Abolition Now!

Listen to this historic recording of Kumasi (using the player above), the official historian of the Black August Organizing Committee, speaking about the origins of the California prison movement and the meaning behind Black...

The number of K2-related deaths in Texas prisons is mounting, year after year. Due to this drug being undetectable by prison drug-testing kits, it has become a favorite drug of choice for prisoners and prison officials who profit handsomely from smuggling it in. This has caused other common prison drugs, like cocaine, marijuana and meth, to be discarded by prisoners who now have the ability to get high without worrying about failing drug tests.

Jenny Kang, attorney for political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), writes: “Attached is a petition to New York Gov. Paterson requesting that Jalil be granted parole or have his sentence commuted. He would very much appreciate your support in signing the petition and sending it to Gov. Paterson. Please feel free to widely distribute the petition.” Jalil, one of the San Francisco 8, made the ultimate sacrifice on July 6, when he pled “no contest” in exchange for the dismissal of all charges against four of his brothers. As a token of our love and appreciation, readers are urged to print this letter, sign it and mail it to Gov. Paterson. – ed.

The racist prison system flexes its power over helpless captives inside when the masses outside protest too much.

200+ exclusively Black prisoners were brutally assaulted under Soledad State Prison Warden Craig Koenig’s command at 3 a.m. Monday – Tuesday Koenig reacted with a massive excuse binge after receiving numerous emails from the angry wives about their brutalized loved ones.

I am writing to request that a teacher come in and teach us here in San Quentin Prison. I have filed all the paperwork, from San Quentin to Sacramento, from the religious oversight unit and chaplaincy division of adult institutions, back to the warden here at San Quentin, from the third level review, giving the order to allow us here in San Quentin to practice and function like the gods we are, the Five-Percent Nation of Gods and Earths.

by Marcus Bedford On January 17, 2019, I paroled. I would like to say that it was a smooth transition, but it wasn’t. I would like to say I was happy, but I can’t. I did 8,829...

The Central California Intelligence Center received a Suspicious Activity Report from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2010. A guard reported that he conducted a search of two inmates’ cells. “Both inmates are Muslims who appear to have radical Islamic views. Both inmates have since been placed in our Administrative Segregation” (the hole). Anti-Muslim sentiments do not only exist in the outside world, they exist in prison, too.

This petition will serve as a constructive notice for the peaceful protest which will be carried out as an alternative means of petition in the event that our conditions and demands are not met in a timely manner. [A notation on the cover letter to the petition says the hunger strike started Dec. 28, 2011.] Petitioners have filed appeals and grievances to no avail. Our constitutional rights are being violated. We are bound by the Constitution of the United States, and therefore its protection extends to us as well.

In this powerful writing of a revolutionary history, education as foundation becomes glaringly obvious and unequivocally key to achieving true freedom.

In Illinois, federal judges have allowed at least two lawsuits to proceed against correctional officials for using full body scanners to reveal the anatomy of both prisoners and visitors without removing their clothing. This is the very same device that airports are seeking to implement on some inbound flights to the United States.

Fire burns off the dross of the hidden gem to reveal the precious metal. In struggle, it is the call to action that burns off the negative habit, distorted values and laziness of those who answer that call to reveal the precious jewels of humanity. With 2018 just a few days away, the call to action that is the Campaign to Redistribute the Pain 2018 is set to kick off Feb. 1, 2018. Let the fire burn bright.

This report reveals the failure of CDCR’s efforts to sustainably reduce incarceration and resolve the humanitarian crisis of its prisons and instead outlines a concerning vision for an expanded and more powerful prison system. We must begin making investments that will sustainably reduce incarceration, close prisons and provide true opportunities for people in low-income communities to thrive.

Despite a rise in murders at the Allred Unit’s close custody building this year, overall conditions haven’t gotten better; they are getting worse.

“It has been 33 days since these men have eaten. We must move swiftly or people are going to start dying,” writes Delma Jackson, wife of Miguel Jackson, the prisoner who was beaten with a hammer in retaliation for his role in the December 2010 mass sit-down strike protesting slave labor and other atrocities.

Lane Murray Unit in Texas tends its plantation of New Jim Crow with purpose.

The California Board of Parole Hearings granted parole to John Clutchette in 2003, 2015, 2016 and again on Jan. 12, 2018. The boards deemed many of the records in his file unreliable and insufficient for a showing of present dangerousness. The reasons given by Gov. Brown for opposing his release appear to involve a desire to punish Mr. Clutchette for being labeled a Soledad Brother. Tell Gov. Brown to free John Clutchette now!

The Bay View is serializing the introduction to “Annotated Tears, Vol. 2,” by Talib Williams, who is currently incarcerated in Soledad, California, and has written the history of that storied place. In the spirit of Sankofa, we learn the past to build the future.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) released a 56-page report April 5 systematically outlining the unchecked violence and sexual abuse which is the outcome of the degrading and subhuman conditions in the state of Alabama’s prison system. The report serves as a damning indictment of America’s entire criminal justice system, the largest in the world, which currently holds 2.3 million people in prisons and jails across the country in nearly identical conditions.

Families are being broken down even further, thus setting the perfect circumstances for history to repeat itself. The cycle of incarceration continues, and that’s a major problem.