From April 6th-10th, the Labor Community Strategy Center held its third annual Spring Break Take Action volunteer internship where students spent their spring break vacation learning about the history of the expansion of the prison system over the last thirty years, most specifically in California, and the impacts that the largest prison system in the world has had on our communities. Along with understanding the conditions that have allowed for a 700% increase in the California prison population in less than 25 years, the students also studied successful models of intervention and prevention that reduce crime and the prison population without using incarceration and community suppression as the first and only solution.

Spring Break Take Action 2009 increased this capacity to 25 students this year from five different schools: Westchester, Cleveland, North Hollywood, Crenshaw and University High Schools. This Spring Break Take Action was also a unique year because students organized on the buses of South Los Angeles, Korea Town and Vermont for a community wide meeting, on April 23rd, to bring together students, teachers, parents and concerned community members to discuss a plan of action to change current truancy policies and other disciplinary practices that use tickets as a form of punishment.