New Years Eve Noise Demonstration

  • December 24, 2014 9:01 pm

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2014 has been an inspirational year, all over the world people have rose up together against the systems of control that dominate their lives. From Ayotzinapa students fighting for the return of their missing friends, to anarchists in Greece fighting for the education of their imprisoned comrade. From the Unist’ot’en defending their territories from colonial pipeline development, to Ferguson, Missouri where a wave of riots inspired the whole country to take a stand against police.

We would love to take a small opportunity this New Years Eve to celebrate and show our solidarity with all the struggles that warm our hearts and bring us a step closer to freedom. We’re calling for a short march and noise demonstration this New Years Eve, as a way to celebrate the revolts this year has brought and to break the isolation the state uses to punish those labeled criminals.

Prison is a tool the state uses to isolate captives and fracture communities. As long as we strive for freedom prisons will be an obstacle we must overcome. A noise demonstration is a small but meaningful show of solidarity with everyone locked up inside, letting them know they are not alone and not forgotten.

Meet us on New Years Eve at Franklin Square at 6pm. Bring friends, banners, leaflets, and anything that makes noise!

Until the world is free of cages!

 

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Locked Down, Locked Out with author Maya Schenwar

  • December 1, 2014 12:01 pm

From Decarcerate PA

Decarcerate PA and Wooden Shoe Books presents…

Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better looks at how prison tears families and communities apart, creating a rippling effect that touches every corner of our society. Through the stories of prisoners and their families, as well as her own family’s experience of her sister’s incarceration, Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans—and decimates poor communities of color—is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety.

The destruction does not end upon exiting the prison walls: the 95 percent of prisoners who are released emerge with even fewer economic opportunities and fewer human connections on the outside than before. Locked Down, Locked Out shows how incarceration takes away the very things that might enable people to build better lives.

Looking toward a future beyond imprisonment, Schenwar profiles community-based initiatives that foster antiracist, anticlassist, prohumanity approaches to justice. These programs successfully deal with problems—both individual harm and larger social wrongs—through connection rather than isolation, moving toward a safer, freer future for all of us.

“This book has the power to transform hearts and minds, opening us to new ways of imagining what justice can mean for individuals, families, communities and our nation as a whole.” -Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

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Maya Schenwar is Editor-in-Chief of Truthout, an independent social justice news website. She has written about the prison-industrial complex for Truthout, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Jersey Star-Ledger, Ms. Magazine, Prison Legal News, and others. She is the recipient of a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Chi Award and a Lannan Residency Fellowship, both for her writing on prisons. Previous to her work at Truthout, Maya was Contributing Editor at Punk Planet magazine and served as media coordinator for Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

Sunday December 7th
7pm
Wooden Shoe Books
704 South St

Poster

Holiday Cards to Prisoners!! People’s Paper Co-op and Decarcerate PA

  • November 17, 2014 3:32 pm

from Holiday Cards to Prisoners!! People’s Paper Co-op and Decarcerate PA

[November 18th 6pm-8pm

Temple Contemporary 2001 N 13th St, Philly]

Please join the People’s Paper Co-op and Expungement Project Decarcerate PA and Temple Contemporary for a rare night of paper making, letter writing, and reflections from former prisoners and criminal justice reform activists.

Hear amazing speakers, make paper, and send holiday cards for prisoners to mail to their families and friends!

The People’s Paper Co-op has been working with Temple students and community members to create hundreds of handmade blank paper cards. During the event we will be packaging these cards and sending them to prisoners across Pennsylvania. These cards can be used by prisoners to send something special, something that took many hands and a transformative process to make, to their friends or family members. This will create points of exchange across the state while acting as a vehicle for bringing students, former prisoners, and community activists together to discuss these issues.

Poster

October 22nd: Stop Silencing of Mumia and all Prisoners

  • October 20, 2014 10:47 am

from OCT 22: Stop Silencing of Mumia and all Prisoners:

From Ferguson to Philly: Speak Out Against Police Terror and police brutality

Oct. 22 in Philadelphia

• 12pm (noon)
Press conference opposing the bill and announcing preventive actions to be taken. Exact location TBA.

• 4-5pm
Oct.22 is also a national day against police brutality and mass incarceration. Join in a Honk on these issues at City Hall (15th & Market).

• 5:30-7:30pm
In the evening there will be a Town Hall gathering to discuss the potential impact of the RRA, its connection to youth struggles against police brutality, incarceration and for education rights, and actions we can take. Location: Rm 24, Gladfelter Hall, 11th & Berks, Philadelphia.
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Last week the Pennsylvania Legislature fast-tracked
the “Revictimization Relief Act” to give virtually
unlimited discretion to District Attorneys and the
PA Attorney General to silence prisoner speech by
claiming such speech causes victims’ families
“mental anguish.” The RRA targets both prisoners’
speech and supporters who distribute the speech.

PA Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) called this law “the most extreme violation of the First Amendment imaginable.” In seeking to silence the legally protected speech of prisoners the state also damages the public’s right and freedom to know at a time when more attention is being focused on mass incarceration and police
brutality. It is an attack on a freedom that must be guarded — especially when and if officials do not agree with the content of speech they hear.

This legislation emerged as a politically-charged response, on the part of the Fraternal Order of Police and its political allies, when they were unable to stop PA prisoner and radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from delivering his October 5 commencement address at Goddard College in Vermont, where Abu-Jamal earned his BA in 1996 while on death row. Students at Goddard collectively chose Abu-Jamal as their commencement speaker and the college administration supported the invitation. In this case, this law would deny the school the right to hear from its alumnus, Abu-Jamal.

With the growing number of executions by the police and vigilantes across the U.S. and the passage of flagrantly unconstitutional laws as seen in Pennsylvania, we the people have to organize collectively in our neighborhoods and in the streets to oppose the increasingly ominous display of rogue state power in Pennsylvania.

For the full statement issued in response to this law and to sign on as endorsers to the call visit: http://www.emajonline.com/2014/10/call-to-action-against-pa-laws-to-silence-prisoners/
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For more information
In Philly: 215-724-1618; phillyIAC@gmail.com
In NY: 917-930-0804 bringMumiahome.com

Oct 18th Books Through Bars Fundraiser

  • October 12, 2014 4:40 pm

Reposted from BOOKS THROUGH BARS FUNDRAISER:

BTB Fundraiser Flier

Saturday October 18th, 2pm to 10pm

Lava Space, 4134 Lancaster Ave

FUNDRAISER FOR BOOKS THROUGH BARS

WORKSHOP + SPEAKERS 2-6PM
Decarcerate PA
Hearts on a Wire
The Center for Returning Citizens
HRC
Books Through Bars
Address This!
(if you or your organizations want to table/ present your work contact us at noam@booksthroughbars.org)

Food will be provided by West Philly Food Not Bombs!

GET YOUR SWAG ON: T-shirts will be screenprinted at the event. Buy a shirt or bring your own!

BOOK DRIVE: Bring books for incarcerated folks!

ROCKERS SHOW 6-10PM
HOSTED BY MMGZ
FEATURING

ROSEMARY FIKI
BRIELLE LEILANI
JALEEL KHALIL JORDAN
KING AZAZ
PAULETTE BRANSON
FREEDOM PRESSLEY

Featuring guest speakers rasheedah from the afrofuturist affair and more

Mission
We believe a society of social and economic inequality leads to a cycle of crime and incarceration. We work to reverse the dehumanizing effects excessive punishment inflicts upon individuals, families and communities. Books Through Bars sends quality reading material to prisoners and encourages creative dialogue on the criminal justice system, thereby educating those living inside and outside of prison walls.

SUPPORTED BY PHILLYPRINTWORKS, AFROFUTURIST AFFAIR, FOOD NOT BOMBS, ROCKERS, DECARCERATE PA

Questions about how you can help contact
noam.keim@gmail.com
sdfsbooking@gmail.com