Prisons and Prisoners

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Prison Populations

March 24, 2020 UNAC Editor Human Rights, Prisons and Prisoners, Public Health

By Noelle Hanrahan, published on Organizing Notes by Bruce Gagnon, March 20, 2020 Prisons are a breeding ground for these kinds of diseases and once it its it will spread like wildfire; we are anticipating a devastating infection rate. Now is the time for Prison Abolition. People are going to die if we do not decarcerate right now. That means[…]

Kamala Harris Has a Distinguished Career of Serving Injustice

July 16, 2019 UNAC Editor Police Corruption, Political Analysis, Prisons and Prisoners

by Marjorie Cohn, published on Truthout, July 8, 2019 Kamala Harris is rising in the polls after dramatically confronting Joe Biden during the Democratic primary debate about his opposition to federally mandated busing for desegregation. The following week, however, Harris backed away from saying that busing should always be federally mandated, calling it just one “tool that is in the toolbox”[…]

Statewide Network Rallies Hundreds for Prison Justice in Virginia

February 6, 2019 UNAC Editor Prisons and Prisoners, Protest, Rights of Opressed Peoples

by Phil Wilayto, The Virginia Defender, January 2019 Braving temperatures just above freezing and dire forecasts of a life-threatening winter storm, more than 200 people rallied Jan. 12 at the Virginia State Capitol to demand justice for the state’s prisoners and changes in its criminal justice system. It was the second year in a row that the prisoner-led Virginia Prison[…]

Demanding an End to Modern Day Slavery

September 4, 2018 UNAC Editor Prisons and Prisoners, Protest, Racism

At root, striking prisoners demand they be treated as human beings; the rest of their demands flow logically from recognition of their humanity. Demanding an End to Modern Day Slavery, Prisoners Launch Multi-Day Nationwide Strike by Jessica Corbett, originally published on Common Dreams “For some of us it’s as if we are already dead.” In what could become the largest[…]

National Prison Strike Enters Week Two

September 1, 2018 UNAC Editor Prisons and Prisoners, Protest

by Terri Kay, originally published on Workers World, August 28, 2018 Prisoners across the country are striking in response to an April 15 prison-guard-incited riot at Lee Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison in Bishopville, S.C. Seven prisoners were killed in what was the deadliest prison riot in 25 years. A network of self-taught legal scholars called Jailhouse Lawyers Speak issued[…]

Prison Strike 2018

August 31, 2018 UNAC Editor Featured, Prisons and Prisoners

by Margaret Kimberley, originally posted on Black Agenda Report, August 29, 2018 Inmates in states across the nation are on strike against the world’s largest and most racist prison system. Hopefully, they won’[t be betrayed by quisling civil rights misleaders, as in 2010. “The prison strike is a means of bringing attention to a system that is rotten and must[…]