Prison-Industrial-Complex

Sentenced to eight years in prison for acts of sabotage, water protector Jessica Reznicek reflects on her faith-driven resistance. By Cristina Yurena Zerr This article was first published in the German newspaper taz, and has been translated and edited for Waging Nonviolence. On June 28, the federal court in Des Moines, Iowa was silent and filled to capacity. Fifty people were there to witness the sentencing of 40-year old Jessica Reznicek, charged with “conspiracy to damage an energy production facility” and “malicious use of fire.” The prosecution, asking for an extended sentence, argued that Reznicek’s acts could be classified as domestic terrorism. ...

Ahjamu Umi is a revolutionary organizer/activist, adviser, and liberation literature author. He is vastly concerned about the current state and future of this planet. Ahjamu has worked with the All African People’s Revolutionary Party for decades. His latest book, a manual of revolutionary community defense, is titled “A Guide for Defense Against White Supremacist and Fascist Violence.” This episode features the track “Therapy” by Alas. ...

This piece was anonymously authored by a former cop from California and originally published on June 6th, 2020 in response to recent police violence. Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop By Anonymous / Medium I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were. This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. ...

Afeni Shakur is best known as the mother of the hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. What is less well known is that she was a member of the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party, a dedicated revolutionary who served time in jail for her political activities. Freedom Archives says her work “shaped the political discourse of Black Liberation movements in the 70s.” Visit their article on Afeni to hear excepts of her speaking. In 1968, 21 members of the Harlem Chapter of the panthers were arrested on alleged bomb conspiracy charges, with bail set at $100,000. The following is part of a letter that Shakur wrote from prison in January 1970, decrying the colonial jail system and the entire U.S. state apparatus that has oppressed people of color since colonization arrived on this continent, and brought the first enslaved Africans shortly thereafter. Featured image: Afeni Shakur speaks at a Black Panther Party Rally. Image via Freedom Archives. ...

Political prisoners, some serving maximum sentences of 25 years to life, are especially vulnerable during the dark days of winter. Many have been incarcerated so long that family and friends have forgotten them. Others have family that cannot afford to accept phone calls or visit. Prisoners are frequently serving sentences far from their homes and phone calls are big business in prisons, charging exorbitantly for calls. The holiday season is even more difficult for these men and women. ...

Edited transcription of an interview by John Carico for The Fifth Column How do you feel about Dr. Jill Stein and the Green Party of America? I’m not a huge fan of the Green Party. I did a talk ten years ago at the Bioneers conference, which is about social change and environmentalism. One year their tagline was “the shift is hitting the fan,” about paradigm shifting. The thing that broke my heart was, so far as I know, I was the only person there who talked about power and psychopathology. I don’t think you can talk about social change without talking about power, and I don’t think you can talk about the destruction of the planet without talking about psychopathology. The Green Party has a lot of really good ideas, but how do you actually put them in place, given that those in power are sociopaths and the entire system rewards sociopathic behavior? ...

By Steven Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman / TomsDispatch Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world. Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work. The privatization of prisons in recent years has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain. Prisoners, whose ranks increasingly consist of those for whom the legitimate economy has found no use, now make up a virtual brigade within the reserve army of the unemployedwhose ranks have ballooned along with the U.S. incarceration rate. The Corrections Corporation of America and G4S (formerly Wackenhut), two prison privatizers, sell inmate labor at subminimum wages to Fortune 500 corporations like Chevron, Bank of America, AT&T, and IBM. ...

By Chris Kirkham / Huffington Post As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact. Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for “challenging corrections budgets.” In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Huffington Post. ...