Why prisoner support is important

Prisoner support should be an essential facet of any anarchist’s political activities; yet our prisoner support groups attract so little actual support from our fellow anarchists. Why is this?

The following article has been written by comrades from Brighton ABC, with input from other anarchists including us here in Bristol. The article is due to appear in the special issue of Freedom newspaper to be given out at the London Anarchist Bookfair on 24 October 2009. We think its well worth circulating far more widely….

Why Prisoner Support?
Prisoner support should be an essential facet of any anarchist’s political activities; yet our prisoner support groups attract so little support from our fellow anarchists. Why is this?

Of course, it is natural for us to support someone we are close to, friends and family or even a comrade from ones affinity group, when they are banged up. Yet why do so few anarchists support comrades from within the wider movement, let alone prisoners in general? Mutual aid and solidarity are surely a central tenet of the anarchist ‘belief system’, one brick that any anarchist society should be built upon, yet it is something that often doesn’t extend beyond one’s immediate environment (family/friends/affinity group).

The ongoing struggle against prisons and the prison society

Prisons are in the news this week, and not just because of the shocking statistic that the prison population has increased by 66% since 1995, to  just over 84000 locked up human beings. The main furore has been the call by the Prison Governors to abolish prison sentences of less than 1 year, which is a start…but their call is not driven by a sudden awakening to the concept of freedom. No its down to fear, fear that their overcrowded, corrupt and inhumane institutions are close to exploding, despite the introduction of countless measures since the Strangeways riot in 1990 to ever more control and isolate prisoners.

News from the campaign against prison slavery

The last couple of days has seen the Guardian newspaper publish a major article by Richard Cookson and Phil Chamberlain headlined ‘Inside the sell blocks: Major companies are using prisoners as cheap labour through secretive government contracts. But who else benefits?’ on prison labour in the UK, which mentions the Campaign Against Prison Slavery (CAPS). See http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/sep/09/prisoners-cheap-labour-major-companies