Instead of Prisons Table of Contents > Chapter 9

9. EMPOWERMENT

One of the few consistent trends over the past decades has been a slow, very painful, but steady increase in the rights of people formerly excluded from any decision making arena. Black people, women, Chicanos, industrial workers, farm workers, gay people; all have far to go before equality of opportunity and treatment is a reality, but all have come very far from where they were 40 years ago. The struggle is no less intense now; the outcome in any single situation is problematic, but overall the extension of power to more and more people cannot be stopped.

‑The Outlaw, January/ February 1976, P. 2

Empowering the community

Empowerment is more than a belief; it is a concept that governs the way we interact with people. It is also a method‑one which reflects the values of human dignity, respect for growth of consciousness and the integrity of relationships. Empowerment means that people and communities have the ability to define and deal with their own problems. Successful self‑management requires access to and control of proper resources, but lack of access in no way reduces the clarity with which affected people perceive their own problems and needs. Empowerment is essentially a political process‑redistributing power among the heretofore powerless. Empowerment assumptions undergird and effect the quality of programs abolitionists support.

The empowerment models we advocate in this handbook are not to be confused with "community corrections" referred to by systems people. As abolitionists we essentially identify as community alternatives, those programs created by affected people: ex‑, community workers, drug addicts, alcoholics, rape victims, street crime victims and others. These are programs and alternatives that evolve directly from experience and need and are controlled by participants.

Contrast this with the systems' definition of "community corrections." This term is applied to a wide variety of "correctional" activities for accused or convicted adults or juveniles, administered outside the jail, reformatory or prison. It includes traditional probation and parole, halfway houses, group homes, pretrial release and sometimes explicitly rehabilitative programs.[1] A common ingredient in all these programs is that decision‑making power remains in the grip of the system.

Understandably, this concept of community "corrections" as an alternative to mass institutions appeals to a broad spectrum of prison changers. [2] Enlightened systems managers, professionals, exprisoners and abolitionists alike are united in the belief that a move from massive institutions toward the community is desirable:

• Most judges prefer sending younger lawbreakers to alternative programs to escape the damaging effects of prison.
• Some administrators use community "corrections" to provide a progressive facade which quiets reformist critics, even tho community centers accommodate only a tiny fraction of the state's prison population.[3]
• Most prisoners regard any change that gets them outside prison walls as an improvement. Prison changers thus support community alternatives, even tho they are controlled by the system.

However compelling the move away from institutional punishment to community punishment, words of caution seep thru:

As an ex‑offender I will guarantee you that I will select prison over your community treatment. And the fact that you can give me evidence that the offenders constantly seek these doesn't mean anything to me, because we're all familiar with the bargain‑with‑the‑devil kind of phenomenon in human history. Human beings are consistently willing to make bad bargains for immediate gain, and regret it later. And the convicts are included in this: You offer them a chance to avoid incarceration, and they will take the bad bargain of the community treatment. And many of them regret it.

‑John Irwin, "Rehabilitation Versus Justice," Changing Correctional Systems, First Alabama Symposium on Justice and the Behavioral Sciences, University of Alabama, 1973, P. 64

A word of caution. The development of these alternatives, designed to divert offenders from institutions by means ofnbsp; community alternatives, should not be controlled by those presently in command of conventional correctional systems. Decisive participation by the private sector is indispensible. True alternatives are competing alternatives: the correctional establishment is poorly prepared, both by tradition and ideology to nurture its own replacement. The surest way to defeat such a program would be to place it under the control of those who have been unable either to acknowledge or to correct their own fundamental errors .... The opposition of those presently in charge can be counted upon. That opposition must be resisted and overcome. A history of failure confers no credential for determining the future. The past can only reproduce itself: it cannot create something new.

‑‑Richard Korn, criminologist in University of San Francisco Law Review, October 1971, pp. 71‑72

Paradoxically, abolitionists who support moving away from systems' control also support efforts to remove prisoners from closed, security‑oriented institutions to the less restrictive setting of the community as quickly as possible. Some systems-controlled programs can be viewed as first steps along the way‑from cage to street. Others might be perceived as interim strategies in our work toward more sweeping changes. At the least, systems alternatives provide an opportunity to educate the public about the concepts of decarceration and excarceration, and most importantly, in many instances they bring desired relief to the caged. Prison changers will need to evaluate their local situations and decide where to place their energies.

Services needed

If researchers went from community to community in the poor urban centers of our nation, there is little doubt that the shopping lists for resources and services would be very similar. People know what they need to improve their lives. It is also clear that without a variety of services and resources being made available to all people, options for sentencing to community‑controlled groups will be limited.

These alternatives have always been available for the rich, because they have access to the needed resources and services. Dr. Richard Korn, formerly director of education and counselling in New Jersey State Prison, points out that innovative and sympathetic community treatment of lawbreakers is not radical or even new. They are no more than what is provided "by the well‑to‑do on behalf of their deviant members."

In every middle class and upper class community there are psychiatrists specializing in the treatment of the errant youth of the well‑heeled, frequently with the full approval of the police and judicial authorities. Should private out‑patient treatment prove inadequate, there is a nationwide network of relatively exclusive residential facilities outside the home community. Every Sunday, The New York Times publishes two pages of detailed advertisements by private boarding schools catering to the needs of "exceptional youth" who are "unreachable" by means of "conventional educational methods." ... They reflect an honest recognition that the private, unofficial treatment of offenders is vastly superior to most available public programs. Keeping children out of reformatories is a widely approved and worthy objective, irrespective of whether the children are rich or poor. The scandal lies in the fact that such alternatives are denied to the poor, thru nothing more deliberate than the incidental fact of their inferior economic position. The inequity of this situation provides one of the strongest moral grounds for overcoming it. Once it is recognized that the "new" approaches advocated for the correctional treatment of all are essentially similar to those already serving the well‑to‑do, the ethical argument for making these services universally available becomes unassailable.

‑Richard Korn, pp. 66‑67

Needed services identified by the poorer communities, then, are requisites for alternatives to prison for the poor. This realization provides an important linkage between prison change groups and grass roots community organizations. The list of needed services and resources is very long.

Community solutions

Two examples of community self‑management present fresh solutions to problems most communities have not dealt with, and which systems people cannot deal with: street gangs and ex‑prisoners who are former drug addicts. Both groups have been labelled "incorrigible" and "dangerous" and would probably be defined by system managers as people who present a danger to society. Both projects, "The House of Umoja" and "Delancey Street" are true alternatives to "community corrections." Both demonstrate the concept of empowerment within a caring community.

House of Umoja

The House of Umoja (Swahili for "unity") is a small project in Philadelphia focused on helping young Black gang members.[4] It is "controversial" because its leaders lack formal social work training and because it approaches residential living in an unorthodox way.

Sister Falaka Fattah and her husband, Black David, supervise several two‑story row houses on a narrow street in West Philadelphia. The project began in 1969 after Black David -- a former gang member -- made a three month study of Black youth. To gather information he frequented "bars, pool rooms, attended a lot of funerals and went to hospital emergency rooms‑just hung out on the corner mainly."

Black David attributes the gang problem largely to the fact that the needs of young people are not being met by their families.

The Fattahs decided what was needed was the re‑creation of the family -- giving those without a family, or with a fragmented family, a place to feel wanted. Sister Falaka began to see possible solutions to the violence of street gangs in "the strength of the family, tribal concepts, and African value systems." A far cry from "correctional" systems solutions!

Adaptation of the African "extended family" concept plus speaking Swahili provide gang members with alternatives to their street‑life culture.

Altho they had no source of funding, the Fattahs invited 15 members of the South Philadelphia Clymer Street gang to live with them and their six sons in a row house on North Frazier Street. All gang members were between the ages of 15 and 17‑an age when "it's difficult to stay alive and out of jail," as Sister Falaka points out. The leader of the gang, or "runner," had had his life threatened by another gang and the police were after him.

After a year in which Sister Falaka and Black David tutored them in English, mathematics and economics, along with such things as preparations for job interviews, Sister Falaka recalled, "we were all alive, no one was in jail and no one wanted to go home‑and in the meantime, we had picked up seven more from other gangs."

Of the original group, seven are now in college, seven have regular jobs and one is in jail. Members of the Clymer Street gang who did not come to the House of Umoja are now among the leaders of organized Black crime in Philadelphia, according to Sister Falaka.

Altho the city's Department of Public Welfare initially objected to a request by probation officers that boys be placed there, on the ground that the house was too unorthodox, the department eventually came to see the value of the House of Umoja. The Welfare Department, along with other city agencies, now contributes funds for placements.

Since its beginning, the House of Umoja has sheltered more than 300 boys and young men, belonging to 73 different street gangs. Only ten are known to have been arrested since leaving the house.

For the past decade gang wars killed about 30 persons a year in Philadelphia, nearly all of them Black, but in 1975 the toll dropped by half. Criminal justice experts believe that the House of Umoja had a considerable role in this. Agreement has been reached among gangs from all parts of the city that the House of Umoja is neutral territory. No one who lives there is to be harmed. The House serves as a crisis intervention center to help avoid gang wars and to try to prevent killings if quarrels do erupt.

Sister Falaka's formula is based on the perception that a street gang provides the same emotional and material security for its members that an extended family would. The House of Umoja tries to do the same thing, but it forbids destructive behavior. "The House of Umoja is not about breaking up gangs," Sister Falaka says, "It's about stopping killing."

But the House also makes sure its members know how to fight with their hands and teaches members to recognize other kinds of gangs‑the kind Sister Falaka calls "the gang in city hall and the gang in Washington that pulled off Watergate."

All the brothers, as members of the House are called, earn money from odd jobs for carfare, pocket money and nominal House dues. Something more important than money in the House of Umoja is the African names that the brothers earn‑for their efforts to master the House's philosophy, for the help they give each other, for work they do to improve the House and for community service. Brothers must earn an African first name, and they then go thru seven stages to earn full membership in the extended family. At that point they are given the family name, Fattah.

The brothers attend classes in the African component of their program at the House. They go to regular Philadelphia schools for academic or vocational education. The current group of brothers includes seven students at a Philadelphia community college, all of whom earned their high school equivalency certificates while living at the House.

Sister Falaka does not think it would be easy to replicate the House of Umoja in other cities, but she says it is not impossible. If two brothers from another city come to live in the House for several months, and then went back and took some brothers with them, particularly those who have earned their Fattah names, it might work. "But we cannot write down a manual," she says. "The House is a family, not a social agency...."

Sister Falaka acknowledges several "negatives" about the operation. One is the image of the House in the community. Altho a public opinion survey taken two years ago found that 70 percent of the persons polled supported the House, Sister Falaka says, "We want it to be more. People avoid Frazier Street. We want (the community) not to be afraid of kids who look rough." The opinion survey was taken in a door‑to‑door canvass of the Frazier Street neighborhood by the House of Umoja brothers and other youngsters as a Neighborhood Youth Corps Project.

Continuing problems with the police pose another problem for the House of Umoja. If something is reported stolen in the neighborhood, Sister Falaka says, the police tend to assume that one of the brothers was responsible. Local police commanders, after meeting with the Sister, have agreed to call her in times of difficulty, instead of "kicking the doors in."

The House of Umoja should never again have to scramble for funds. It is a rare example of selfmanagement by community people and has met needs that were previously thought to be "unmeetable." It deserves wide support by the community and its funding agencies.

Delancey Street Foundation

Delancey Street Foundation is a self‑supporting family of ex‑prisoners.[5] Its program is based on the proposition that the best people to resocialize drug addicts and lawbreakers are their peers. Within this context, Delancey Street provides food, housing, medical and dental care, education, entertainment and job training for its family members. A large portion of its success is due to the unbounded energy and charisma of John Maher and Dr. Mimi Silbert. Tho based in San Francisco, it is named for the street where Maher grew up in New York City.

Maher was a small‑time hood and dope addict who spent eight years at Synanon. He became critical of Synanon because of its insulation from the social upheavals going on around it. Maher felt that former addicts could and should be able to make it in the larger society. In 1970 he left Synanon to found Delancey Street.

The new project was started with virtually no money. In just a few years it has built itself into a "million dollar foundation." From the beginning it has been financed by the work of members and by voluntary contributions, mostly small. It has never received federal aid, welfare funds or large foundation grants.

The project's first home was a mansion that had been the consulate of the United Arab Republic, located in an elegant San Francisco neighborhood, Pacific Heights. Tho eventually they lost this house after a zoning battle, the struggle brought them much community support.

Convinced that people with problems should not allow themselves to be made invisible, Delancey Street members proclaim their right to live in Pacific Heights. They have built strong working ties with a variety of community organizations, including labor unions, feminist groups, gay liberationists, senior citizens' groups, the Prisoners' Union, United Farmworkers Union, the Black community and sympathetic politicians. They now have a dynamic, economically self‑fueling community of over 350 people occupying two large buildings and an apartment complex in and around Pacific Heights.

John Maher and members of the family believe in self‑management by people affected by social injustice. Maher maintains that the "primary thrust for the poor should be the development of their own capital and their own labor," so they can acquire real economic and political power. Delancey Street trains its people in real life skills so that they will have tools and resources to bring to the larger community; yet, in their quest for power, they always remain outside of the system and not dependent upon it.

Thru their philosophy of self‑management and self‑reliance, family members have created a network of businesses that support them and their work. Much of their food, clothing and furniture is donated. No one at Delancey Street receives a salary, either for work done at the residences or at the businesses. Each member is given approximately $20 a month walking‑around money.

Delancey Street businesses include: A moving company with a fleet of more than 30 cars, trucks, busses and vans. An automotive repair shop that also restores antique vehicles. A construction business. A potted plant and terrarium business, started in the greenhouse on top of a Pacific Heights mansion. Delancey Street, A Family Style Restaurant, has become a fashionable place to eat; recently the California Liquor Control Board granted it a wine and beer license, despite the fact that it is staffed by ex‑prisoners.

The family structure of Delancey Street is rigid and authoritarian. New members are required to show their obedience by men shaving their heads, women wearing no makeup or jewelry. Drugs and alcohol are prohibited, as are physical violence and "promiscuity." A commitment of at least two years is required, tho a family member may stay as long as s/he wants. Goods a newcomer brings are confiscated and redistributed within the community according to need.

All family members are required to participate in a game, which is based on the Synanon game. Encounter‑like confrontations allow players to release repressed emotions. Arguments and disagreements that arise during the day are left to smolder till evening, when the parties involved can fight it out and work it out in the game. Newcomers must play at least three times a week; veterans less often. One family member puts it bluntly, "The games are our medicine."

Today more than half the referrals to Delancey Street are the result of official recommendations. Considerable effort is devoted to educating members of the criminal (in)justice systems, including twice weekly luncheons to which skeptical judges, probation officers and parole agents are invited.

Other outreach efforts include The Delancey Street Welcoming Committee which greets neighborhood newcomers with flowers and offers of help. A Crime School Clinic teaches Bay Area store managers and security officers how to defend against rip‑off artists, shoplifters and pickpockets (for a $250 fee). Delancey Street people helped in the $2 million food giveaway which was part of the Patricia Hearst ransom.

Of the hundreds of men and women who have been Delancey Street members, only one has been arrested while a resident. The drop out rate is under 40 percent. Despite backgrounds of drug addiction and criminal activity, many who left Delancey Street without official sanction have been able to make it in the community on their own. One former family member, who came to Delancey Street in 1970 after persuading a judge not to sentence him to a long term for armed robbery and burglary, stayed for two years. He left before "graduating" because, as he said, he felt ready. After six months on his own, he was still "clean" and working in Menlo Park installing airplane interiors.

Whether Delancey‑like projects can be created by others elsewhere remains to be seen. Dr. Donald Cressey of the University of California believes that the reason such self‑help programs "work so much better than official programs is that they're not really replicable." In fact, he has stated, the easiest way to destroy such a program would be to make it official and "bureaucratize" it. Successes such as Delancey Street support Dr. Cressey's thesis that the best resocialization programs are run not by professionals but by community people.

John Maher puts it this way: "The great myth of the last 20 years is that we are failing [to curb addiction and crime because of public apathy and lack of funds." He considers Delancey Street a thriving refutation of that myth and a reaffirmation of the axiom that hard work, self‑sacrifice, and relating within a family‑like situation are the best antidotes to antisocial activity.

People say that won't work with everybody. Of course not. Penicillin don't work with everybody, so what do you do, give it up? We are not a program whose responsibility is to cure everybody in the world. We are an access route for those people who are willing to make some sacrifice to dignify their lives.

Empowering Prisoners

People who support the prison movement still need to understand what self‑help and self‑determination are, because these are the basic philosophies we operate under. They simply mean that prisoners are helped by prisoners. And organizations concerned with prisoners should be run by and for prisoners.

‑Russ Carmichael, NEPA News, April/May 1975

It seems strange to me that convicts or excon‑victs are never consulted about prison matters, nor even considered for consultation, when they are what prison is all about and the only true professional.

‑Robin E. Riggs, The Outlaw, March/April 1975

I think the prison leadership has to come from the people suffering from the serious plight of prison. There are many people in our ghettos thruout the country who are in minimum security type prisons where the walls are not visible. I think that a lot of people can support our movement, but I do definitely believe that the movement must be initiated by the people who are oppressed the most by those particular possibilities or plights.

‑Arnold Coles, NEPA News, April/May1975

A national priority was discussed. The most obvious one came out‑convicts speaking for themselves; not sociologists, counselors, administrators, etc., but convicts. The most important national priority is the convict voice in their own destiny.

‑Stephanie Riegel, "The National Prisoner Union Conference," The Outlaw, June/July 1975

Last spring when the guards went out on strike, the prisoners ran Walpole for nine weeks. Aside from the day to day running of the prison, including the kitchen, educational and vocational programs, prison industries and daily counts, the prisoners took care of their own internal problems. There were no rapes or killings.

The movie "3,000 Years and Life" was filmed at this time. It shows Jerry explaining how wrongdoers are corrected by persuasion and embarrassment in front of peers. He said that if one con steals from another, the men tell him, "You're a pig. Just like the System." The brother gets embarrassed. Then the men say, "It's no big deal, we know it won't happen again." Then they pat him on the back, give him a cigarette, and it's over.

When the guards returned exactly a year ago today, as I write, Jerry and Bobby Dellelo ... were stripped, beaten, run naked across broken glass and thrown in the hole. The administration doesn't want the prisoners to exercise responsibility, but when the prisoners had the responsibility of running the prison, the prisoners virtually ended violence at Walpole, and generally ran the prison better than it had ever been run before.

Superintendant Vinzant has a different perspective on prisoner solidarity. "All prisoner solidarity does is to foster disrespect, tension, and abuse between the prisoners and the guards .

‑Donna Parker, NEPA News, June 1974

Prisoners' demands are no secret. Whether prisoners are bursting from their cages in anger and frustration or coolly presenting carefully drawn manifestos, their message is the same:

We are firm in our resolve and we demand, as human beings, the dignity and justice that is due to us by right of our birth. We do not know how the present system of brutality and dehumanization and injustice has been allowed to be perpetuated in this day of enlightenment, but we are the living proof of its existence and we cannot allow it to continue. The manner in which we chose to express our grievances is admittedly dramatic, but it is not as dramatic and shocking as the conditions under which society has forced us to live. We are indignant and so, too, should the people of society be indignant.

The taxpayers, who just happen to be our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, should be made aware of how their tax dollars are being spent to deny their sons, brothers, fathers and uncles justice, equality and dignity.

‑Respectfully submitted, . . . Inmates of the 9th floor, Tombs Prison, August 11, 1970

The Attica demands presented in D Yard in September 1971 included an end to slave labor, constitutional rights to religious, political and other freedoms, full release without parole when conditional release is reached, educational and narcotic treatment programs, adequate legal assistance, healthy diet, more recreational facilities and time, and the establishment of inmate grievances committees as well as other procedures.

The manifesto from the Folsom Prison strike is representative of the many documents carefully written and posted by prisoners all over America. These are the most authentic voices from prison: those on the receiving end of the system.

Folsom prison strike manifesto

(1) We demand legal representation at the time of all Adult Authority hearings.

(2) A change in medical staff and medical policy and procedure.

(3) Adequate visiting conditions and facilities.

(4) That each man presently held in the Adjustment Center be given a written notice with the Warden of Custody signature on it explaining the exact reason for his placement in the severely restrictive confines of the Adjustment Center.

(5) An immediate end to indeterminate adjustment center terms.

(6) An end to the segregation of prisoners from the mainline population because of their political beliefs.

(7) An end to political persecution, racial persecution, and the denial of prisoners, to subscribe to political papers.

(8) An end to the persecution and punishment of prisoners who practice the constitutional right of peaceful dissent.

(9) An end to the tear‑gassing of prisoners who are locked in their cells.

(10) The passing of a minimum and maximum term bill which calls for an end to indeterminate sentences.

(11) That industries be allowed to enter the institutions and employ inmates to work eight hours a day and fit into the category of workers for scale wages.

(12) That inmates be allowed to form or join labor unions.

(13) That inmates be granted the right to support their own families.

(14) That correctional officers be prosecuted as a matter of law for shooting inmates.

(15) That all institutions who use inmate labor be made to conform with the state and federal minimum wage laws.

(16) An end to trials being held on the premises of San Quentin prison.

(17) An end to the escalating practice of physical brutality.

(18) Appointment of three lawyers from the California Bar Association to provide legal assistance for inmates seeking post‑conviction relief.

(19) Update of industry working conditions.

(20) Establishment of inmate workers' insurance.

(21) Establishment of unionized vocational training program comparable to that of the Federal Union System.

(22) Annual accounting of Inmate Welfare Fund.

(23) That the Adult Authority Board appointed by the governor be eradicated and replaced by a parole board elected by popular vote of the people. (24) A full time salaried board of overseers for the state prisons.

(25) An immediate end to the agitation of race relations.

(26) Ethnic counselors.

(27) An end to the discrimination in the judgment and quota of parole for Black and Brown people.

(28) That all prisoners be present at the time that their cells and property are being searched.

A bill of rights for prisoners

This composite bill of rights for prisoners has been assembled from various state prisoners' demands:

• Right to organize prisoner unions.
• Right to adequate diet, clothing and health care.
• Right to vote and end second‑class citizenship.
• Right to furloughs or institutional accommodations to maintain social, sexual and familial ties.
• Right to noncensorship of mail, literature and law books.
• Right to access to the press and media.
• Right to procedural and substantive due process to guarantee rights.
• Right to personality; resistance to coercive attempts by "correctional" staff to change behavior thru brain surgery, electric stimulation of brain, aversion therapy, hormones or modification techniques.
• Right to properly trained counsel.
• Right to be free from racial, ethnic and sexist discrimination.
• Right to freedom from mental and physical brutality.
• Right to have the community come into the prison.
• Right to have surveillance teams in prisons to monitor rights, protect prisoners' due process and see that they have access to their own files.
• Right to make restitution in lieu of further incarceration.
• Right to know their release date at time of entry to the prison.

In all the demands that come out of America's prisons, and there are thousands, there has never been a mention of wall‑to‑wall carpet or color t.v. The demands have always been for the bare necessities of decent human existence, for constitutional rights and for changes in the judicial and penal systems. Yet prison managers are deaf to these demands and focus on pastel paint and modern architecture where the same indignities are perpetuated.

Prisoners' Union

Labor unions in American prisons are in a place similar to conventional labor unions at the turn of the century: embryonic, strongly resisted, considered subversive, dedicated to participatory democracy and willing to make sacrifices. Unionization would be a major step in the empowerment of prisoners and it may contribute to lessening the violence in prisons. [6]

Prison labor unions are not an American invention. The first successful prisoner labor union was organized in Sweden. Since 1966, the union, which represents the vast majority of Swedish prisoners, has carried out a long series of successful negotiations with the government. Every effort has been made to make the prisoners' wages the same as free wages. Prisoners pay rent for their cells and board for their food. They are encouraged to pay their debts in the free community, including restitution to the victims of the crimes. They pay taxes and generally have enough left at the end of the month to save around $50.

Additional benefits from unionization have been a good working relationship with Swedish industry, widely available vocational training, safer prison factories, eligibility for workmen's compensation and, perhaps most important of all, the democratic involvement of prisoners in forming their own destiny.

The union is credited with diminishing violence in prisons, lowering recidivism and making prisons more open institutions in Swedish society.

The strike at Folsom prison, California in spring 1970 gave birth to the U.S. prisoner union movement. This 19‑day work stoppage was remarkable in that it was a nonviolent, non‑rule‑breaking event.

The following January ex‑prisoners and parolees in California, some of them veterans of the Folsom strike, held a statewide convention to lay the foundation for forming the Prisoners' Union. By midsummer the union had been incorporated and its major objectives established for changing the condition of prisoners.

Goals of the union fall under three headings:

• Abolishing the indeterminate sentencing system and replacing it with short, fixed determinate sentencing.
• Establishing workers' rights for prisoners, including the right to organize collectively and to bargain over working and living conditions.
• Restoring civil and human rights for prisoners and ex‑prisoners.

Underlying the basic goals is one theme: unity. Union people realize how prison guards and administrations use every means possible to fragment prison populations and prevent prisoners from reaching common grounds on common issues.

During its first two years the Prisoners' Union focused on California, publicly confronting the Department of "Correction" (CDC) at every turn. Class action suits were initiated on behalf of prisoners. The inner workings of the prison system were exposed to the public thru a basic education program. Publication of The Outlaw was started, a monthly journal in which prisoners express themselves and keep in touch with prison happenings across the country.[7]

Organizing was not without struggle. Known union representatives were barred from entering prisons in California and The Outlaw was contraband material inside.

A spring 1973 issue of The Outlaw included an "authorization slip" which designated the Prisoners' Union as the signer's official bargaining agent. Hundreds of slips were mailed in from prisons across the country.

This opened up the possibility of organizing Prisoners' Union affiliates in several other states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, North Carolina and New York. By the end of 1975, close to 23,000 men and women prisoners were members.

Struggle was a part of this phenomenal growth. California organizers were still locked out of the prisons. Possession of a union card was equivalent to possession of contraband. Inside unions in Ohio, Michigan and New York collapsed because of harassment by prison officials. Outside organizers in Minnesota were locked out of the prisons. Prison organizing was declared illegal in Wisconsin and outside organizers were threatened by police, inside organizers beaten or subjected to arbitrary disciplinary procedures.

The union has had to deal with intense opposition from prison administrations. Even unionized prison employees‑who might have been expected to show some solidarity with prisoner unionizing efforts‑have opposed the Prisoners' Union. The California Correctional Officers' Association threatened to strike, stalling at least temporarily an agreement between union members and top administrators of CDC.

A few victories‑particularly in the area of court decisions‑have helped keep the union alive. In California, prisoners have won the right to possess The Outlaw and union membership cards. In North Carolina prisoners now have the right to meet, circulate a newsletter and solicit memberships in prison.

Minimum wage. The struggle to bring prisoners' working conditions and wages up to those of free laborers will be a long and hard one. The struggle is aided by organizations such as The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, which advocates adequate compensation of prison labor. Recognizing the slave conditions to which prisoners are subjected, their Board of Directors' policy statement reads in part:

The present condition of prison industries limits the value of [work programs]. The deficiencies vary from prison to prison .... The pay for inmates employed in prison is too low to be regarded as wages. The average prison laborer receives from ten cents to 65 cents a day. Few institutions pay inmate workers for a day's work what the federal minimum wage law requires for an hour's work. The rate of pay ... is only a token ... a daily rebuke to the inmate, reminding him [her] of society's power to exploit at will.

This counterproductive prison labor system must be changed. An inmate receiving equitable payment for work performed will be able to provide some support of his [her] family, continue payments on social security ... make some payment for room and board, and save money to assist himself [herself] upon return to society.

Therefore, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency urges the introduction of federal and state legislation requiring that an inmate employed at productive work in a federal, state, or local institution shall be paid no less than the minimum wage operative nationally or in his [her! state.

Advocacy lawyers are needed to assure the rights of prisoners to unionize:

In theory, "a prisoner retains all the rights of an ordinary citizen except those expressly or by necessary implication, taken from him [her] by law." Consequently, the presence or absence of the "right" to unionize turns on both the possession of this right by the ordinary citizen and the constitutional, statutory and practical considerations which might specifically or by necessary implication withdraw this right from the inmate. The right of the ordinary citizen to form and participate in labor unions has been well established. However, there is some question as to whether this right has been specifically or impliedly withdrawn from inmates.

If prisoners have a constitutionally protected right to engage in some form of labor unionization, it is important that this right be safeguarded and that its exercise be allowed to the fullest extent possible. In the absence of a "constitutional right," it might never the less be desirable to allow the formation of such organizations.

‑Paul R. Comeau, "Labor Unions for Prison Inmates: An Analysis of a Recent Proposal for the Organization of Inmate Labor," Buffalo Law Review, Spring 1972

Importance of prisoners' unions

To the "correctional" bureaucracy a union of prisoners is a contradiction of penal terms, for it is an affirmation of community and of rights, two attributes a prisoner is supposed to shed along with civilian clothes in the induction process. Since a prison regime is absolutist, and hence peculiarly susceptible to the absolute corruptions of power, a ruthless attempt to crush the incipient prison movement is a clear and present danger. Only informed, insistent, massive public support of the prisoners can counter this threat.

The union movement is no modest reform proposal, no effort to gild the cage. By striving to establish the rights of the prisoner as citizen and worker, it seeks to diminish the distinctions between [the prisoner] and those on the other side of the walls, in a profound sense the ultimate logic of such a movement is abolition, for to the degree that those distinctions are obliterated, to the same degree the prison is stripped of its vital function.

‑Jessica Mitford, Kind and Usual Punishment, pp. 295‑97

Prisoners, organizing on the inside, need the help of all prison changers. Their message directed to other prisoners for unity and change also applies to those of us on the outside:

Convicts are the real experts on prisons. And convicts, more than any other group of individuals, have a vested interest in achieving real prison change. There is only one thing that can stop Union representation and this is your silence. Your rights will never be returned as a gift. You must unite and collectively and peacefully bring about the changes. We want changes. Things are not going to work themselves out. Others will not do it for you. You need not stand alone.

‑"Don't Criticize, Organize," The Outlaw, January/ February 1976

Prison changers who advocate the empowerment of prisoners will find prisoners' unions a crucial issue to actively support by lending their skills, financial aid and public pressure and by subscribing to The Outlaw.

Prisoners' voting

Assuring prisoners their right to vote can help break down the walls between prisoners and communities. Enfranchising prisoners restores their civil life by recognizing them as citizens with the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship.

Two hundred years ago, the only people who could vote were white male landowners who were not in prison. The requirements that a person own property, be of a particular race or a favored sex have been dropped; only those classed as felons remain disenfranchised.

In most states, citizens convicted of felonies lose forever the right to vote, unless their citizenship rights are restored by some procedure. While in prison, few prisoners are allowed to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Disenfranchisement may be a proper response in convictions for crimes directly related to the electoral process, such as treason, bribery or electoral fraud. However, the blanket denial of voting rights to all prisoners is unjustified.

Legal aspects. New laws make prisoner voting rights an attainable goal. For instance, in July 1976, a law became effective in California implementing a system of voter registration by mail. Vermont enacted a law making ballots available to all prisoners in 1972. Massachusetts is registering voters thru the efforts of a prison change group we describe below.

Among the many decisions on the question of voting rights, two cases are key precedents to cite when arguing for enfranchising prisoners. In Evers v. Davoren,[8] the Massachusetts Supreme Court extended absentee ballot voting rights to Massachusetts prisoners for the first time. In his decision, Justice Wilkins held that where the right to vote exists, that right may not be diminished by procedural obstacles. Since the Massachusetts Commonwealth had never expressly denied them the right to vote, prisoners were enabled to vote on absentee ballots.

A similar case in 1974, O'Brien v. Skinner,[9] was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. Here, the failure to include prisoners in an absentee voting scheme was challenged as a denial of equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment. The court held that prisoners who are otherwise legally qualified to vote cannot be denied the right solely because of incarceration. [10] If the state provides no other method of voting for prisoners, the statute which excludes them from absentee voting denies them the equal protection of the laws.

States which expressly prohibit convicted persons from voting by statute or constitutional amendment are not affected by either Evers v. Davoren or O'Brien v. Skinner. These cases only apply to states which have no laws against prisoners voting and where prisoners are not included in absentee voting schemes. People in states which expressly prohibit felons from voting have two options: They may bring a case to court to declare such laws unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. Or they may try to amend the state constitution, a longer process taking two or three years, but worthy of the effort.

A prisoner voting rights project

The empowerment of prisoners thru involvement in the electoral process is beginning in Massachusetts. A three‑year‑old project sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has succeeded in making registered voters of several hundred prisoners in Massachusetts' institutions. The project is staffed by ex‑prisoners and utilizes the support of volunteers within prisons and from surrounding communities.

The project was initiated by Dave Collins. After his release from Norfolk prison, he and others did research on the financial and political relationships between prisons and the towns in which they are located. They discovered that agreements had been made between the Norfolk Board of Selectmen and prison administrators that affected prisoners negatively. Prisoners had no knowledge of these agreements and no input into them. Prison townships submitting requisitions for federal money‑‑such as minority funding‑include the largely Black prison population but when the money is spent, programs are unavailable to prisoners.

The group also studied the election statutes. They learned that in Massachusetts prisoners are not specifically excluded from eligibility to vote.

Prisoner voting rights in Massachusetts were strengthened by the Evers V. Davoren decision which extended absentee ballot voting rights to prisoners.

The project selected Concord for its first effort to register voters. It was chosen because the town is liberal and because it's less economically dependent on the prison than other Massachusetts prison towns. Keeping a low profile, the group began organizing for prisoner voter registration.

The project got a boost when, coincidentally, a prisoner named Carl Velleca announced his intention to run as a candidate for Selectman. Media attention to Velleca's campaign focussed also on the registration drive. It was simple to obtain the ten signatures of resident registered voters that required the town Registrar of Voters to go into the prison and register anyone who claimed to be a resident of Concord.

Because so many precedents have been set‑women's suffrage, the voter registration struggle in the South‑election laws are slanted in favor of the denied classes. Any citizen who wishes to challenge an individual's eligibility may do so, but the burden of proof rests with the challenger to show cause. The benefit of doubt is with the intended registrant.

Tho a continuing battle against prisoner registration was waged in Concord, led by a prominent and vocal citizen, over 300 prisoners were registered (out of a prison population of 500) and were able to vote in the election. Others voted thru absentee ballots from the town where they had lived prior to their imprisonment.

Carl Velleca conducted, with the help of community supporters, a vital and instructive campaign. Coffees held by Velleca and his committee attracted sizeable groups of people each Sunday night. These meetings resulted in the setting up of a group to develop ways that prisoners could become involved in the community, contribute to the community, and gain, thereby, a new level of empowerment.

Velleca lost. But his campaign was effective: as many citizens voted for him as had had contact with him‑he was able to reach the people. And support for his candidacy came from unexpected places. Local newspaper reporters gave their own money toward his campaign fund, Warden Genakos of Concord announced his intention to vote for Velleca, a vocal conservative in town completely reversed his position after contact with Velleca, and admitted publicly that it was "great" he was running and a good idea that prisoners vote.

And the prisoner vote? It answered the most frequent fear aroused by prisoner registration‑no bloc vote could be discerned. Many prisoners voted for candidates other than Velleca.

Dave Collins says that thru the concept of prisoners sharing in the political process‑voting, running for office‑the inevitability of major changes within the prisons themselves, especially the larger ones, can be foreseen. A long range goal is education of the community to accept smaller, more open facilities and to substitute alternatives. A shorter range view sees an increase in the self‑esteem of prisoners‑and the right to vote is a big step in that direction. With prisoners involved in the community, influencing in a modest way the political actions that affect them, the process of empowerment begins. Starting from this concept, one can foresee:

• Prisoners feeling part of the community.
• Community involvement with prisoner issues.
• Prisoner involvement with community concerns.
• The image of prisoners being humanized.
• Prisoners as a new constituency for political office‑seekers.
• The legitimization of prisoners and ex‑prisoners as an effective political force.
• Access to prisons for community people.

Empowering the movement

Closed and secretive prison hierarchies do everything in their power to preserve the myths they have woven and to discourage those outside its tight little circles from discovering the true nature of institutional violence carried on in the name of "corrections."

Fortunately, authentic information about the reality of prison oppression and its human costs have not been completely cut off from the public. From the inside, rebellions, uprisings and strikes at Attica, the Tombs, Rikers Island, Folsom and countless other prisons send loud, clear messages, shattering the myths concocted by prison managers.

Like our predecessors, the slavery abolitionists and the antiwar activists, we are committed to expose the immense economic and human costs of prison--its destruction, waste and exploitation. By identifying the structures and decision‑making processes, the people and institutions that comprise the prison/industrial complex, we begin to cast light on some hidden functions of prisons which serve particular interests.

Researching the prison power structure

Most traditional prison research studies captive prisoner populations rather than their slave environment and keepers. These studies often further the manipulation and control of prisoners, rather than addressing their real need for empowerment and voluntary social services. Most often, research is designed and information is categorized so that key connections between the oppressive institution and behavior are not made. Meanwhile, criminologists benefit financially from sizeable research grants handed out by those who have the power to decide who and what shall be studied. [12]

We have been socialized to believe that only a select few professionals and academics are competent enough to engage in serious prison research. But what if the machinery were reversed? What if abolitionists declared that pertinent prison research is of the variety that exposes the prisons' hidden functions and its waste of economic and human resources? Further, what if powerful prison bureaucrats and managers' affiliations, budgets, contracts and economic and political gains were pried into, analyzed, cross referenced and systematically scrutinized and the results published?

By engaging in prison research with the goal of systems change, we not only shatter the myths about who can competently conduct the research, but determine for ourselves which issues and situations require investigation and public exposure.

Prisons, even while their functions continue to diminish, must be made more open and accountable to the public. Closed institutions have no place in a democratic society. Prisons are public places, paid for by the citizenry who have rightful access in terms of entree, as well as information. Education about the reality of prisons cannot come from the powerful front offices of those who are the keepers. Rather, the recipients of the system‑the prisoners, in combination with their research allies on the outside, can authentically document the terrible costs and wastes of imprisonment.

Prisons as industry: Jobs

Abolitionists recognize that the economies of some localities are totally dependent on prisons and jails in much the same way that certain districts rely upon Pentagon contracts. Aside from other functions erroneously or correctly linked to prisons‑they do provide jobs:

The prisons give employment to over 70,000 persons, many of whom would have difficulty procuring positions elsewhere. This is especially true of the custody staff, given their relatively low educational attainment and lack of skilled training. Many members of the treatment staff--counselors, sociologists, psychologists, and teachers‑have no more than a bachelor's degree in subject matter, which, in today's job market, is a surplus commodity. At the administrative level, many of the positions are obtained thru political patronage as a reward for political loyalty, an element of no relevance in the nongovernmental job market. The penitentiary also gives employment to the paraprofessional whose skills are not well enough developed to be marketable in private employment.[13]

Breaking the cycle of economic dependence on prison industries is not an easy task, but we are convinced that the fantastic fiscal and social costs of prisons‑when fully conveyed to the people‑can act as a tool for change.

To understand policy one should know the policy makers‑the men of power‑and define their ideological view and backgrounds.[14] Most of us believe that bureaucracies make decisions based on neutral, independent rationale, denying that people of power who comprise the bureaucracies are more than disinterested, perhaps misguided public servants. The fact, of course, is that people of power do come from specific class and business backgrounds and ultimately have a very tangible material interest in the larger contours of policy. [15]

Research methodology

To better perceive the nature of prison bureaucracies, how they are structured, the interests of those who comprise them and the power they wield, requires information about sources of relevant data:

(1) First, it is a good idea to construct organizational charts for your state or local prison bureaucracies. Include charts for LEAA State and Regional Planning Agencies and prison‑related legislative committees.

• For the agency administering a prison see Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, Table 1.130, "Agency responsibility for administering correctional services, by state, January 1971," pp. 167‑69.[16]
• Or visit the Secretary of State's office or the public library for a copy of "State Legislative Manual," sometimes called the "Blue Book" (or "Red Book") which contains an outline of the responsibilities of state agencies, biographies of key state officials, plus other useful information.
• Most LEAA State Planning Agencies put out a comprehensive description of the entire state criminal (in)justice systems. In Connecticut, for instance, it is titled: The Criminal Justice System in Connecticut and contains salary ranges for personnel, categorized budgets and other interesting information.
• Libraries and League of Women Voters groups will be helpful in locating information you need for county and local levels of bureaucracies.

(2) Fill in the charts with the names of persons appointed or hired to fill important organizational positions. Also list legislators who serve on the prison‑related committees and the names of employees who fill the upper echelons of the state and regional planning agencies of the LEAA.

• Check hiring practices and credentials of employees and appointees.
• To check on conflicts of interest, find out the business, union, political and other affiliations of prison bureaucrats and managers. Check Polks City Directory which is developed for use by business and gives the address, occupation and business ownership (if any) of every person in the telephone book.
• If you are checking prominent people, consuit Who's Who in America or various regional or state versions. Be particularly alert to any corporate connections.
• Middle level people, particularly Jay Cees, are often listed in Outstanding Young Men of America.
• The one best source on women is Who's Who of American Women.
• The most important business source is Poor's Register of Corporations, Directories, and Executives which lists alphabetically about 27,000 banks and industrials, along with their directors, officers and a little business information.
• The New York Times Index is a gold mine on names and subjects of interest to power structure research, as are local newspaper "morgues."
• For further information in researching professionals and corporate people by affiliation, see NACLA Research Methodology Guide. [17]

(3) While most states no longer profit from running prisons, those who run them do. One unstated function of federal, state and county prison systems is to provide thousands of employees and hundreds of contractors with a living. The following sources focus on "correctional" salaries and contract procedures:

• LEAA state and regional bureaucracies' salaries and budgets are published by each State Planning Agency and are available at state or regional offices. The numbers of people employed by this bureaucracy is startling. In the small state of Connecticut, for instance, there are over 70 LEAA state and regional employees who received over $800,000 in salaries in the fiscal year 1975-1976. [18]
• Prison bureaucracy salary ranges are set by state personnel agencies. In the state of New York, for instance, salary scales are set by Civil Service with the Office of Employee Relations of the Executive Department. "Correctional" unions negotiate with that office.
• Breakdown on salaries paid to "correctional" personnel are available from many sources: State Auditor's Report, State Comptroller's Office, State Department of "Corrections," Department of Civil Service or the Legislative Budget.

(4) State budgets and financial reports also reveal much that is important.[19] The most convenient source for examining these is the State Auditor's Report on a particular agency, available from the auditor's office, or for inspection in the state library. Unfortunately, the most recent report is likely to cover a period eight or ten months prior to the time of your research.

A second source is the most recent Annual Budget, available from the Legislative Documents Room. The budget is a legislative bill like any other bill, which gives a brief listing for each agency and its subdivisions, showing how much money the agency is authorized to spend and how many staff it may hire. Don't neglect supplemental budget bills, since special appropriations are often passed well after the annual budget is appropriated. Keep in mind that the legislative budget will not include federal funding figures.

Each agency's budget must first be approved by the legislative committees in charge of that agency before being approved by the legislature as a whole. Particular committees might be the source of budget data, but before contacting a committee office, it is a good idea to sound out a Senator or Representative on the committee who might be sympathetic to your cause.

The Budget Bureau has copies of the complete budget for the current fiscal year for every state agency and is perhaps the best place for getting a full breakdown of an agency's planned expenditures on staff, supplies, etc. Federal funding data and supplemental budget information will not be included. Most importantly, it does not show what actually will be spent, only what is authorized.

The State Comptroller's office has a detailed breakdown of each agency's complete expenditures in the last fiscal year and in part of the current fiscal year. This information is the most complete you will be able to find, and probably will require the assistance of a clerk in the office.

Also available in the comptroller's office, but more difficult to get access to, are copies of the receipts for every transaction carried out by every state agency in the past year. This includes not only receipts for purchases of food, equipment, office supplies, but also receipts of hotel bills, expense accounts and mileage reports submitted by legislators and state officials. In obtaining this type of information you must know precisely what you are looking for: names, dates, specific companies, etc.

By law, the State Purchasing Agent's office either approves in advance or actually purchases all supplies for every state agency. This law is often broken, but the records of every transaction still must be filed with the purchasing agent. Most comptroller's offices have duplicates of the purchasing agent's records, and are most often more cooperative, so scout the purchasing agent's office as a last resort.

In New York, for example, the State Division of Standards and Purchase handles all contracts, materials, equipments and supplies and arranges yearly open contracts, against which institutions write individual contracts. Specifications for services such as laundry, elevator repair, etc., are determined by local institutions which prepare contracts and go thru bidding procedures. Contracts up to $500 require three to five bidders. The Department of Audit and Control and the Attorney General's office have responsibility for overseeing this process.

The offices of the State Department of "Corrections", depending on what type of information you want and what you want it for, vary in their cooperative spirit. If you lack inside sources in the agency, go directly to the director's office, to the business agent, the treasurer or the public relations' office with your request.

It is necessary to be extremely persistent when asking state officials for financial information. Just about every financial document put out by state officials is inherently political, so some are reluctant to give out information without knowing how it is going to be used. If you rely on any one source of information, you will probably not have accurate information. For that reason, any complete study should involve cross‑checking several sources.

(5) National sources of information can also be helpful in your research. In particular, LEAA thru the National Criminal Justice Information Service has published a series of invaluable studies. Here are some that we have found most useful:

• Expenditure and Employment Data for the Criminal Justice System. Includes data for the federal government, each state government and local governments within each state in six sectors of activity: police protection, judicial, legal services and prosecution, indigent defense, "correction" and "other criminal justice."
• Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. Focuses on state and local data in six categories: Characteristics of the "Criminal Justice" Systems, Public Attitudes toward Crime and "Criminal Justice"--Related Topics; Nature and Distribution of Known Offenses; Characteristics and Distribution of Persons Arrested; Judicial Processing of Defendants; Persons under "Correctional" Supervision.
• The Nation's Jails. Information in jail facilities, service and programs including location and size, physical facilities, separation of inmates, meal services, medical and recreational facilities, employees, social and "rehabilitative" programs.
• Survey of Inmates of Local Jails‑Advance Report. The first nationwide attempt to assess the socioeconomic characteristics of the jail population, including demographic data, reason for incarceration, bail status, length of pretrial confinement and sentence.
• Prisoners in State and Federal Institutions. Information on sentenced prisoners in federal and state prisons.
• Report on Corrections. One of six reports prepared by National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, financed by LEAA, dealing with problems of "corrections" and proposing standards on rights of prisoners, diversion, pretrial release, community alternatives, etc. Appendix includes list of parent agencies responsible for administering "correctional" services by state.

A non‑LEAA national source is Directory: Juvenile and Adult Correctional Departments, Institutions, Agencies and Paroling Authorities of the U.S. and Canada, published by the American Correctional Association. [20]

(6) In addition to salaries and contracts for materials and services, crucial prison issues to research include:

• Numbers of prison personnel in ratio to prisoners
• Profiles of individual prisons.
• Kinds of prison industries if any; postrelease skills they provide if any; wages paid to prisoners if any; wages paid to personnel in charge of programs; net amount of profit or loss to prison.
• Medical and drug experimentation on prisoners.
• How the "company store" or commissary is run and use of profits.
• Guards unions and their role in blocking prison change.

With the exception of guards' unions, information can be found on all these issues in the documents mentioned above. Feedback from prisoners, ex‑prisoners and prisoners' presses is essential in your research because they more than anyone know how the system really works.

Your right to public information

Remember that the information you seek from public agencies is essentially public information. Many states have fairly comprehensive public information laws which detail procedures for securing information from uncooperative bureaucracies. Withholding of information can and must be challenged.

In Connecticut, for instance, the Freedom of Information Act (Public Act 75‑342) opens meetings of state and town agencies to the public and restricts the use of executive session when the public can be excluded. It also gives every person the right to inspect and copy most public records held by state and town agencies. A Freedom of Information Commission which can act on citizen complaints, has the power to investigate alleged violations of the act. It may hold hearings, examine witnesses, receive evidence, and may order public agencies to comply. The commission also has subpoena power and the power to fine an official. A decision of the commission may be appealed within 15 days to the Court of Common Pleas for the county in which the public agency or official is located. Such appeals have priority over most actions, so speedy resolution of differences is assured.

If your state doesn't have a Freedom of Information Act, and you would like to sponsor one, write the Freedom of Information Commission, Office of the Secretary of State, 30 Trinity Street, Hartford, Conn. 06115 for a copy of Public Act No. 75‑342. Not a perfect bill, but a very good beginning.

If legal help is needed on your right to information, contact the closest American Civil Liberties Union office. The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, 57 Pratt Street, Hartford, Conn. 06103, has a handy brochure entitled, "Your Right To Government Information: Questions and Answers on Connecticut's Freedom of Information Act."

Educating the public

A primary purpose of your prison research is public education. One good example of how prison research has been pulled together into an effective educational piece is found in an abolitionist pamphlet, The Price of Punishment: Prisons in Massachusetts, written by Prison Research Project. (See resource section). Information is made interesting and understandable by the use of attractive lay‑out and graphics.

While continually focussing on the oppressive role of guards, the pamphlet separates the role of guards from the human beings serving in those roles. They remind us that part of the job of abolishing prisons is to overcome the opposition of the men and women who run them and make a living off the system. Most guards come from the same class background as prisoners, and they end up in prison for much the same reason: they have little chance of finding other employment. A guard learns no skills that would lead to better opportunities. Also like prisoners, guards graduate from prison to prison and then to the forestry camps. A few guards become wardens, but for most the job is a dead end.

They hope guards may come to realize that they are prisoners of the system and themselves rebel against its inhumanity. But right now guards are struggling to keep their livelihood, just as prisoners are struggling for the right to earn one. The guards too must be offered a way out of the prisons. Because of the inability of the state to offer them other employment, the state has encouraged guards to sabotage even small reforms in the system.

Research/action as organizing

We've particularly called your attention to a method of data gathering we call advocacy research. As advocates of prison abolition our goal is to gradually decrease and limit the functions of prisons in our society. The research we chose to undertake and the data we chose to gather support this long range goal.

As advocacy researchers, our first task is to identify the central and most compelling situationwe wish to change thru our research/action strategies. For instance, to use a chilling metaphor: If we were researching Auschwitz concentration camp, we would not in good conscience choose to do a study on air pollution. That was not the central problem there. The central issue was the fact that millions of bodies were burning in those furnaces.

Likewise in prisons, abolition research/action advocates have a central task: To end the system of caging which is cruel, inhuman and wasteful of human potential. We do not go into prisons or the power structure to measure the efficacy of caging or rehabilitation. All our research/action strategies are rooted in ending the system.

While local designs for research/action projects will vary, all serious prison abolition groups require a research/action component. By creating research/action collectives, both state and local, expertise can be developed in a short period of time, isolation can be overcome and members will benefit from each other's accumulated experiences. Researchers will be surprised to discover how much important information about the prison system they can uncover, particularly with the cooperation of prisoners inside the walls.

The Massachusetts pamphlet, The Price of Punishment is but one example of how research materials can be used to educate the public and bring about change. Materials can also be used in leaflets, articles, discussions, legislative testimony, television programs, letters to the editor and public conferences.

Most importantly, prison research/action collectives can form the hub around which prison moratorium groups can organize, new legislation can be drafted and abolition strategies and tactics can develop.

Empowered by our knowledge of the prison system and strengthened by our belief in the humanity of our goal, our movement to abolish cages can provide impetus for those who believe that change is possible, even tho the forces that oppose our struggle are powerful.

Those who profess to love freedom and yet deprecate agitation are those who want crops without plowing. This struggle may be a moral one, it may be physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

‑Frederick Douglass, 1857