Let The Prisoners Speak.

 

          Anyone with half a brain cell knows that the prison system is a state tool of repression and control, and has nothing to do with "rehabilitation". Prisons are also a place where people with learning difficulties, mental health problems and addiction problems and various other problems, are stored out of public view. They are places of violence and brutality where the human spirit can be ground down, where people are caged, and in most cases, in grossly overcrowded conditions. 

    The only humane approach to prisons is to demolish them completely, removing this scar from the face of our society. 

   There is a call out for all prisoners and ex-prisoners to let the world hear their stories, their experiences, their points of view. Bring the prison experience to the public at large, open their eyes and awaken their sense of humanity to the brutal savagery of the state prison system.

A call for contributions for a new publication.

       The Empty Cages Collective and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England is calling out to prisoners and ex-prisoners worldwide to contribute their writing to a new publication: Prisoner Writings on Prison Abolition.

         This publication will share prisoner voices in the prison abolition conversation. It will centre the experiences of people in prison and their ideas on questioning, resisting and dismantling the prison industrial complex – as well as building a world without prisons.

It will be published during the International Week of Solidarity of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners at the end of August 2018.

           Material received before the 1st June will be published in an interim publication distributed at the International Conference on Prison Abolition (ICOPA) that is taking place in London, England from 15-18th June 2018. It will also be distributed online, be posted to prisoners and shared with radical distributors across the planet.

Prisoners are invited to send letters, articles and artwork to:

Empty Cages Collective, c/o BASE Social Centre, 14 Robertson Road, Bristol BS5 6JY, UK

Or supporters can email typed-up contributions to: info@prisonabolition.org

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

 

We Need To Empty The Cages.

      Most people are aware of the horrendous conditions in prisons in other countries around the world, as our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will always highlight the horrors in foreign countries’ prison systems, creating the impression that we here in the UK are much, much more civilised, and we do things in a more humane way.
       Of course that is bullshit, yes there are prisons around the world that are far more brutal and have more disgusting conditions, but here in the UK our prisons are at bursting point. That in turn causes a rapid deterioration in already difficult conditions. Violence in prisons is rising, but then what do you expect if you throw people with substance addictions, mental health problems, learning difficulties, and a host of other problems, into under staffed over crowded and often brutal conditions.
        Prisons are not an answer to any of society’s problems, they are garbage cans where the nuisance, inconvenient, people are dumped by the state, a place to intimidate those who would dare to oppose and challenge the injustices of the present exploitative capitalist system we live under. Prisons and a civilised society are on opposite sides of a wide chasm. 

This from Anarchist News:

       The Empty Cages Collective are excited to announce a Tour of Northern England this September.
       Where: Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Durham, Manchester and Lancaster. Full details of locations and times to be announced. Please note if you live in a northern city or town and have capacity to organise a date – please get in touch.

When: 25th – 30th September 2016

        British prisons are currently recognised as undergoing one of the most serious deteriorations of conditions in living memory, recently exposed as being the most violent ever recorded.
       In November 2015 the British government announced plans to build 9 new mega-prisons across England and Wales. These massive, minimally staffed facilities, far from resolving any of the prison estate’s serious underlying structural issues, are only going to subject greater numbers of people to their abusive conditions.
       This September, the Empty Cages Collective and Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee are going to be speaking throughout the North on the impacts of these developments, and the emerging network to resist them.

For more info: info@prisonabolition.org 

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