 Welcome back to The Breakfast on Plus TV Africa and now today, a little bit in history, I'm going back to the year 1971 to share with you what happened on this day, 13th of September. It was a four-day prison revolt in a place called Attica, it's called the Attica Prison in the United States that eventually led to the loss of dozens of lives including prison wardens and police officers, prison guards as they're popularly called. The revolt basically was based on prisoners' demands for better living conditions and political rights and it took place on this day with approximately 2,200 men that were incarcerated in the Attica Correctional Facility that was initially built to accommodate just 1,200. And they eventually rioted and took control of the prison taking 42 staff hostage during the next four days of negotiations. Authorities agreed to about 28 of their demands but this still didn't stop the massacre and the loss of lives that eventually occurred. By the time the uprising was over at least 43 people were dead including 10 correctional officers and civilian employees and 33 inmates. It all started within a larger context of poor prison facilities, they had very poor food, the conversations of the time that they had to speak with relatives was also very, very short and they had an iron mesh that was placed between them and their relatives when they came this time and also overcrowding in the prison. This is as far back as 1971 but at the end of these four day negotiations and of course the storming of the prison by police officers that fired weapons at these prisoners, 33 of them eventually died, 10 correctional officers died and some prison staff also died, some of them had their throat slit by the prisoners. It then of course came or eventually led to a change in the New York state prison system. They had to improve on certain things and I'll quickly share some of the things that they then improved on. They had to now start providing more basics such as more shower time, more soap, medical care and family visits, introducing a grievance procedure which inmates could report actions by staff member and also creating lies and committees and which inmates elect representatives to speak for them in meetings and also providing access to a higher education among other things. But of course those lives had to be lost and that riot had to happen for four days before these things came in. Indeed, indeed. It was known as one of the bloodiest riots in US history. Man, but the good thing at the end of the day was the fact that it spurred this protection movement for the rights of prisoners and made sure that prisoners were able to get some basic things, things you mentioned more family time. Prisoners now had the right to be free from racial segregation, right to be free from sexual assault. They had the right to humane facilities, rights to good conditions. So yes, this was a very sad day in history in the United States but at the end of the day it opened the doors for more conversations and more policies regarding prisoners. Yes, they had committed crimes. Yes, they are now incarcerated. But how should they be treated now in compliance? They're still prisoner rights, absolutely. They're still human beings and they still have a lot of rights. And that's why we continue to have conversations like that in Nigeria regarding how people in prisons are kept. Just over the weekend and colleagues of mine were just talking about how in prisons in Nigeria you don't even have space to stand and that everybody has to squat like this because there's really no space. You only have people who have wealth influential families that can afford to buy them a bed space in prison. So the quality of life in prison, the treatment of prisoners here in Nigeria when you compare it is a very, very far cry. We've heard of cases where it's stated as a joke when Nigerians, even people of other nationalities were in prisons because of the quality of life they're getting, how they get good meals, how they have a decent place to sleep. When it's time for them to be out, they try to harass the warden so they remain in prison where they seem to be getting a better living condition than when they're outside. And that's because of how much improvements have been made into prisoners welfare in other developed countries. So Nigerians need to learn. We've seen investigative stories like Anas Arameyo and Anas, the famous Ghanaian journalist who went into a prison in Ghana to uncover how Ghanaian prisoners were living. It was a terrible, terrible condition, how they fed, how they lived, how they ate, the inhumane treatment that were meted out to them. So we're really doing it to learn, really. Absolutely. I think I've also seen on YouTube videos of the worst prisons on the continent. A lot of them outside Africa, some of them in Thailand, in China, some very, very terrible places. But they're dangerous and some of the worst places to be. But at the same time, it still creates some space for the rights of prisoners. Nigeria has done a little bit by changing the name to the Nigerian Correctional Service or something like that. We need a change of structure, not a change of name. If those rights aren't completely implemented. So on this day in history in 2019, a US actress we all know and maybe even love, Felicity Hoffman, was sentenced to 14 days in prison. And that's after she was indicted for paying about 15,000 US dollars. That's for her daughter's SAT scores to be tampered with for her to get a better chance at getting into the high scoring universities and be successful in life and take up acting as a career. So it was a series of college admissions fraud and scandal that was unveiled around this time. This was around May, early in the year, around May. Then in September, that's when she was sentenced to 14 days in prison. It was one of the largest college admissions cheating scandals in the country. She was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Also, she received 250 hours of community service. She had to pay a fine of 30,000 US dollars. She also had one year supervised release. And this was because in 2017 she had paid money to schools to increase her daughter's chances of getting into high top scoring universities. Before her sentence, Hoffman apologized to her family members, apologized to the school, apologized to her daughters. She said, quote, I was frightened. I was stupid. I was wrong. I am deeply ashamed of what I have done. There is no excuses. There's no justifications for my actions. Period. You know, she really apologized, but it wasn't just her. There were about 37 other parents who had been paying money to have their children's SAT scores forged, you know, so that it can be more competitive or enter more competitive schools. You know, this scandal involves elite schools across the country, including Yale, Stanford, University of California, Los Angeles, Georgetown. You know, it just exposed the heights and the lengths that parents go through and go to actually, you know, to make sure that children go into the right schools. And it also just exposed the fact that university college admissions, especially into these elite schools, can sometimes be slanted, you know, to favor those who are rich and those who can buy those scores, you know. So that really was what happened today. For Felicity Hoffman's case, this is a very, very clear example of being white and how being white alone favors you in the United States. Because I remember very well when the story broke and how much, you know, controversy it caused. Only for the U.S. or the United States, everyone who had been following the case to be shocked that she got just 14 days. And then they started to point out numerous cases where the accused was a black American who had done something that was 10%, 5% of what Felicity Hoffman had done here. And they had been given 5 years in prison, 10 years in prison. There was a particular woman that I believe that, I think she either lied about her address so that her child would be able to go to a different school, a better school. It's not like she wasn't going to pay, she was paying, but she had to lie about her address so that they can, you know, put her child in a better school. And she got, you know, 3, 4, 5 years in prison just for that. Or maybe even more. There have been many cases of black people who do the barest minimum, didn't crush Yamagi well in size to, they get 10 years in jail. But Felicity Hoffman got 14 days and that's it. That is a wrap for something as huge as that, that exposed corruption in the university system and the fact that people were bribing to get their kids into these universities. We joke about those kind of things here and say people pay for jump and, you know, there are special centers and some of all of that, which are equally crimes. But this was a very, very clear, caught example of being white in America and how the justice system treats you different. And that's it on Today in History 2019. Felicity Hoffman gets 14 days in prison for bribing school officials with 15,000 dollars to make sure her child gets into better schools. Alright, then I spoke about 1971, the Attica Massacre in the Attica Correctional Center in New York. And of course that happened on this day also. 43 people lost their lives, 33 of them were prisoners and the other 10 were correctional officers and staff.