Prisons

How A Mother Learned To Speak For The Voiceless Behind Prison Walls

December 20, 2018 Shandre Delaney, Lawatthemargins.com Resist! Pennsylvania, Prisons, Racism

In my opinion, they use black and brown bodies of our family members to create jobs for white men who would otherwise be poor like those that filled the prisons. The urban cities provide a constant supply and job security to the rural towns of Pennsylvania. When my son arrived at prison, I had the normal fears of him being very young in an adult prison around older men who may be predators. I also had fears that he would be caught up between gangs. I soon learned that the most notorious gang in the prison system was not the Crips and Bloods but the C’s and the O’s as I liked to call the gang-like corrections officers.

Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee Chapter Starts In Seattle In Wake Of National Prison Strike

November 27, 2018 Seattle IWOC, Itsgoingdown.org Resist! Incarcerated workers, Mass Incarceration, Prison Strike, Prisons, Seattle

This summer we witnessed a prisoner-led struggle for justice on a scale never seen before. Catalyzed by a massacre at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina that took the lives of at least seven prisoners, prisoners in seventeen different states went on strike. Participating in work stoppages, hunger strikes, and boycotts, they made a wide range of demands including the abolition of prison slavery, more access to rehabilitation programs, and an end to racist over sentencing and gang enhancement laws. With the boldness of their tactics, they scared prison officials into offering concessions and attempting to contain the resistance through severe, ongoing repression.

Columbus, OH: Rally To End ODRC #PrisonStrike Retaliation

November 26, 2018 Pittsburgh Anarchist Black Cross, Itsgoingdown.org Resist! Ohio, Prison Strike, Prisons, Repression

On Friday November 16th, activists from across Ohio and Pennsylvania collaborated for an action outside the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) Central Office in Columbus. The rally was in response to a number of repressive and retaliatory actions against prisoners following the massive #August21 prison strike. Organizers of the action included Lucasville Amnesty, Pittsburgh Anarchist Black Cross, Central Ohio IWOC and BQIC (Black Queer & Intersectional Collective). Amplified voices recounted the demands of 2018 prison strikers, sounded off on the mistreatment of the prison strikers and all prisoners by the ODRC, and called for solidarity with queer and trans prisoners. Interested ODRC staff lined the windows to witness the spectacle.

Secret CIA Document Shows Plan To Test Drugs On Prisoners

November 17, 2018 By Dror Ladin, Aclu.org Educate! Abuse, CIA, Drugs, Prisons

Thanks to an ACLU victory in federal court, we know much more about how CIA doctors violated the medical oath to “do no harm.” One of the most important lessons of the CIA’s torture program is the way it corrupted virtually every individual and institution associated with it. Over the years, we have learned how lawyers twisted the law and psychologists betrayed their ethical obligations in order to enable the brutal and unlawful torture of prisoners. Now we’ve won the release of a 90-page account of the CIA’s Office of Medical Services role in the CIA torture program — a secret history written by the top CIA medical official, whose identity remains classified.

Thousands Of Juvenile Lifers Sentenced To Die In Prison In the US

November 17, 2018 Victoria Law, Truthout.org Educate! Juveniles, Prisons, Youth

Tuesday, October 23, might have been a routine day in prison for Avis Lee. “I got up at 5 am, took a shower, drank decaf coffee, prayed, ate breakfast and went to work at 8 am,” she recalled. Lee, who has been incarcerated for over 30 years, works as a peer assistant at the inpatient drug and alcohol therapeutic community at SCI Cambridge Springs, the Pennsylvania women’s prison. The routine was normal, but the day was not. In Philadelphia, nearly 350 miles away, the state’s superior court was hearing oral arguments about her prison sentence. “This hearing may very well determine what’s going to happen to me for the rest of my life,” Lee recalled thinking. In 1979, Lee’s older brother and his friend committed a robbery. Lee, then age 18, was the lookout.

Prisoners Refuse To Compromise On Food: Hunger Strike At Clallam Bay Corrections Center

November 8, 2018 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org Resist! Hunger Strikes, Prisons

During the National Prison Strike Jailhouse Lawyers Speak inspired incarcerated and outside activists across the country. Activists on the outside were inspired by prisoners leadership on the inside, their ability to work effectively through limited communication and the threat of retaliation. After the strike incarcerated people were inspired by the activism that happened across the country on the inside. Prisoners from each corner of the country are realizing the power that they have to influence positive changes in their environments.

Reimagining Prison Web Report

October 23, 2018 Ruth Delaney, Ram Subramanian, Alison Shames, and Nicholas Turner, Vera.org Create! Mass Incarceration, Prison Strike, Prisons

This document—unlike anything we have ever produced at the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera)—is about the possibility of radical change. It asserts a dramatic reconsideration of the most severe criminal sanction we have: incarceration. It articulates a view that is sure to be alien to many. Yet we need not accept as a given the way we do things now, and we encourage you to envision a different path. Indeed, our vision has concrete reference points. It is in the hope, daring, and promise of a small unit for young adults in a Connecticut maximum-security facility. It is inspired by what we learned studying and visiting prisons in Germany, where the very conditions and operations of that entire system are defined by a commitment to uphold human dignity—a commitment born of that country’s coming to terms with the Holocaust.

Illinois Prisons Sued For Unconstitutional Ban On LGBTQ Literature

October 19, 2018 Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, Truthout.org Resist! Ban, Censorship, Illinois, Lawsuit, LGBTQ, Prisons

The Uptown People’s Law Center and the MacArthur Justice Center filed a lawsuit on October 17 that alleges Illinois prisons are censoring correspondence and publications that have been mailed to prisoners by Black and Pink, a prisoners’ rights organization focused on supporting incarcerated LGBTQ and HIV-positive people. Jason Lydon founded Black and Pink in 2005 after his own incarceration and was the national director of the group until 2017. “Prisoners are entitled to communication with people on the outside and are entitled to knowledge and stories that validate their humanity,” Lydon told Truthout. “This lawsuit is about ensuring that.”

New Confirmed Prison Action, Reports From The National Prison Strike’s Final Days

September 12, 2018 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org Resist! Class Struggle, Prison Strike, Prisons

September 9th has passed, but it is up to the people in each prison who are participating in boycotts, hunger strikes, work strikes or sit-ins to determine the right day and time to close out their actions — from the outset, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and national organizers have endorsed local strikers to set their own end dates, or strike indefinitely. With ongoing communication repression (including heightened censorship of mail, lockdowns, and constant searches and seizures of prisoner property), there is undoubtedly a great deal of information on strike activity that has not yet traveled outside. As organizers have said from the beginning of this process, there is a wall of silence around prisons in the US, which should itself be of great concern for the human rights of those held inside.

Prisoners Strike For Civil Resurrection

September 10, 2018 Kelly Hayes, Truthout.org Resist! Class Struggle, Prison Strike, Prisons

Forty-five years ago today, imprisoned people began one of the largest prison rebellions in the history of the United States. A few days later, New York State Police and hundreds of sheriffs would end that rebellion by raiding the Attica Correctional Facility and firing more than 2,000 rounds at prisoners and hostages alike. In the massacre that ensued, the police killed 29 prisoners and 10 guards, brutally establishing to the world at large that prison officials would rather kill dozens of prisoners, as well as their own employees, than meet the demands of imprisoned people who were seeking the most basic means of survival and sanity. Attica has since become a rallying cry for prison abolitionists and imprisoned organizers fighting for the rights of the incarcerated.

Reports Back From The Second Week Of The National Prison Strike

September 8, 2018 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org Resist! Prison Strike, Prisons

New word of protest action within the prisons continues to reach us almost every day (see “Strike action roundup” below) as the National Prison Strike enters its third and final week.We expect to continue getting reports from inside in the coming months as lockdowns and communication restrictions ease. Speaking to a small group of journalists and activists at a press conference call on September 1st, “Eddie”, an inside Jailhouse Lawyers Speak representative, said: “On behalf of the inside organizers of this particular prisoner-led movement, you have to understand that a lot of prisoners don’t really want to communicate openly. A lot of prisoners are fearful — this is not a normal situation. I think a lot of people [..] don’t understand that prisons are barbaric and they are not transparent at all.”

Inside The Prison Labor Strike: New Tactics Pay Off In Mainstream Coverage

September 6, 2018 James Kilgore, Truthout.org Resist! Class Struggle, Prison Strike, Prisons, Slave labor

“Fundamentally, it’s a human rights issue. Prisoners understand they are being treated as animals. Prisons in America are a warzone. Every day prisoners are harmed due to conditions of confinement. For some of us it’s as if we are already dead, so what do we have to lose?” –Pre-strike statement from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. When the 2016 US prison strike kicked off, the media barely whispered. Despite efforts by the Free Alabama Movement, an organization centered around the men inside Holman prison, to spread the message through social media and compelling video footage taken inside prisons, mainstream journalists weren’t biting. While independent media outlets covered the strike, an action that ultimately involved thousands of people in two dozen states drew virtual silence from mainstream media.

The Slaves Rebel

September 4, 2018 By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Resist! History, Prisons, Racism, Slave labor

The only way to end slavery is to stop being a slave. Hundreds of men and women in prisons in some 17 states are refusing to carry out prison labor, conducting hunger strikes or boycotting for-profit commissaries in an effort to abolish the last redoubt of legalized slavery in America. The strikers are demanding to be paid the minimum wage, the right to vote, decent living conditions, educational and vocational training and an end to the death penalty and life imprisonment. These men and women know that the courts will not help them. They know the politicians, bought by the corporations that make billions in profits from the prison system, will not help them. And they know that the mainstream press, unwilling to offend major advertisers, will ignore them.

Prisoner Strike Exposes An Age Old American Reliance On Forced Labor

September 4, 2018 By Calvin Schermerhorn, Theconversation.com Resist! Exploitation, Labor, Prison Labor, Prison Strike, Prisons

Prisoners in 17 states and several Canadian provinces are on strike in protest of prison labor conditions. Their demonstrations are compelling Americans to understand that some everyday foods are produced behind bars, for cents on the hour, in a system many call “modern slavery.” Prisoners in the U.S. harvest and process eggs, orange juice, ground beef and fish. They also staff call centers, fight wildfires and make sugar. For this work, they receive, on average, 86 cents a day, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group. Some formerly incarcerated people disagree with the comparison of prison work to slavery, saying that prison jobs teach real skills that may reduce recidivism. But the prisoners’ strike, underway since Aug. 21, shines a light on a troubling American habit of consuming, often thoughtlessly, the products of forced labor.

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