For A Free Society, Prisons Must Be Destroyed.

 

        Prisons are one of the state's repressive tools, they are brutal places, where ever aspect of your life is at the whim of the repressive administration. Apart from over crowded and insanitary conditions, there is the abuse by the corporate bodies that use prisoners as very profitable slave labour, in this particular field I believe American leads the field. Now it seems they are going one step further in this abuse and exploitation with a rolling out of a new scheme which bans those incarcerated from receiving fresh fruit and veg from their families and friends. Packages for prisoners can now only be made through named vendors. This is just another cruel and vindictive aspect of this savage inhumane state repressive machine. Denying prisoners of healthy food and squeezing more money from families and friends while at the same time, increasing the profit of selected corporate bodies. True capitalism, profit before humanity.

          This from It's Going Down

      The thugs who run the NYS prison system (NYS DOCCS) has issued a new directive (4911A) that describes new, draconian package rules that they are testing in 3 prisons as a ‘pilot program’. This directive comes in the wake of petty rule crackdowns after the escape of two prisoners from Clinton prison in 2015. Reports have trickled in about long term prisoners losing their trailer visits, hoodies being eliminated and even more bitterness on the part of the guards. This past fall, political prisoner Herman Bell was beat down by 3 or more guards, others like Ramsey Orta had to deal with transfer way upstate and have been assaulted by staff. Basically, staff thinks they can do what they want.
     Currently, at most facilities, family and friends can drop off packages at the front desk when visiting, packages that include fresh fruit and vegetables that supplement the high carb/sugar, meager diet provided by DOCCS. Although you have to deal with the guards and their bullshit attitude about what can and cannot come into the prison, at the end, you know your friend or family member will be getting to eat some fresh fruit, vegetables and treats they cannot possibly get from DOCCS.
      These new rules are horrible in so many ways including:
1. Packages can be ordered only from approved vendors (so basically, some corporations will win out and have a guaranteed market to sell overpriced processed food).
2. Fresh fruit and vegetables are not allowed.
3. Family and friends cannot drop off packages while visiting. All packages must be shipped through the vendor.
4. Each person is limited to ordering three packages a month for him or herself and receiving three packages a month from others. Each package cannot be more than 30 pounds. Of the 30 pounds per package, only 8 pounds can be food.
5. Allowable items will be the same in all facilities. (No more local permits.)
6. There are far fewer items allowed than before and of the items that are allowed, far less variety. This includes additional restrictions on clothing.
7. The pilot rules are not clear about how books, media, religious items and literature, or other items subject to First Amendment protection will be treated. This could mean that prison book programs like Books through Bars will not be able to send free books to the 52,000 people in the prison system.
       The pilot program implements an “approved venders only” package system. This means that only packages from approved vendors will be accepted. The vendors appear to be companies that specialize in shipping into prisons and jails. There are currently five approved vendors identified on the DOCCS website. This amounts to a cash grab for these companies.
        The pilot program is starting at three facilities: Taconic, Greene, and Green Haven. Those facilities will stop accepting packages from non-approved vendors on January 2, 2018.

          A call to organise against this callous, vicious and vindictive piece of repression and money grabbing action:

       We have to make this package directive unworkable. These new rules are cruel; eliminating fresh fruit and vegetables and creating massive profits for the vampire companies that will fill the niche.

WE CAN ORGANIZE TO ROLL THESE RULES BACK.

Some ideas how:

1.) Sign the petition- share it with your address book, share it on twitter, share it on facebook. It takes two seconds. https://diy.rootsaction.org/…/no-package-restrictions-for-n…

2.) Get in touch with your people in NYS Prisons and let them know about this. Inform them, send them the info. Massive non-cooperation on the part of NYS prisoners will have to play a huge role in this. People inside know how to make things unworkable.

3.) Flood the politicians with postcards and letters. Send one to Governor Cuomo and one to Anthony Annucci, the acting commissioner of DOCCS.

Andrew M. Cuomo Governor of New York State NYS State Capitol Building Albany, NY 12224

Acting Commissioner Anthony Annucci NYS DOCCS Building 2, State Campus Albany, NY 12226

Some sample text:

Dear Governor Cuomo,
This holiday season is about giving, not taking away. I object to the new DOCCS package rules.
From,
(Your Name)
(Your relationship to people in prison, if applicable)

Dear Acting Commissioner Annucci,
The new DOCCS package pilot punishes innocent families. Having a loved one in prison is already expensive and difficult—the new rules make it worse. Rescind the package pilot!
From,
(Your Name)
(Your relationship to people in prison, if applicable)

4.) Call Cuomo’s office and leave a message about it. You won’t have to talk to anyone. Just leave your message. 518-474-8390

5.) Email
Cuomo: http://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form
Annuci anthony.annucci@doccs.ny.gov

6.) Tweet at Cuomo: @NYGovCuomo

7) Get friendly media to cover this issue, to talk to family members of people inside and spread the word.

       Though I agree that prison reform is a dead end, and the prison system must be demolished, we must always show our solidarity with those trapped in this brutal state system of repression.

Solidarity Is A Weapon.

          A call for solidarity from that "Land of the Free" the good ol' US of A. A country that locks up more of its citizens than any other country on the planet. In this case protesters at the inauguration of the dysfunctional, homophobic, twitter syndrome Trump are facing 75 years in prison, after a mass arrest at that protest. Solidarity knows no borders and is one of our powerful weapons, let's use it now and often.

This from Crimethinc:

       We are calling for a Week of Solidarity with the J20 defendants from July 20 to 27, 2017. July 20 marks six months from the initial actions and arrests during Donald Trump’s inauguration, and on July 27, a motion to dismiss the charges will be argued in court. The case has finally begun to receive the media attention it warrants; with this court date approaching and the cases underway, this is a crucial time for a second Week of Solidarity. Send reportbacks, photographs, and inquiries to J20solidarity@protonmail.com.
       On January 20, 2017, thousands of people came to Washington, DC to protest the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. In the early morning, blockades shut down security checkpoints and discouraged people from attending the inauguration itself, while impromptu marches and direct actions occurred throughout the day. There was a spirit of defiance in the air.
       Iconic images circulated almost immediately, from the punching of white supremacist Richard Spencer to pictures of a limousine on fire. These were only the most spectacular images, however, of a day that was characterized by generalized disruption.
       Midmorning, an “anticapitalist and antifascist” march of several hundred people made clear its opposition not just to Trump but also the system that made Trump possible. Led by banners reading “MAKE RACISTS AFRAID AGAIN” and “TOTAL LIBERATION FROM DOMINATION,” the disruptive march took the streets of DC to the sound of fireworks and anticapitalist chants. After about half an hour, the march was brutally attacked by police, who used chemical and crowd control weapons along with physical force, then boxed in (“kettled”) and mass-arrested people. Everyone on an entire city block was arrested and given the same charge of felony rioting. Approximately 214 arrestees now face a total of eight felony charges, including conspiracy and destruction of property. All of the J20 defendants are now facing up to 75 years in prison.
       A great deal has happened in the six months since the inauguration. Confrontational protests have taken place across the continent, challenging the political landscape shaped by Trump’s election. Participants have stood up to emboldened white supremacists, disrupted airports in the face of anti-Muslim bans, blockaded proposed pipeline routes, set up sanctuary spaces and rapid response networks against ICE deportations, and much more. In turn, states are passing legislation aimed at further criminalizing protest and limiting resistance.

Read the full article for contact details and further info HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Solidarity In Struggle Is A Winning Weapon.

 

       We should never forget those in struggle, more so those confined to the state's prisons, repression cages, or in America, Incarcerated Labour Corporation, facilities, solidarity is the winning weapon. Since September 9th. the prisoners in America have been on strike, making a stand against the blatant corruption, corporate greed, slave labour and brutality that permeates the entire prison system. They need all the support that we can muster, these are workers without conditions, locked away from the prying eyes of the public and used and savagely exploited by the state and greedy corporations. The vicious treatment that is handed out to them is all cloaked in secrecy, behind high walls and armed guards, so therefore can be more savage than might happen out on the public streets. We need to allow those inside to know, that they have the support of those on the outside, we need the facts to come out, we need to keep the pressure on the authorities.

       Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as ‘Angola Prison’, to this day compels prisoners to plant and pick cotton by hand, for as little as 4 cents an hour. Eighty percent of its prisoners are African-American.
       Long rows of men, mostly African-American, till the fields under the hot Louisiana sun while armed guards, mostly white, ride up and down the rows on horseback, keeping watch. It is the largest maximum security prison in America, bigger than Manhattan, sprawling over 18,000 acres of farmland dotted with barbed-wire enclosures, gun towers and concrete dormitories.
A History of Slavery
      The land on which the prison sits is a composite of several slave plantations -it is called Angola, after the homeland of the slaves who first worked its soil - bought up in the decades following the Civil War. From when it was converted from plantations, prisoners have worked the land in much the same way as slaves did, under conditions so brutal, prisoners resorting to cutting their own Achilles’s tendons in protest in the 50′s.
      After the plantation was converted to a prison, former plantation overseers and their descendants kept their general roles, becoming prison officials and guards. This white overseer community, is located on the farm’s grounds, both close to the prisoners and completely separate from them. In addition to their prison labour, Angola’s inmates do free work for these residents, from cutting their grass to trimming their hair to cleaning up Prison View Golf Course, the only course in the country where players can watch prisoners labouring as they golf.    Continue reading:

This appeal from IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee:
URGENT!! Help Needed NOW to Stop Retaliation Against Prisoners. 

       Current stats based on the strike tracking that we have done so far:
-Number of prisoners on lockdown at least 1 day since 9/8: 23,849 minimum
-Number of prisoners on lockdown in facilities where we know organizing was happening or where strikes are confirmed: 15,310
-Number of prisoners on lockdown in facilities where we’re not sure about organizing: 8,484
        There are two things we really need help with. The first one is really easy. The second one is a bit more complex. Both involve calling prisons. Here is a great "how to" video for calling prisons if you are feeling nervous https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=251DPVDQ17A
       1. Very Easy Task: As we hear of individual prisoners or facilities that are being specifically targeted, we will add them to this phone zap list https://goo.gl/forms/ s4gBzsgvz6W9LQoN2 Please call all the numbers on this list as many times as you can and ask all your friends to do the same. Print the list and take it with you everywhere and call every time you can spare a minute. You can call day or night, weekdays or weekends, talk to a person or leave a voicemail, just call now and keep calling. The prisoners are on the front line and it is critical that we do everything we can to keep the administrators from torturing and killing them.
        2. Moderately Easy Task: The second thing you can do to help is call all the prisons in your state and ask if they are on lockdown:

Notes about the State by State Tracking:
- They aren't likely to divulge answers to all these questions, but you can try, anyway.
- If they ask, you can either say you're a concerned citizen, or that you want to schedule a visit, or that you're a student doing research. These things might not help.
- You can either give your name, or make up a name. It is probably not a good idea to give first and last name, or any other personal info of yourself or anyone else, especially not of prisoners.
       1. Look up the facilities' info. Make sure we know what state you're working on, so two people don't end up doing the same state at the same time. Every DOC has a different website, but most list basic info about the prisons.
- take note of whether or not they list current population on the website, if they do, you won't need to ask those questions.
- check and see if they have press releases or recent news or anything like that. Some DOCs will publicly announce lockdowns on their websites.
        2. call the prison, here's a script:
"Hello, are you on lockdown right now?"
If "yes" - "why?"
- "how many people are locked down"
- "how long have they been?"
- "what is your current population, are they all locked down?"
If "no" - "have you been on lock down at all in the last week?"
- "have there been any disturbances or trouble makers sent to the hole in the last month?"
        3. Write down any info you get on places that are / were locked down. Try and research info that wasn't available on the site (Wikipedia has entries for most prisons, which includes their capacities) a google search might bring up reports with more accurate info about current population levels, etc.
- Email anything you find to iwoc@riseup.net
Here's where it's getting posted:

https://docs.google.com/docume nt/d/1kyq-sEN5RRjWd9xDYp8Tq0U2 zwquqTYHkGptnL-ZNbw

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

There Is No Freedom While A Prison Stands.

 

      The latest from Stimulator TV has information on the Dakota pipeline resistance which has been gaining momentum and force, and the American prison slave labour system. You get the names of some of those large corporations that see the prison system as another branch of their business, probably the most lucrative section, as it is devoid of any workers representation, pays less than third world wages and no workers days off, no holidays, no insurance, no need for health and safety regulations, and punishment if you are seen to be slacking off.

      There is information on how to support the people on the inside, who are at present involved in what is probably, the biggest prisoners strike in American history. They need and deserve the support of all of us if we are to bring an end to this inhumane system of slave labour incarceration.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Freedom Will Blossom In The Ashes Of The Prisons.

       Tomorrow, September 9th. is the start of the American prison strike, those inside and out side prisons across the world should show solidarity with this brave attempt at highlighting the brutal exploitation taking place in prisons across the globe. In America, prisons are more than an attempt to crush resistance, prisons are massive slave labour camps run by powerful corporations, recruiting, solely for profit, from the poorest and most vulnerable sections of society.  

 

        Another example of the state's vindictiveness, this time from Greece. You are in prison, you try to escape and fail, what do you think would be the response of a supposed civilised European state? Perhaps a spell of solitary confinement, higher security? Well the Greek judicial system thinks 110 years extra each, is merited. Is there any way this can be labelled as "justice". Just another example of how the state uses prisons in its attempt to crush any resistance to its monopoly on power. At least one person showed their contempt for this savage attempt by the state at crushing dissent.

This from Contra Info: 

       On the 30th of August Alfredo damaged the glass partition windows of the interview room in the high surveillance section of Ferrara prison in solidarity with the prisoners of the CCF who were recently sentenced to more than a hundred years in prison for an attempted escape.

       Today August 30 almost 4 years since my arrest I wanted to celebrate the anniversary with the destruction of the interview room window panels. This action is my contribution of revolutionary solidarity with my brothers and sister of the CCF-FAI-FRI who were condemned by yet another judicial process and sentenced to 110 years each for a failed escape attempt. The anarchist prisoner is not a flag, nor must we build a monument around them, sometimes they are a piece of our heart, sometimes not… nevertheless they continue to struggle, to live… not to be remembered, but wanting revenge, freedom, but ultimately they may also be alone because by nature they do not belong to any flock…

Long live FAI-FRI

Long live CCF

via Croce Nera Anarchica, translated by Insurrection News

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Support Prisoners Strike, September 9th.

        What are prisons for? Well in the developed world they are for profit for tycoons at the expense of the tax payer. Prisoners are put to work on products for large corporations, at a beggarly rate, with no protection from exploitation, no union, no holidays, no sick pay, never late, can’t slack-off or they are punished in one way or another. However in the land of the free, the good ol’ US of A, they have taken the slave labour tactics in prisons to a new level. The prison system in America is so profitable to the corporate world that they invest billions of dollars in building ever more and larger caged hell-holes.

 When did slavery end?

       Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.

           Some facts about the American prison system and the extent of the racial exploitation that is rife across America.

The U.S. imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid.

1. The United States has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners.

2. The total incarcerated population in the U.S. is a staggering 2.4 million — a 500% increase over the past 30 years. 

3. One in every 108 adults was in prison or jail in 2012.

4. One in 28 American children has a parent behind bars.  

5. At the end of 2007, 1 in 31 adults was behind bars, on probation or on parole.

6. Currently, 65 million Americans have a criminal record.

7. There are more people behind bars today for a drug offense than there were in 1980 for all offenses combined.

8. The U.S. spent $80 billion on incarceration in 2010 alone. 

9. About as many people were returned to prison just for parole violations in 2000 as were admitted in 1980 for all reasons combined.

10. Parole violators accounted for more than 35% of all prison admissions in 2000. Of those, only one-third were returned for a new conviction; the rest were returned for a technical violation, such as missing a meeting with the parole officer.

11. A first-time drug offense carries a sentence of 5-10 years. In other developed countries, that sentence would be six months of jail time, if any at all. 

12. The vast majority of those arrested with a drug offense are not charged with serious offenses. For example, in 2005, 4 out of 5 drug arrests were for possession, not sales.  

13. In the 1990s, marijuana possession accounted for nearly 80% of the spike in arrests.

14. Three out of four young black men in Washington, D.C., can expect to serve time behind bars. This is despite the fact that people of all races use and sell drugs at the same rate.

15. African-Americans comprised 12% of regular drug users, but almost 40% of those arrested for drug offenses.

16. More than 96% of convictions in the federal system result from guilty pleas rather than decisions by juries.

17. Conservative estimates put innocent people who plead guilty between 2% and 5%, which translates to tens of thousands of innocent people behind bars today.

18. Eighty percent of defendants cannot afford a lawyer. Tens of thousands of people go to jail every year without ever talking to a lawyer or going to trial. 

19. A public defender will routinely have a caseload of more than 100 clients at a time.

        Marking the prison occupation of Attica Prison in New York, on September 9th. 1971, September 9th. this year is the date marked out for a nation wide prison strike across America, prison populations in other countries are also supporting this brave move by those in cages. They are asking for support from the general public, in the form of protests outside prisons and posters.

       Here is a poster (11×17) for the upcoming nationwide prisoner strike on September 9th. Download, print and put it up around your city if you feel it. There is a grayscale version here too.
For more information about the strike and the ongoing wave of prison rebellions across the country, check out these articles: Strike Against White Supremacy | Incarcerated Workers Take the Lead | Call To End Prison Slavery

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

American Slave Labour Camps.

       The American prison system is nothing less than slave labour camps, where billions of dollars of merchandise is produced for the American military and large corporations, and the prisoners get no choice in the matter.
          Regarding the action against the American prison system, June 13th. from Free Marius Mason site. 

         Greetings to all the good folks who are coming together on this day to fight together against an important Environmental Justice issue. It inspires me to see that friends in the environmental movement and friends in the prison abolition movement are seeing some essential common ground, to join forces and visions in their work.
       Many, many years ago in Detroit, I and a small group of neighbors got together to oppose a trash incinerator that was being built in the city, in our neighborhood. At one of the many public hearings, I accosted an EPA official who had signed off on a report that said that the fatalities due to the operation of this monstrosity would be about 40 people. His answer to me, was that was only if people were exposed to the toxins coming from the stack every day, all day. His assertion was that most people would go away from the area, either by moving or for vacation or for work…..but this was a false assumption. The poor people of my neighborhood were stuck there, many were house-bound elders or small children, and most of us who were able to work did so minutes away from the faculty. We were in essence a sacrifice community, deemed expendable because of our poverty or our race. We eventually lost our fight, for the most part. But were able to get them to put the state of the art capture technology on the Incinerator that would NOT have been put in place had it not been for our intense struggle. Direct action really does get the goods, but you have to be in it for the long haul.
        No one is more locked into one spot for the long haul than are the prisoners incarcerated in the United States; so many for decades on end. Many are prohibited from transfer and would certainly be exposed relentlessly to any toxic source that was on the premises. And as recent litigation has proved..hardly anyone is less likely to be served as to their medical needs. So the curse of a toxic facility on a prison population is doubled by the lack of access to any monitoring or treatment. Given that the prison population is overwhelmingly people of color, trans and queer folks and poor people – the result is a great human rights tragedy as well as the thoughtless destruction of an environment that is literally coming apart, unable to withstand the damage that our society is inflicting on it.
     As an environmental and animal rights activist, as a trans prisoner of conscience, as someone whose choice and whose voice are so often taken away by the system – I am infinitely grateful to all of you who are here today to insist that we want a world that cares and respects all beings and this Earth. Thank you for speaking for so many who cannot. I wish you strength and success in your campaign.

We are all in it for the long haul, love and solidarity,

Marius Mason

Write to Marius.

        We encourage everyone to write to Marius in prison:


Marie (Marius) Mason #04672-061
FMC Carswell
Federal Medical Center
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

US Prison System And Environmental Damage.

          An interesting article by a comrade in America who visited us in Glasgow a few years back, and we organised an event where he and his partner held a chat, questions and answers evening. He and his partner are long-term "eco-warriors, and the chat was about the attack on the environment and their tactics to fight this toxic looting and plundering of our planet. Still fighting, he draws connections between the American prison system, apart from the damage to the humans incarcerated in these monstrosities, and the damage they do to the environment. 

This by Panagioti Tsolkas, in "The Campaign To Fight Toxic Prisons".

       The United States Bureau of Prisons is trying to build a new, massive maximum-security prison in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky — and there’s a growing movement to stop it.
        The prison industry in the US has grown in leaps and bounds in the past 20 years— a new prison was built at an average rate of one every two weeks in the ’90s, almost entirely in rural communities. As of 2002, there were already more prisoners in this country than farmers. The industry seems like an unstoppable machine, plowing forward at breakneck speed on the path that made the world’s largest prison population.
       Today, about 716 of every 100,000 Americans are in prison. Prisoners in nations across the world average at 155 per 100,000 people. And in the US, Southern states rule the chart. Viewing these states as countries themselves, Kentucky ranks at lucky number seven.
        “Sounds terrible…” you may be thinking, “But what does it have to do with the environment?”
          Well, this seemingly impenetrable multi-billion dollar bi-partisan government-driven industry does have a weak point: it’s a well-verified ecological mess. For a 10-year period of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Prison Initiative, prison after prison that the EPA’s inspected in the Mid-Atlantic region was plagued with violations. Violations included air and water pollution, inadequate hazardous waste management and failing spill control prevention for toxic materials.
          Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that the Bureau of Prisons’ latest plan for a new maximum-security federal prison is on a former mountaintop removal coal mine site, which is still being drilled for gas, and which is located amid a habitat for dozens of endangered species. Where else but Appalachia?
         The proposed half a billion dollar facility is to be located in Kentucky’s Letcher County. If built, this would be the fourth new federal prison in eastern Kentucky, and the sixth federal prison built in Central Appalachia, since 1992, making the region one of the most concentrated areas of prison growth in the country.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

LOCK THEM UP - MAKE A PROFIT??

         I am always appalled at the fact that locking people up can be a lucrative business. Our corporate world knows no limits, if it can make a buck, then it will, no matter the method. The corporate prison business in America, as else where no doubt, is pouring large sums of money into lobbying to have new laws passed that will hand out bigger sentences and leave fewer opportunities for parole. That is one business plan to increase you business, of course the fact that it is human misery that you're creating as a by product, doesn't in the least matter. Immigrants are seen as another possible growth area.

       A Corrections Corporation of America report from 2010 actually stated that;

“The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by---leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices---”

Read the full report here.

ann arky's home.