After Oklahoma's historic commutations on November 1, 2019 - 400 inmates approved to be released - the focus has turned to Kansas. With overcrowding - and medical neglect - so bad it has caused riots, death, and out-of-state transfers of inmates, Kansas is desperate for solutions. The release of non-violent offenders is now gaining bi-partisan support.
The Lucasville Uprising was a rebellion against oppressive and racist policies at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville, OH. Nine inmates and one guard died during the uprising in April of 1993. Today, many people are serving time or condemned to death by the state of Ohio in relation to the uprising. We demand amnesty for all of these inmates. The conditions at SOCF were (and still are) intolerable and unconscionable.
In late July of 2018 Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan was cut off from phone and email access and had most of his property confiscated and his cell locked down in a clear move to silence his advocacy for prisoners leading up to the nationwide prison strike. Hasan is an IWOC member who has been held in solitary confinement on death row since 1993 on false charges deriving from the Lucasville Uprising.
On July 18, the first prison guard in Minnesota's history was killed, on top of recent violence in Oak Park Heights and Stillwater prisons. Yet all the DOC does is ask for more money on top of their 1.2 billion dollar budget. We need a new approach to change in Minnesota’s prisons. Stop putting money into a violent institution that is not correcting anyone. Free our people, and reinvest savings into reentry and rehabilitation.
Rebels incarcerated in prisons across the nation declared a nationwide strike in response to the riot in Lee Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in South Carolina. Actions across the country demanded humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery.
On January 15th, 2018 Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Florida incarcerated workers began a work stoppage demanding payment for labor, an end to canteen price gouging and reintroduction of parole incentives.
We are calling for a “comms zap” to the Upstate Correctional Facility, demanding that the prison administrators remove Jermaine Reynolds from the Secure Housing Unit, and launch a full investigation into his assault and subsequent hearing.
On August 19, 2017 prison abolitionists marched on Washington and cities across Turtle Island while prisoners in Colorado, Texas resisted on the inside and Florida prison officials put all prisons on lockdown in anticipation of A19 protests.
The recent California heatwave is hitting the central valley, also known as "prison alley", and is seriously hurting people inside. Fans have been set up in dayrooms but guards are refusing to leave their stations with air conditioning to let prisoners out of their cells to program. A letter just received by a family member put the temperature inside his cell at 114. We've received reports of heat exhaustion, respiratory distress, heart problems and more all sending people to the infirmary.
