some of the major focuses of the HRDC include work on free speech issues, government transparency and accountability, as well as opposition to the private prison industry.
HRDC is also the parent organization of Prison Legal News (PLN), a monthly publication that covers litigation and other criminal justice news, which is the nation's longest running newspaper produced by and for prisoners.[2] Through PLN, HRDC also publishes and offers books to prisoners pertaining to legal and self-help resources designed to help "prisoners navigate through the legal system"[3] The organization is currently running a number of campaigns, including its Campaign for Prison Phone Justice,[4] the Stop Prison Profiteering campaign,[5] and the Prison Ecology Project.[6] A major part of HRDC's funding is through revenue earned from its publishing and litigation, as well as book sales, but the organization also receives individual donations as well as crowdfunding efforts on its behalf.[7]
Members of staff include:[8]
HRDC's founder, president, and executive director is Paul Wright, who is also the founding editor of Prison Legal News. In 2003 Wright, a former military policeman and a graduate of the University of Maryland, was released from prison in Washington State after having served 17 years.[9]
Wright co-founded the monthly newsletter Prison Legal News together with Ed Mead in 1990 while still incarcerated.[9] He first mailed it to friends, then began to distribute it more widely. During that period Wright also "successfully litigated a wide variety of censorship and public records cases against prison systems around the country... both as a plaintiff and on behalf of PLN."[9]
The HRDC is mainly funded through revenue generated from its publishing and litigation activities, largely through PLN subscriptions as well as advertising revenue that amounts to more than $165,000 annually.[3] The organization holds fundraisers and is also supported by the following foundation funders: Community Foundation of Massachusetts, Funding Exchange, Jewish Community Fund, Open Society Foundation, Proteus Fund, Sonya Staff Foundation, Irvin Stern Foundation, and Youth Emergency Services.[10]
The main focus of HRDC's litigation and activism is the condition of the incarcerated, and the incarceration's lasting effect on their lives. The cases brought by HRDC often involve First Amendment issues regarding prisons' attempt at censorship of Prison Legal News and other literature published or produced by PLN.
This however is not the limit of their activities. The organization has and continues to litigate plenty of cases involving "individual prisoners who suffer death by serious injury as a result unconstitutional prison or jail policies."[11] They also file class action lawsuits aimed at stopping the financial exploitation of prisoners' and their families. Examples of cases filed:
The Campaign for Prison Phone Justice, which was co-founded by HRDC, started in 2011 in order to challenge the high fees for telephone use being charged by contractors in jails in the U.S. On October 22, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved to cap the rates for prisoner phone calls in order to rein in what the FCC called "excessive rates and egregious fees on phone calls paid by some of society's most vulnerable."[17] The US Supreme Court ruled that the FCC could not cap rates charged by contract providers but could cap associated fees for service.
The Stop Prison Profiteering Campaign (SPP) is intended to fight the financial exploitation of prisoners and aims at stopping companies who charge excessive fees when people attempt to help their incarcerated friends and family.[18] HRDC has been working in conjunction with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to investigate "the fees associated with debit cards" in order to prohibit them and give "prisoners the ability to opt out of debit cards when they are released from prison."[19]
The Prison Ecology Project (PEP) states as its mission "to map the intersections of mass incarceration and environmental degradation, and create action plans to address the multitude of problems found there."[20] The PEP is concerned with the environmental impact of poorly regulated prison facilities, sewage systems, industrial waste and construction, on the threatened species and communities in the area.[20]