Essay On Prison Movement
Prisoners began movements in prison in order to fight for the acknowledgment and deconstruction of the slave labor they produce. Those incarcerated in the United States do labor at no cost, or receive little compensation in conditions less than inhuman simply due to the fact that they are or will be convicted of crimes. Therefore, as Kinetik Justice said in Solidarity From Solitary: The National Prison Strike, “These strikes are our method for challenging mass incarceration. The prison system is a continuation of the slave system.” However, what makes prisoner's movement differ from other movements is how participants in the movement managed to amass resources and distribute resources efficiently inside the total institution that is prison.
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What they’re getting is being used for free prison labor.”
Prisons don’t make a profit from rehabilitation but rather from labor that is produced from little to no cost at all by prisoners. As Whitney Benns notes in American Slavery, Reinvented,
"Legally, this labor may be totally uncompensated; more typically inmates are paid meagerly—as little as two cents per hour—for their full-time work in the fields, manufacturing warehouses, or kitchens.”
Due to the abuse of power from those controlling the prison system, those within (the prisoners) started movements to bring acknowledgment of the unjust treatment they have and continue to face. Those within the prison system managed to begin their movement, despite being in total institutions, through community. Prisoners worked together to communicate through contraband cell phones, letters, and other sources of communication such as communal time. As The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements notes, “Human time and effort along with money are the most widely appreciated kinds of resources that are more or less available to collective actors.” Through communication, prisoners were able to start boycotts through hunger strikes and sit-ins. The notable prison movement of Attica in 1971 showcased another method to distribute resources effectively, and that was taking hold of chance opportunities. As Learning from the Slaughter in Attica by Adam Gopnik notes of Attica
What they’re getting is being used for free prison labor.”
Prisons don’t make a profit from rehabilitation but rather from labor that is produced from little to no cost at all by prisoners. As Whitney Benns notes in American Slavery, Reinvented,
"Legally, this labor may be totally uncompensated; more typically inmates are paid meagerly—as little as two cents per hour—for their full-time work in the fields, manufacturing warehouses, or kitchens.”
Due to the abuse of power from those controlling the prison system, those within (the prisoners) started movements to bring acknowledgment of the unjust treatment they have and continue to face. Those within the prison system managed to begin their movement, despite being in total institutions, through community. Prisoners worked together to communicate through contraband cell phones, letters, and other sources of communication such as communal time. As The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements notes, “Human time and effort along with money are the most widely appreciated kinds of resources that are more or less available to collective actors.” Through communication, prisoners were able to start boycotts through hunger strikes and sit-ins. The notable prison movement of Attica in 1971 showcased another method to distribute resources effectively, and that was taking hold of chance opportunities. As Learning from the Slaughter in Attica by Adam Gopnik notes of Attica