Prison Industrial Complex

Wrongful Convictions

OBS uses Critical Resistance's definition of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). It is the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as false solutions to crime. It also includes the technology and business interests that maintain and profit from incarceration at the expense of Black and Brown communities. OBS' long history of exposing the racist brutality and dehumanization of the PIC led to its embrace of abolition.

OBS teamed up with the Color of Change to launch a campaign to ultimately collect 50,000 signatures. A press conference was held in 2020 to deliver signatures to the State Attorney General. Johnson was exonerated in 2022.

Reggie Griffin, Ellen Reasonover, and Joe Armine at a death penalty event in 2017. OBS worked with them and thier families for years to prove thier innocence.

Human Rights Violations

Surveillance is viewed as a tool of control, and not necessarily one for public safety. The Privacy Watch Committee held a press conference in 2018 to warn of the dangers of proposed legislation.