[Pnews] Prisoners to strike in Alabama, declare prison is “running a slave empire”

[Prisoner News]

  Exclusive: Inmates to strike in Alabama, declare prison is “running a
  slave empire”


    Breaking: Reached in his cell, Free Alabama Movement leader tells
    Salon inmates will refuse work to end free labor - VIDEO on line.

Josh Eidelson <http://www.salon.com/writer/josh_eidelson/>
*http://www.salon.com/2014/04/18/exclusive_prison_inmates_to_strike_in_alabama_declare_they%E2%80%99re_running_a_slave_empire/ 
*

Inmates at an Alabama prison plan to stage a work stoppage this weekend 
and hope to spur an escalating strike wave, a leader of the effort told 
Salon in a Thursday phone call from his jail cell.

“We decided that the only weapon or strategy … that we have is our 
labor, because that’s the only reason that we’re here,” said Melvin Ray, 
an inmate at the St. Clair correctional facility and founder of the 
prison-based group Free Alabama Movement. “They’re incarcerating people 
for the free labor.” Spokespeople for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and 
his Department of Corrections did not respond to midday inquiries 
Thursday. Jobs done by inmates include 
<http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/04/post_144.html> kitchen and laundry 
work, chemical and license plate production, and furniture-making. In 
2011, Alabama’s Department of Agriculture reportedly discussed 
<http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/12/06/382852/alabama-agriculture-department-promoting-plan-to-replace-immigrants-with-prisoners-to-farmers/> 
using inmates to replace immigrants for agricultural work; in 2012, the 
state Senate passed 
<http://www.wkrg.com/story/21593766/alabama-bill-would-let-businesses-use-prison-labor> 
a bill to let private businesses employ prison labor.

Inmates at St. Clair and two other prisons, Holman and Elmore, 
previously refused to work for several days in January. A Department of 
Corrections spokesperson told 
<http://blog.al.com/montgomery/2014/01/alabama_inmates_stage_protest.html> 
the Associated Press at the time that those protests were peaceful, and 
told AL.com that some of the inmates’ demands were outside the authority 
of the department to address. The state told 
<http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20140106/NEWS/140109824> the AP 
that a handful of inmates refused work, and others were prevented from 
working by safety or weather issues. In contrast, Ray told Salon the 
January effort drew the participation of all of St. Clair’s roughly 
1,300 inmates and nearly all of Holman’s roughly 1,100. He predicted 
this weekend’s work stoppage would spread further and grow larger than 
that one, but also accused prison officials of hampering F.A.M.’s 
organizing by wielding threats and sending him and other leaders to 
solitary confinement. “It’s a hellhole,” he told Salon. “That’s what 
they created these things for: to destroy men.”

To grow the movement, said Ray, “We have to get them to understand: 
You’re not giving up anything. You don’t have anything. And you’re going 
to gain your freedom right here.”

Along with organizing work stoppages, F.A.M. has posted clandestinely 
shot cellphone videos from inmates describing and documenting alleged 
abuses, including unsafe beef, broken fire exits and exposed wires. The 
DOC told 
<http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/01/alabama_department_of_correcti_1.html> 
AL.com that the inmates who used the cellphones, which are banned in 
Alabama state prisons, could be punished. (Asked about the cellphone on 
which he was speaking with Salon, Ray said that while he was currently 
in solitary confinement, F.A.M. members were “going to make sure that I 
have the resources I need … to accomplish the job,” and declined to 
elaborate.)

Ray said the strikers are out to secure educational programming and true 
rehabilitation, and to end overcrowding, life sentences without parole, 
and “the free labor system.” “There is not even the pretense of doing 
anything about ‘corrections,’” he argued. Rather, “they’re running a 
slave empire.”

Conditions in Alabama’s prisons are currently being investigated by the 
federal Justice Department, and Gov. Bentley last week announced 
<http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/04/sen_cam_ward_says_meetings_wit.html> 
that the state would draw on help from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, 
Pew Charitable Trusts, and Council of State Governments in making 
improvements to the system. But Ray dismissed the prospect that 
politicians on their own would effect meaningful reforms. “No one is 
going to do anything,” he said, “so we have to do it ourselves.”

The F.A.M. leader emphasized that the effort would remain nonviolent. 
“You have rapists, you have all the broad spectrum of criminal conduct,” 
he said, “and so we can’t incorporate violence, because you know, we’re 
already behind the eight ball as far as, you know, our image.” Beyond 
the image issue, he added, “Violence is what has drawn most of us into 
the prisons — and that’s what we’re trying to stop.”

Ray said it was too soon to tell how long this weekend’s work stopppage 
would last, or how many other facilities would join in the ensuing days. 
“If a prison goes down for [only] a week, we may not capture another 
prison,” he told Salon. “If a prison goes down for two weeks, there’s a 
strong possibility that you’ll capture another prison. If a prisoner 
strike goes down for three weeks…there’s no telling how many prisons 
might get in.” Supporters including the Industrial Workers of the World 
union plan to hold a vigil in support of the strikers.

“There may be some prisons we spent a lot of time organizing that don’t 
even go on strike,” Ray acknowledged. But “the best-case scenario would 
be that every prison in the state of Alabama joins the Alabama movement 
– go on, shut down.”

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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