Learn more about the Nationwide Prison Strike at www.prisonstrike.com.

Visit Amani Sawari's website at www.sawarimi.org for ongoing information, resources and details about the prison strike.

Sign up here to join or support the Millions for Prisoners’ Human Rights Coalition:

The Daily Kos has a petition to demand the end of legalized prison slavery. Sign the petition here.

Want to send letters to prisoners who have been retaliated against for their involvement with the strike? Here is a list of prisoners being retaliated against, organized by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee.

Prison Slavery

Slavery is not over yet. It is infused into the criminal-justice system. Here’s the text of the 13th amendment of the U.S. Constitution to confirm that:
“Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

What does Prison Slavery look like?
- First you need to criminalize freed slaves. These were called Black Codes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)
- Then you need Henry Anslinger’s to work with Nixon to make a drug war that explicitly targets people of color: https://timeline.com/harry-anslinger-racist-war-on-drugs-prison-industrial-complex-fb5cbc281189
- Then you make prisoners work for unjust wages: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/opinion/national-prison-strike-slavery-.html
- Finally, just so people cannot escape back into freedom, you make people freed from prison work to pay off the cost of their own incarceration: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-prison-strike-labor-criminal-justice_us_5b9bf1a1e4b013b0977a7d74

Prisons For-Profit

Any capitalist knows the power of the profit motive to help people find creative ways to make more money. What happens when there is a profit incentive for people to be caught and imprisoned for crimes?
You get the biggest prison system in the world where one out of every 100 Americans is serving time behind bars.

This Huffington Post article breaks it down well. “Jailing Americans for Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex”