[News] Military Prison Project - Call for Contributors

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Military Prison Project

WHAT IS IT?

This project will be a combination of research, analysis and personal 
accounts of life inside the military prison. It will result in a pamphlet 
or zine of some sort that will be available for distribution in Winter 2005.

There is research, activism, and organizing around the Prison Industrial 
Complex (PIC), and also the Military Industrial Complex (MIC)  in terms of 
recruitment, corporate interests, and racism and sexual violence within the 
military and in its praxis around the world. However, very little research, 
activism and organizing exists to expose the prison system within the 
military. Since the Abu-Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal came to public 
attention in the summer of 2004, international attention has been brought 
to the treatment of people held as prisoners of war by the US, but there 
was no analysis of the US military justice system as a whole, and how it 
imprisons those within it! s own ranks. This project will help to fill that 
void by looking at the following issues:



1. Who is in military prison?



2. What offenses are people serving for, and what are their sentences?



3. What is the racial breakdown, and sentence disparities among race, class 
and gender?



4. What are the conditions of confinement and treatment of folks in 
military prisons?



5.  How does the military justice system reproduce ideologies about certain 
communities being criminal, pathological and violent that are common in the 
"civilian" world?



6. Does the military justice system and how it works change the situation 
of young, poor black women and men who enter the military as a means of 
escaping poverty, gaining status as a "respectable citizen" and to evade 
their likelihood of being incarcerated in the PIC, or does it replicate 
this situation within the military?



This publication will assist family members of military prisoners, former 
military prisoners, activists, organizers, and educators who are doing work 
around prison issues, military recruitment, and racial, sexual and economic 
justice.

INTERESTED IN SUBMITTING TO OR WORKING ON THIS PROJECT?

Are you a veteran who has served time in a military prison and has a story 
to tell (you may remain ANONYMOUS)? Are you a family member or friend of 
someone who was or is currently in a military prison?  Are you a concerned 
activist interested in doing research and analysis? Do you have access to 
some resources we should know about in pursuing this endeavor? 
Email:militaryprisonproject at yahoo.com

***BEHIND THE PROJECT***

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Kenyon Farrow is a 30 year old Black Gay man, writing and 
organizing in Brooklyn, NY. He recently served as the Southern Regional 
Coordinator for Critical Resistance, a prison abolition organization, and 
continues to work in the New York City chapter. He has also served as an 
adult ally for FIERCE!, a queer youth of color community organizing project 
in New York City. Kenyon has written several articles and essays, the most 
widely circulated of which have been "Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?", and 
"Connecting the Dots: Michael Moore, White Nationalism and the Multi-racial 
Left" with writer Kil Ja Kim. Kenyon has also appeared on radio, given many 
public lect! ures and served on many panels dealing with race and prison 
issues, and race and queer issues as well, including at Temple University, 
University of Wisconsin/Madison, and The University of New Orleans. He is 
currently co-editing his first book project entitled "Letters from Young 
Activists" with Dan Berger and Chesa Boudin, due out in Fall 2005 with 
Nation Books.



OTHER GROUPS BEHIND THE PROJECT: This project is sponsored by the Central 
Committee for Conscientious Objectors (www.objector.org) and the National 
Youth and Militarism Program of the AFSC 
(http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/Default.htm) as part of a multimedia project 
entitled "Everywhere is War, Everywhere is Resistance."

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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