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Stop the Torture! Free Mississippi Prisoners!

By LaVonna Varnado Brown

The conditions faced by inmates in facilities like Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm (a maximum-security prison farm located in Sunflower County), are horrific. These conditions include torture and the deliberate setting up of rivalries by sadistic guards. These are methods approved by Mississippi prison authorities to repress and divide inmates.

Despite the horrific conditions at Parchman (which used to be a plantation and is still run like one) many prisoners have united to organize inside, and their families and supporters have held many demonstrations asking for people to support their demands for release or for more livable conditions.
Among the independently documented conditions were 100 violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act in January alone. There were three dead inmates in three days. Family members report that there is absolutely no care being shown in operations (which is echoed by recent reports out of Louisiana prisons). Prison gangs are in control of other inmate’s food and sleeping rations.

Inmates are being celled with publicly known rivals, and people are being murdered. Seven homicides and five suicides have been reported at other facilities. An inmate named Bobby Lewis Vance died on February 15, making him at least the 17th inmate in the state’s troubled prison system to have died in less than two months.

Gov. Phil Bryant says the state has the issue “under control as best we can.” Mississippi’s prisons are run by abusive guards who facilitate corruption, and drug and drug paraphernalia sales inside the prisons. Parchman reports a 50% vacancy rate for job positions. All the guards need to be fired for their racism, sexism and for torture. Most prisoners could be released and for those who cannot, new personnel should be hired and vetted for their humanity and attitudes.

America is the world’s most incarcerated country. In southern states like Mississippi and Louisiana, incarcerated people outnumber the total sum of inmates in many countries. The labor of southern workers is being exploited in the same way that the inmates’ labor is. We are fattening the pockets of those that imprison and oppress us. We demand the abolition of mass incarceration, while we work to improve current conditions for inmates. It is time to unite and fight for the rights of all people.

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The Prison Strike Is Over But The Fight Is Not

Banner reads End Prison Slavery, Support Prison Strike, Aug 21 – Sept 9

By C.T.

Prisons are one of the biggest systems in the US that cash out on hurting Black, Brown and poor white people in the US. People in prison are also forced to work for pennies a day while making corporations rich. This system of slavery is legal in the US because of the 13th amendment. The 13th amendment was written after the Civil War to lock up Black people making prisons the new plantations and prisoners the new enslaved.

From August 21 to September 9, prisoners across the US organized work and commissary boycotts, hunger strikes and other protests to demand better living conditions and the right of every prisoner to apply for parole as well as other improvements. This was a truly amazing protest because prisoners cannot just call each other on the phone, send a text, email or Facebook message whenever they want. Additionally, reporters do not want to write stories that are hard to verify. This means that many major newspapers were not interested in covering the strike because it is simply too hard to reach prisoners, especially when they are being punished inside the prison for being a part of the strike. Some newspapers even made up lies about the strike to make it seem less powerful than it was.

From what we know, prisoners were able to strike across over a dozen states; many were put in solitary confinement and even transferred to other prisons as punishment for fighting against injustice.

Yet the strike went on and people all over the US have been trying to support the strike by calling prisons, writing letters, protesting outside of prisons and showing support and bringing attention to the strike anyway they can. In New Orleans, the People’s Assembly and Workers Group held a solidarity protest in front of the Orleans Parish Prison on Aug 21st. During the last week of the strike, a banner was put up on I-10 facing the prison that demanded ‘the end of prison slavery.’ Celebrities like J. Cole used their platform to shine a light on the strike and murals supporting the strike can be found across the US.

Although the strike is over, there are still so many ways to support our brothers and sisters in prison that are fighting for a better life.

To learn more you can find information on: https://incarceratedworkers.org https://www.facebook.com/BlkJailhouselawyer/

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Tell Mayor Cantrell: Don’t Use Slave Prison Labor to Clean Storm Drains!

Hire more workers, raise the wages

In a recent address to the corporate think tank Bureau of Governmental Research, Mayor Cantrell proposed using prisoners from the Parish jail to clean storm drains. All workers should be angry and opposed to using enslaved labor. The priority of the city should be to increase the size of the work force for the Department of Public Works, raise their wages and institute better safety measures. These are demands that overburdened and underpaid workers have been demanding.

Instead of proposing wage increases for city workers, Mayor Cantrell wants free labor. Why not hire prisoner workers for a regular wage and a guaranteed job. This will help them and their families get a new start in life.

Free labor, or subminimum labor of any kind, brings down the wages of all workers and puts more pressure for lower wages for city workers.

With the billions pouring into the city from the labor of the workers from the tourist economy alone there should be enough to create a real jobs program at $15 an hour with benefits for the many men, women, and youth who need these jobs.

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Solidarity with National Prison Strike

Peoples Assembly, New Orleans Workers Group Rally at OPP

By AP

On August 21 the Peoples’ Assembly and the New Orleans Workers Group called together a protest and march in solidarity with the nation-wide prison strike just a few weeks before the 41st anniversary of historic prison uprising at Attica. People gathered outside the Orleans parish criminal court to call for action against a system that only seeks to incarcerate workers in order to put them under an even more unfair system of modern day slavery: prisons. Around the corner from the courthouse is the Orleans Parish Prison where more than 1500 working class people in New Orleans are locked up.

The aim of the protest was to bring solidarity with prisoners to the public eye. Many held signs up to the streets while other passed out flyers and newspapers, ensuring that everyone who drove past or stepped out of the courthouse could see that the prisoners and their pain would never be forgotten no matter how hard the ruling class tries to drown out their cries.

As a whole procession, protestors moved down the street towards the sheriffs office and OPP, calling for the police to be jailed and the people freed. Using megaphones, calls for action were made alongside the prison so that those inside could hear the voices of support outside. Police who had followed sat and watched as demands were made on behalf of the prisoners, dealing with things like quality of food and healthcare to the treatment of prisoners by guards. It was made clear that the things that were asked for were bare essentials that every human deserves but that the prison system makes inaccessible.

The system of policing and imprisonment in New Orleans and all around the United States is not only cruel and inhumane to the humans that are shoveled into jail cells, but it is also a gross misuse of public money. While people starve and fight over the tiny crumbs they are allotted, the government uses public money to increase policing and keep the industry of prison labor going to keep their deep pockets filled. We must demand that our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters are spared from this sinister scheme! This system only benefits the wealthy and only looks to keep poor and black people down by profiting from their blood sweat and tears!

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Peoples Assembly Women’s Dinner: Black August, Solidarity With Prisoners

By Shera Phillips

I am increasingly more and more excited for each Women Dinner’s Wednesday. This past one set fire down in my soul. August is famous for solidarity with the incarcerated in the form of black august. There have been prison strikes all over the country in which the incarcerated demand to be regarded as human beings.

I learned a great deal and we had a host of dynamic speakers educate us on various topics from mass incarceration and its connection to slavery and racism, the enormous capitalistic gains of private corporations and individuals made by the prison complex, what a world could look like without prisons and a powerful testimony of how the prison industry has affected the institution of family made by Fox Rich, as well as spoken word.

The power in the room moved many to tears. We sang, we shouted and we cried. We found community, empowerment and ways to engage in this much needed work for liberation of all.

Join us in our next Women’s Dinner Wednesday where will be hosting a community sing. Singing negro spirituals fuels us, encourages us, purges us, and rejuvenates us. We are reminded of the state of being and passion of our ancestors as they endured and fought for non-negotiable progress.

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For-Profit Immigrant Prisons Add to Mass Incarceration, Thousands of Children Jailed

by Joseph Rosen

U.S. immigrant detention prisons hold captive more than 40,000 men, women, and children daily.

Though most have never been charged with a crime, detainees are bound by shackles or handcuffs and forced to endure inhumane conditions including cavity searches, solitary confinement, physical and sexual abuse. By law, undocumented immigrants are denied a public legal defender. On average, a person will spend nearly a month in detention. Many individuals, torn from their family and friends, spend months and years awaiting freedom.

More than 37,000 immigrants are detained each year at sites across Louisiana. As is the case nationally, for-profit prisons handle the vast majority of this awful “business.” The GEO Group, the world’s largest for-profit prison company, runs major detention centers in Jena, Pine Prairie, Basile, and Alexandria, LA. The deplorable conditions at prisons run by the GEO Group have been met with prisoner uprisings and hunger strikes across the world, from Louisiana to South Africa.

Tens of millions of dollars in bribes by for-profit prison companies have been lavished on Congress. In return they get laws that actually say that ICE must meet “bed quotas.” And compared with other capitalist enterprises, GEO Group enjoys extraordinary profits, largely due to the unpaid labor of its detainees, 60,000 of whom are seeking damages for having been forced to work for free under the threat of solitary confinement. Last October, at an annual leadership conference held at Trump’s Miami-area golf resort, GEO Group executives celebrated an annual revenue of $2.26 billion, double that “earned” ten years ago.

Workers should recognize these racist concentration camps for what they are and demand full legalization for every one of our immigrant brothers and sisters; history will pardon nothing less.

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Operation PUSH: Florida Prisoners Plan Strike

Prisoners spread throughout the Florida Department of Corrections have announced a strike starting on MLK Day. The strike is aimed at undermining the exploitative, racist prison system. The prisoners have contacted the Gainesville chapter of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) and the national Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons with a list of demands. These include

  1. Payment for our labor, rather than the current slave arrangement
  2. Ending outrageous canteen prices
  3. Reintroducing parole incentives to lifers

Secondary goals:

  • Honor the moratorium on state executions, as a court ordered the state to do, without the legal loophole now being used to kill prisoners on death row.
  • Stop the overcrowding and acts of brutality committed by officers throughout FDOC which have resulted in the highest death rates in prison history.
  • Expose the extreme environmental conditions we face, including mold, contaminated water, and being placed next to toxic sites .

More info at incarceratedworkers.org

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Solidarity with National Prison Strike

By Quest Riggs

On September 9th prisoners across the country stood up for their human rights. Walking in the footsteps of the heroes of the 1971 Attica Prison Rebellion, our caged brothers and sisters worked very hard to coordinate a countrywide prisoner strike.

Strikes took place in 26 states despite efforts by wardens and guards to silence and isolate militant prisoners. In some prisons striking by even a minority of the prisoners scared the authorities into stopping work altogether. The nation-wide strike took place in both men and women’s prisons. The prisoners were applauded and supported by tens of thousands of non-incarcerated people across the country.

Some prisons, including several in Florida, experienced full-scale prisoner rebellions. Of course, the ruling class media calls the prisoners rioters so that we on the outside will ignore the just demands of the prisoners. These aren’t riots; they are rebellions against the barbaric conditions in US prisons.
Florida prisons, like Louisiana’s, are extremely overcrowded. Prisoners often face lengthy time in solitary confinement, which is a form of torture, and brutal physical and sexual abuse and murder by prison guards.

New Orleans jails more people than any other city, and Louisiana has the largest percentage of people in prison in the U.S., and the U.S. has the largest rate of incarceration in the world. We must support the prisoners’ demands to abolish modern day slavery.

We will send copies of the Workers Voice free to prisoners, and we welcome letters from prisoners.