Prisons, Prose & Protest - #15
Rants, Musings & More
I’m truly so excited about our Black Zine Fair happening this Saturday, May 11, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.! If you’re in the tristate area, please do stop by. There will be over 50 exhibitors and 3 workshops! I will have some zines for sale, trade, and also one for free. Sojourners for Justice Press will have our zines and pamphlets available too.
Neta Bomani, my co-director at SJP, has worked very hard to pull together the logistics for this fair. I’m truly grateful to her for this and more. To my knowledge, this might be one of the first Black Zine Fairs to take place in NYC. We’re so stoked! Let us know you’re coming by registering here, and please share about it far and wide. You don’t want to miss this event!
In this month’s edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I share some thoughts about jail moratoriums. I share a new publication, I recommend a podcast, several good recent articles, and much more…. I am working on something about the ongoing student protests against Israeli genocide that have inspired me. I hope to share it next month. For now, I’m sharing these words by my friend Kelly Hayes to students at UCSC.
Prisons/Policing
I acquired a copy of a newsletter from the Santa Cruz Jail Moratorium Coalition a few years ago. It’s dated April 1977 and opens with the following paragraphs:
At last. It has been difficult getting something written to send to the readers of ‘Jail Brake’. When we wrote our last newsletter, in November, we had a feeling of victory. The state court of appeals had recognized the people’s right to vote on the jail issue. The supervisors were calling public hearings on SWAT and a majority favoring community-based alternatives to jails were about to be elected to sit on the Board. With ‘victory’ came relief, and we felt we would have time to direct our energy into creating alternative programs to deal with the real problems behind crime within the community.
A lot has changed since then. Those supervisors who campaigned on the platform of no new jail are now a majority on the Board. Not only are they planning a new jail and are allowing the sheriff to have SWAT teams; they are refusing to put either issue on the ballot and are telling those who signed and worked on the initiative that it was the “people’s decision” to build a new jail.
The newsletter I have is printed on goldenrod paper. I made a copy on white paper that you can read here. You can also read a retyped google doc version here. It’s a fascinating document for its transparency, honesty, and self-reflection. As you read, you might find it interesting, as I did, to wonder how many of our current movement groups would send such a newsletter out to their members and supporters.
As various states and municipalities across the US are proposing new prisons and jails, I thought I would share some historical context about prison and jail moratoriums with you this month.
A Brief History of Jail Moratoriums in the US
A prison or jail moratorium is a freeze on prison construction or expansion. Moratorium campaigns oppose building new prisons and/or call for the closure of existing institutions. They advocate for directing government funds to other community-based solutions, such as health care and education.
The first [organized] prison moratorium advocacy began in the 1970s. Over that decade, the prison population, which had been fairly steady at around 200,000 since 1950, almost doubled. The growth led many organizations and individuals to demand a halt in prison construction.
The Unitarian Universalist Association called for “reducing jail and prison populations through…alternatives to incarceration.” New York Times columnist Tom Wicker warned against a federal prison construction drive and urged instead that the government “eliminat[e] an American penal system that encourages rather than prevents crime.”
In Massachusetts, Jerome Miller, the director of the Department of Youth Services, oversaw the dramatic abolition of the state’s abusive reform school system in 1972, transferring youth and funds to community-based care. In Santa Cruz, the Jail Moratorium Commission worked to prevent the expansion of jails and the funding of police communication systems.
These early efforts helped inspire the creation of the California Prison Moratorium Project (CPMP), co-founded by Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Craig Gilmore and others in the late 1990s. The organization helped lead the campaign against a new 5,160-bed maximum-security prison in Delano, referred to as Delano II.
The CPMP and its allies, like earlier advocates, argued that prison is cruel, abusive, and ineffective in reducing crime, and that we should allocate money to community resources. They also pointed out that, despite government promises, prisons do little to bring jobs or economic development to a community.
In an innovative approach, the CPMP also focused on the environmental harms of prison construction. They used the California Environmental Quality Law Act Review process to educate the community about prison harms and to slow jail construction. Eventually, the prison CPMP had opposed so powerfully was built, but by linking abolition and environmental justice, the organization created an important precedent for other moratorium projects to follow.
While the CPMP could not shut down Delano, there have been other moratorium successes. In 2008, a coalition of artists and activists pushed Illinois to close the Tamms Supermax prison facility.
Supermax prisons keep incarcerated people in solitary confinement indefinitely; the Tamms facility had no yard, no cafeteria, no classrooms or chapel. Men who spent years in solitary experienced extreme mental health crises, including depression and hallucinations. Guards’ unions insisted the Supermax was necessary for safety. But after rounds of failed reform studies and efforts, relentless organizing convinced Governor Pat Quinn and the legislature that the facility was unnecessary, wastefully expensive, and inhumane. They shuttered it early in 2013.
Kentucky’s Letcher County Governance Project organized to oppose the construction of a $510 million prison on the site of an old coal mine. It would have been the most expensive prison ever built in the U.S. Abolitionist and environmental organizations sued under federal law arguing that the prison posed a risk to old-growth forests and endangered species. They also charged that its site on a coal mine would create health risks for prisoners and prison employees. The opposition forced the state to abandon its plans in 2019. However, Hal Rodgers, a US representative from Kentucky, has continued to argue for the facility. Activists renewed the fight to block the prison in 2022, and it is ongoing.
Many other moratorium campaigns pursue local, state, and national goals. For example, a Massachusetts prison moratorium project won a legislative vote on a five-year moratorium on prison and jail construction in 2022, only to have it vetoed by the governor. Activists in New York have been fighting to close the complex of 10 dysfunctional and abusive jails on Rikers Island for years.
Building more prisons diverts money from mental health care, education, and community building, which could keep people safer. Entrenched bureaucracies and some interest groups have a motivation to defend imprisonment and the construction of more prisons. Like those who fought for jail and prison closures in the 70s, PIC abolitionists today understand that ending mass incarceration and imprisonment has to start with closing jail and prison facilities. Calls for moratoriums and fewer carceral institutions are a key step towards a world with no prisons and jails.
Publishing
Jail on Wheels is a new publication that was years in the making and another collaboration with my friends Brett and Marc at Half Letter Press. A few years ago, I came across some postcards and newswire photos of “Jail on Wheels” buses. I got curious and did some research. What I found was so interesting that I kept collecting items on the topic. Eventually, I asked one of the best thinkers I know, historian Dr. Jacqui Shine, to write about the Jail on Wheels program and its founder J. Slavin. I was not disappointed, of course, in what Jacqui produced. Her writing offers valuable insights into the program and the man. She contextualizes Jail on Wheels within the 1940’s moral panic of juvenile delinquency and the rise of prison tourism, and as a precursor to later “Scared Straight” programs. She also helps us to better understand the program’s founder and his motivations.
I hope everyone appreciates reading about this fascinating program that is not well known today but still reverberates. I think that this publication is an excellent one to use with high school and college students as an entry point to discuss US criminalization. There are so many themes to unpack.
While this publication is not an official part of my Archival Activations series, it is in the same lineage. And it’s one of my favorite recent publications. I’ll be focused over the next few years on further activating my collections through publications. You can read the first two zines from the Archival Activations series here and here. This year, I’ve co-created two new publications in the series so far. I decided not to post them digitally because they are best read and engaged in their physical form.
Jail on Wheels used to sell mini-badges to participants. Below are examples of badges/pins from the 1940s and 1950s. I have a vintage pin in my collection and had a few replicas made. Anyone who purchases a copy of the zine is eligible to enter a raffle to receive a replica badge. I will select up to 15 winners. You can enter by completing this form.
Prose
This first-hand account of a community facing atrocities in Gaza, written by a traumatized and unbearably brave 14-year-old, should have the power to change the course of this genocide.
In this Inquest essay, Katie Myers tells the story of the ongoing fight against a new federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky, from the perspective of a group of formerly incarcerated writers. The writers traveled to Kentucky in March to speak out against the new prison by telling residents about their own experiences of incarceration in Appalachia, and Myers explores how their stories connect with the environmental case against the prison.
A heartening progress report on Illinois’s first six months without cash bail.
I’ve mentioned Rachel Herzing and Justin Piché’s excellent new book How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement Against Imprisonment before. In this Truthout/Inquest interview from April, Maya Schenwar talks to the authors about why they wanted to focus on the “how to” of abolition and about some of the concepts that rose to the surface in the writing.
In this article, historian Max Felker-Kantor describes his research into the ways the school DARE program has served and continues to serve as an important branch of the violent, carceral War on Drugs. The program’s history is fascinating to read about in this context, and Felker-Kantor has a new book on the subject: DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in School.
It is harrowing and so important to read these testimonies about the experience of being trans in prison collected by the Marshall Project.
I love how this article seamlessly incorporates archival documents to tell a story that many people may not know.
Podcast
Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation is a long-time restorative justice hub based in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. They have just completed a limited-run podcast where they interview participants in their Family Forward program, which focuses on the needs of mothers and families affected by violence and incarceration. It is wonderful to hear the stories of women whose lives have been touched by the organization, and to hear about where they find hope and comfort. Some of the episodes also touch on what it means to come to this work from a place of religious faith.
Poem
I love the vision of healing and abundance in Danez Smith’s “little prayer.”
Potpourri
Radical Black Women of Harlem Walking Tour - June 1 at 11 a.m. - I usually facilitate a couple of public walking tours during spring/summer to raise money for particular organizations and causes. I didn’t do any tours last year so I’m going to do a couple this year. Join me if you’re interested. Proceeds will support Survived and Punished NY. Suggested donation is at least $25 per person.
Bankrolling Our Social Movements - Earlier this year, I read Dr. Tanisha Ford’s recent book Our Secret Society about Mollie Moon. I really enjoyed learning about her life and work. Buy the book! One particular chapter of the book stayed with me because it engaged a question that I think about all the time: “How have and will we fund our social movements?” I asked Tanisha if I could turn the chapter into a publication with accompanying discussion questions. She graciously agreed, and I turned to my friend Rachael Zafer to design the publication. My thanks to Rachael and to Tanisha. I think the chapter will be of particular use to current organizers—read it with your comrades and discuss it.
No Escape: The Legacy of Attica Lives! - Poster House explores the repercussions of the 1971 Attica Prison Uprising in New York, in which dozens of incarcerated people were killed. The exhibition investigates the visual strategies used by artists and activists to draw attention to the atrocity. The exhibition—at the Poster House, located at 119 West 23rd Street in Chelsea, Manhattan—runs from April 25 to November 3.
Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2024 - this is an indispensable report that I really think everyone in this country needs to read. I so appreciate that the Prison Policy Initiative has been putting this out yearly for the past decade.
I love everything about this book of photographs by Ernest Cole.
Herstorical Women of Oakland California: Pat Parker by Maureen Forys - I love the design of this poster as well as person that it features.
We all need to take 1 minute dance breaks for no reason every day. [I have this and use it daily.]
Cool Library Thing of the Month
Through a donation, the Los Angeles Public Library has acquired a small publishing house that produces books about L.A.’s cultural history.