Aja Beech (ACG ’10) announces this year’s Execute Art Not People photo shoot for the campaign will be Sunday April 15 from 3:00pm-6:00pm at Stupid Easy Studios 307 Market Street. Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has an event every year called Execute Art Not People. The photo shoot on April 15 will be part of an online campaign where the photos will be
streamed into a video with more information about the redirection of government funds to arts and education instead of programs like the death penalty and to bring awareness to the Execute Art Not People event that will be held on June 1 at the Ethical Society of Philadelphia. For more information, or if you are unable to attend but would like to send a photo please email Aja at beech.aja@gmail.com.
June 1 we will show the film ‘Concrete Steel and Paint’ and hold a panel discussion with the film’s directors Tony Heriza and Cindy Burstein and Senator Daylin Leach.
This year’s event will focus on restorative justice and ways the PA government can redirect funding to arts and education from spending on things like the death penalty. This would save millions of dollars a year without changing anything about the situation of those prisoners on death row by converting their sentence to life in prison, even on a short term basis. There are currently over 200 people on death row in Pennsylvania and only three executions since 1978 and each prisoner on death row is estimated to cost $10,000 more a year than a prisoner with any other sentence. That adds up to $27 million spent on the death penalty since 1999 and a savings of over $2 million in Pennsylvania each year there is no death penalty.
In the months leading up to the event we aim to start a campaign online where artists, organizers, activists, and educators would be featured in photos holding a sign saying Execute Art Not People.
