abolitionist-kinaesthetics

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

apr 2023 | residency @ artsdepot

an artist development residency with renée bellamy, tuesdae houston & francesca matthys

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session #1 

check in (question?)

listen to the guided meditation

free write

listen to the track again (warm up): 1) tracing sensations—what responses? what moves? what gets activated? 2) sourcing information—impulse, tension, ache, weight, vibration, breath flow, blood flow… listening to the emergence of gestures and momentum

conversation: “What letter can stand in / for a jail cell / left open, / empty / and ringing / as a speechless mouth?” (benji hart, the limits of language”)—what embodiment, what movement can stand in for ___?

sharing gestures/movements/intentions

integration: move, write, draw, read

closing conversation

lunch 

session #2 

post-lunch check in

sharing passages on everyday abolition

embodied processing (warm up): with news articles, papers, space to move, read, write, listen etc

share transformative justice scenarios

discuss: what are the emotions? how to transform from a place of shame, guilt and punishment?

embodied enactment: 1) discuss, analyse and write down the different perspectives—what are the needs? what are the driving emotions? what are the carceral impulses? what are the possibilities for transformation? 2) starting with chairs in centre, each person decides a role/perspective and starts a conversation—sharing needs, emotions & impulses, and figuring out ways forward

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notes on practice:

the social, economic, emotional needs that are not met that leads to harms

tuesdae:

bench pressing for accountability: everyday consistency

accountability partnership

the organising, warm up, the cool down, the decompressing of the accountability workout

community accountability

renée:

conflict resolution to deeper relationship

avoidance/sharing? absorbing conflicts?

june:

accountability partnership

trauma filtered reactions

tuesdae:

time and space for accountability

self accountability is part of community accountability and vice versa

renée:

restraint/suppression?: working with, processing, and sitting with immediate feelings around conflicts

francesca:

thinking of others as yourself

meditation as a tool of finding capacities

navigating through intergenerational trauma stored in cellular memories as resources for the now

a world without police? what about safety? what about harm doers?

tuesdae:

recognising our shared capacities to do harms

“we are making these people”: inseparability of harms and the shared conditions that enable harms

harms and violence are amongst us, part of us

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post-residency debriefing:

renée:

cultivating accountability practice as liberating; willing to try and being open to making/admitting mistakes

june:

removing shame

francesca:

sustainability of accountability partnership—how to practice (logistics), availability, capacity etc

drawing strength from community

tuesdae:

time given intentionally to accountability

june:

requiring radical reorganisation of everyday life—priority, routine, etc

tuesdae:

cooling off (or warming up) before accountability practice

june:

role playing didn’t work because 1) fraught nature of the incident introduced 2) skewed gender dynamic 3) being in other people’s shoes vs being the authority who has all the answers

tuesdae:

creating models of practice

renée:

using dance practice as metaphor for exploration; making the jump to embodiment

[image description: a picture of a dance studio with papers, pens and chairs scattered on the floor.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

jun 2, 2022 | artist archive @ siobhan davies studios

a full-day event with a meditation room installation, a social practice picnic & a movement workshop plus a mini book exhibition

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post-event reflection:

in the wake of the live archive, i’ve been sitting with a very, very simple idea from mia mingus (as i paraphrase): accountability is the work it takes to change.

accountability is the work it takes to change. and this work is so, so hard. we made a peaceful meditation for it, but in reality it’s so incredibly hard. we all have been there.

with so much past traumas and griefs we carry, some unknowingly, it is often the fight-or-flight mode that gets activated when things get tough, not the commitment to the work it takes to change. it’s so hard because feelings are involved—being wronged, being hurt, feeling guilty or feeling ashamed. it’s so hard because sometimes choosing the work it takes to change means acting against our most immediate desires.

we have to learn to desire otherwise. we have to practise desiring otherwise. and i am convinced that this learning, this work it takes to change, would be less daunting and more possible, if we do it with others. after all, what is self accountability without an accountable community?

let’s all be friends in this long journey with abolition.

image credit: amelia tan

[image description: a picture of a dance studio on a sunny day with 3 large windows that reach the ceiling. on the floor there is a bean bag, a small rug and a few pillows.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

abundant care, against time: collaborative movement practice as a method of abolitionist world making

an introduction

abolitionist kinaesthetics: movement works in end times

this project began with a desire for relationships, intentional relationships that give us opportunities to learn and to practise care and interdependence as well as accountability and conflict resolution. learning from the social movements that aim to abolish prisons, detention centres and systems of surveillance as well as the carceral logics of punishment and disposability, this movement research asks, what is the place of collective movement practice in the imagination and creation of a world without prisons, without police, without borders and without racialised criminalisation?

as the social praxis of transformative justice has taught us, if we no longer wish to rely on prison and police to address harms and conflicts in our communities, if we believe that these institutions perpetuate the cycle of harm, without really addressing the social conditions that make harm possible in the first place—be it trauma, structural poverty or systems of oppression—then we must collectively build our own tools and knowledge that can grow and nurture intentional relationships amongst us in which not only do we practise community care, mutual aid and collective healing, but we also learn to cultivate community accountability, transform harmful social conditions and dismantle oppressive political and economic structures.

from march through june 2021, i invited jeremy and frieda to be in the process with me as we posed the question of abolition to movement practice, that is, what is an abolitionist way of moving? across 3 different continents and in 3 different time zones, we shared amongst us resources, movement prompts and our responses to them. in an asynchronous way, at different paces and in different timelines, we converged, diverged and sometimes collided, as we shared our processes and witnessed each other’s along the way. these movement prompts were creative springboards for connection and temporary containers for something that is harder to define—the process and the practice of being in intentional relationship with one other.

amidst a global pandemic and following the ongoing international movements against anti-blackness and police violence, in what felt like the end of time and the end of the world as we know it, how do we make abolition into our everyday practice, into our everyday relationships? how might movement practice be a kinaesthetic method through which we body forth these world-making relationships, guided by curiosity, imagination and experimentation? what is an abolitionist way of moving, together?

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a virtual sharing of the project (which included a process film, a reading and a guided meditation) took place on june 9, 2021.

click here for a list of references for the project.

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uk abolitionist campaigns & resources

community action on prison expansion: https://cape-campaign.org/

abolitionist futures: https://abolitionistfutures.com/

kill the bill: https://www.instagram.com/killthebill_official/

stop sim: https://www.stopsim.co.uk/

preventing prevent: https://twitter.com/abolish_prevent

the prison island report by corporate watch: https://corporatewatch.org/prisonisland/

migrants organise: https://www.migrantsorganise.org/

close the camps uk: https://www.closethecamps.uk/

justice for kevan: https://justiceforkevan.org/

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

jun 9 | practice sharing (process film + short essay + meditation audio)

watch an excerpt of the process film (original film 18 mins) --- an impromptu film made with fragments of practice footages, phone conversations and wondering-out-louds, contemplating on the meanings of building relationships, resisting time and practising care under capitalism

read the short visual essay: “abolitionist notes on confinement, critical dance studies & race” --- provisional notes on practice that turn to critical dance studies to consider the relations between abolition and movement, starting with the question, “what does dance studies have to say about confinement?”

listen to the guided meditation (27 mins) --- an audio recording that consists of a meditative guide on becoming aware of our embodied knowledge of abolition and sound extracts from interviews with abolitionist organisers on the practices of transformative justice

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audio credits: process film---mariame kaba in “on the road with abolition” by haymarket books via youtube; guided meditation---ruth wilson gilmore in ashley hunt’s ashes ashes (2020), excerpted from critical resistance’s “making abolition irresistible” webinar via youtube; shira hassan, martina kartman, rachel herzing, mia mingus, priya rai and lea roth in “everyday practices transformative justice” by the barnard center for research on women

top image: a still from the process film

[image description: a photo taken at a dance studio; a person facing sideway, shown from the chin down and the waist up, can be seen on the left of the picture, with their arm holding out in front of them.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

excerpts from linda moore, phil scraton & azrini wahidin, intro to women’s imprisonment and the case for abolition: critical reflections on corston ten years on, eds., moore, scraton & wahidin (2018)

“In England and Wales, the number of women held in prison peaked at 4,467 in 2005... Analysis... showed that women’s imprisonment was unconnected to crime rates but was linked to increasingly punitive legislation, tougher policies and harsh sentences. This included the so-called war on drugs; the criminalisation of migration; growing inequality, particularly as a consequence of economic austerity; and cuts in community mental health provision.” (pp. 1-2)

“[C]ritical and feminist research highlighted women’s gendered experiences of the pains of imprisonment. This body of research revealed that women’s ‘pathways’ into and through the criminal justice system are laid by poverty, mental ill health and experiences of trauma, violence and coercion. Further, it demonstrated the gender-specificity of women’s carceral experiences: how women are infantilised, oppressed and debilitated by prison regimes. For many, this included enforced separation from their children; for others, during pregnancy, through childbirth and during the postnatal period. The continuum of violence more generally associated with incarceration impacts women differentially, ranging from gendered verbal abuse, the emotional distress of isolation, oppressive monitoring and surveillance through to unsanctioned – and sanctioned – use of force, including strip-searches and physical restraint.” (p. 2)

“[R]ather than focusing on women’s offending, the starting point should be challenging the criminalisation of women and the material circumstances in which it occurs... [V]iewing experiences of poverty, disadvantage, mental ill health and gendered harm as ‘pathways’ to offending holds women responsible as individuals for situations derived in structural inequalities.” (p. 4)

“[T]he gender-specific reform of women’s incarceration has failed because in form, content and delivery, it cannot succeed. Commitment to penal reform dates back to Elizabeth Fry’s nineteenth-century endeavours to create regimes appropriate for women’s rehabilitation. Ultimately, prisons are punitive, oppressive institutions; however, they are reformulated and whatever dubious claims are made in their defence. Like its predecessors, the twenty-first-century prison ‘grinds down the poor and the powerless,’ while the criminal justice system rarely operates to police and prosecute corporate or state crime. Amid the despair produced by the global penal crisis, however, there are positive developments. In England, a strong campaign has developed to reclaim the site of the now-closed Holloway Prison for affordable social housing and services rather than for private development. In May 2017, Sisters Uncut occupied the site, aiming to ‘translate the victimisation of women into an expression of political power, giving political agency back to women and non-binary people.’ It would be an appropriate and powerful legacy on a site of desolation and so much suffering.” (pp. 4-5)

“Ending the prison industrial complex and the pipeline from marginalised communities to jail, however, requires a profound and lasting shift in the structural, material inequalities that blight the lives of so many; a shift that runs through all political and economic institutions, delivered through necessary investment in housing, neighbourhood, community, schooling, health, welfare and social support.” (p. 8)

image: sisters uncut’s occupation of holloway prison (may 2017), via libcom.org

[image description: a picture of a building being occupied by protesters. a group of women stand on top of the the building, holding colourful smoke grenades as the smoke go up into the sky. in front of them, two banners are dropped from the top of the building.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

excerpts from ashley lucas, intro to prison theatre and the global crisis of incarceration (2020)

“this book calls upon us to consider how incarcerated people use theatre to make their struggles visible to one another, prison staff, and other audiences. this theatre also reveals how prisons shape all of our lives, whether we know it or not... the theatre can make us question notions of whether any person is deserving of the things that the incarcerated endure and whether any of this makes us safer... we should never forget that all of our notions of freedom are built upon the backs of those who are not free. in the theatre we can join together---from both sides of the walls---to imagine a different way to live.” (p. 4)

“artistic practice of any kind can certainly have many emotional and psychological benefits for us all, but in this respect people in prison are not exceptional. i do not resist the work of arts therapy or contest the idea that art making is an inherently therapeutic process, but it becomes problematic when used as a measuring stick for success... moreover, prisons cause many subsequent and repeated forms of trauma (i.e. family separation, witnessing and experiencing violence, being trapped and powerless) for which incarcerated people need therapy; it does not make sense to claim the prison as a site for therapeutic work.“ (p. 8)

“in prisons, both the folks who live inside the walls and those of us who visit or volunteer always have the sense that everything could be taken away at any moment.“ (p. 10)

“because we know that our ability to congregate can be taken away from us at any time, each moment that we have together feels heightened and precious. in theatrical terms, we are truly present with one another, in the moment, and not contemplating what comes next.“ (p. 11)

“theatre in prison certainly does more than entertain, but it neither makes people free nor gives them back their prior lives. rather, as chloé branders argued... we should get much more specific about the ways theatre does and does not make people free... we should never be casual or totalizing in saying that the theatre makes people free or helps them escape---emotionally or otherwise---when it does not actually release them from the walls that imprison them.“ (p. 12)

“most of the people i met wanted to talk about what the theatre was doing in their lives at present, about how it helped them survive the daily torments of confinement. i realized in listening to them that people in prison are often using theatre as a strategy to accomplish something other than staging a play... incarcerated actors, stage managers, technicians, and audiences experience the theatre as a way to temporarily shift the power dynamics of the prison and to engage in a celebration of their lives.“ (p. 13)

image: inside bitch, clean break theatre company at the royal court theatre (2019), a play by 4 formerly incarcerated women

[image description: a picture taken at a theatre production. 4 women can be seen standing, wearing teal coloured overalls. behind them is a red velvet curtain.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

melanie crean, shaun leonardo & sable elyse smith, mirror/echo/tilt (2016-2019) --- performance / film / curriculum

project description for the film (2019):

Mirror/Echo/Tilt is a performance and pedagogical project created by artists Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith to examine the language and gestures used to describe experiences of arrest and incarceration.

Culminating a four-year collaboration between the artists, the exhibition premieres a multichannel video installation that depicts performances they developed with participants in intensive workshops and filmed largely in decommissioned prisons, empty courthouses, and other psychically charged architectural spaces in New York City.

Drawing on principles from speculative fiction, somatic movement, cognitive psychology, and radical theater, the artists and participants use visual storytelling to reframe their experiences and open up new possibilities for resisting systems of control. Fragmented, doubled, and slowed movements defamiliarize mainstream narratives about carcerality. The project’s title, Mirror/Echo/Tilt, is inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’s famous novel Don Quixote (1605–15), which was written from prison. Much like Cervantes’s novel, Mirror/Echo/Tilt complicates the boundary between fiction and reality, and explores how radically shifting the way we tell stories can challenge dominant power structures.

The project also takes the form of a living curriculum practiced with court-involved youth, formerly incarcerated adults, and individuals otherwise vulnerable to the justice system. The curriculum focuses on undoing the language around culturally embedded conceptions of criminality and will serve as an open resource that lives beyond the artists and the exhibition.

Mirror/Echo/Tilt was the New Museum’s fourth annual Summer Art and Social Justice residency and exhibition. It featured private workshops for community partners, public forums and readings, and a resource room with visions for justice contributed by visitors and facilitated by the New Museum Teen Apprentice Program, a summer youth employment program.

image: a still from the film

[image description: a picture of two black persons standing one behind the other, both with their backs facing the camera. the one who stands behind the other has their hand placed on the other person’s back. they both wear white. they are looking out of a door/window, yet the brightness outside makes it hard to see what’s out there. the walls that frame the door/window have a reddish colour.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

excerpts from benji hart, “lesson plan---vogue and abolition: understanding the prison industrial complex through the ballroom scene” on radical faggot (may 6, 2013)

“Ask participants if they have ever heard of the term ‘the prison industrial complex’ before, and if possible work together to provide a definition for the group: ‘The P.I.C. is a term for a group of systems that work together to create violence in our communities, and rely on incarceration as the only answer to that violence. Today we will be talking together about how to better understand the P.I.C., how it relates to our own communities, and how we can challenge it. Ballroom scene history is key in giving us some examples which can help us answer these questions, as we will see soon. Angela Davis, a Black feminist and member of the movement to abolish prisons, has said that examining the experiences of the most marginalized members of the prison system can shed the greatest amount of light on the larger structure. Today we will be using vogue to look at our own experiences as queer people of color to expose the P.I.C. and think about how the creativity of our communities can be used to resist it.’”

“‘Discussing these connections is important because it shows us that even if the term P.I.C. is a new one for us, it is something that we and our communities have been struggling with and fighting against for a long time. As we move to the dancing portion of our workshop, we will leave the notes from our discussion up on the board. Keep them in mind, and as we are moving, think about how some of these themes show up in vogue movement, where you notice them and can find them, and how vogue works to challenge some of the problems we talked about today.’ From here, transition into the movement activities planned for the day. Participants in the workshop will be learning the basics of the vogue styles of new way and vogue femme, so will most likely be practicing specific moves or working on improvisation. As participants are working together or receiving individual attention, try to work in discussion of the day’s themes as they relate to specific moves, styles, and ways of dancing. Try and keep the connection from the earlier discussions in the back of folks’ minds as they are dancing.”

“‘How does voguing and the ballroom scene as a whole break up the flow between the pieces of this complex? How can we as a community use voguing in the future to keep challenging and disrupting this system?’ As participants make suggestions, add them to a final column of concrete strategies for challenging the P.I.C. These could include anything from ‘sharing our knowledge’ and ‘teaching this history to our friends,’ to ‘using dance at a demonstration or protest’ and ‘supporting sex workers’ rights.’ While this is a challenging closing activity, push participants to come up with as many concrete strategies for resisting the P.I.C. as possible, and have a few examples ready in case the group gets stuck.”

image: a still from kemar jewel, “vogue 4 #blacklivesmatter”

[image description: a picture taken on the streets. in the foreground, a dancer wearing all black with a black mask is doing a “dip” from vogue dance at a pedestrian crossing---on the floor with one leg up extended to the sky and arms stretched out to prop the torso slightly off the floor. behind the dancer to the right is a police car in park. some lights from a store and some pedestrians are in the background to the left.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

soul journey to truth, exhibition curated by lady unchained (brenda birungi) at home manchester (may-jun 2021)

exhibition description from home manchester’s website:

Soul Journey to Truth is an exhibition that shines a light on the creative talent within prisons, secure settings, and people on probation in the North West.

Lady Unchained (Brenda Birungi) has curated over 135 artworks from entries to the 2020 Koestler Awards – an annual scheme run by Koestler Arts, the UK’s leading prison arts charity promoting artistic achievement in the criminal justice system and secure sectors.

This exhibition aims to share the fragile and powerful stories through art that would otherwise go unheard.

Visitors can explore visual art, music and writing that imagine hopeful futures and reflect diverse voices. Artworks are curated into themes of A Moment for Self-reflection, Forest, Animals, Texts, Black History Dedication and Paths.

A soundscape and wider playlist, accessible online, places specific emphasis upon the voices of women within the criminal justice system.

Lady Unchained is the Founder and Creative Director of Unchained Poetry, an artistic platform for artists with lived experience of the criminal justice system. Her mission is to prove that there is life after prison and challenge the ex-offender label through creativity.

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excepts from an interview with curator lady unchained with home manchester (may 17, 2021)

“I want to tell the story of what it takes to be creative in prison, in a facility where your freedom has been taken away. What it takes to be artistic in those places. I had to show everything. You can see the pain, the reflection, that somebody in jail goes through to put this piece of artwork out. It’s pain, it’s anger, it’s reliving scars, reopening wounds and finally finding that healing where you can share this.”

“Every single piece of artwork, if I could have put it in there, I would have. Because I’ve been to jail and I know how much it takes to put your name on. I know that this is a piece of your heart that you’ve given to some random person who doesn’t even know you.”

“I figured that if I didn’t have Black History Dedication in talking about the prison or criminal justice system, I’d be lying, because the prison system is made up so many Black people. I think for me when I was in jail, there were a lot of people I looked up to, like Maya Angelou and Nelson Mandela. There were moments when I thought, ‘Whoa, Nelson Mandela went to jail and he became President. I have to do better’. Maybe there’s somebody in jail that is still confused, and they just need to be reminded of the Black people that have overcome some of these things.”

“Before I went to jail, I only saw myself as the Black British girl. Everybody knew I was African, I knew I was African, but I wouldn’t really talk about Africa. I wouldn’t explore that. When I went to prison, I was forced to embrace my African roots because I was threatened with deportation.”

“Art, poetry and creativity gives you an outlet that you didn’t know you needed until you start doing it. You’re healing yourself, without even knowing it. I think it’s so important to have this in places like prisons and exclusion centres. Places where young people are there because of some form of abuse that they will never express.”

“I want to open people’s eyes to prisons in particular, but also the people in prison. I can honestly say that before jail, I was the same. I would say, they committed a crime, they should be there. I was in this bubble, because I had never committed a crime, I’d never been involved in the criminal justice system personally, for me to feel or understand what it is when you are in that system.”

“I need them to understand that there are people just like me and them in jail. We are all one step away from a prison sentence, one step. You can make a mistake tomorrow that can end up with you in jail. You might have not planned to make that mistake. You might have just trusted the wrong person. I need them to understand that people behind bars are human, they have a soul, they have a beating heart. They have guilt. A lot of people are in jail because they trusted the wrong person, or went through something, say for example, a form of abuse that went unreported. Yet when they’re in front of a judge, they’re not going to bring that up and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I was abused at this age, and then from then I started using drugs.’”

“Sometimes people that have not been to jail or not had a family member or loved one in prison, need to see and hear somebody that looks or sounds like them, in order to understand. There are people in jail that firstly shouldn’t be in there because of their mental health issues, or there are people in mental health units that shouldn’t be in there, because they needed support before they even got to that place.”

“Fortunately for me, I made it out alive. When we present Self-reflection within the exhibition... there’s a lot of people in the criminal justice system that after the reflection stage don’t make it any further. They don’t reach paths home. We need to understand why that’s happening. If prison is a place where people are being looked after, then why is it that... you can lose your life? Let’s open our eyes, our hearts and our ears, and really understand what it takes for a person to complete a full sentence, and then even be creative while they’re in there. It takes so much. If we can just look into this artwork and see, not just a picture, not just the words, but see the person behind it, then maybe we’ll start to understand that these people in prison, people like me, need the support way before they get to that point.”

image: art work from the exhibition via home manchester

[image description: a red-blue print made perhaps by woodcut. the top is a portrait of a black man seen from the shoulder up, looking directly at the viewer. below, the text read: “london city. differences, race and class. 30% minorities. 300 languages. it’s all enormous.”]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

action now: campaigns against full sutton mega prison expansion (since feb 2021)

excerpts from “prisoners respond with cheers to protest surrounding hmp full sutton” in freedom news (jun 8, 2021)

“Around fifty people descended on HMP Full Sutton, East Yorkshire, in a historic demonstration on Saturday 5th June. Campaign groups are demanding an end to racist violence against incarcerated men of colour Kevan Thakrar and Dwayne Fulgence, and an end to the 1440-bed ‘mega prison’ expansion plan, which has been opposed by the local community members.”

“Speaking at the protest, Cammilla Mngaza said: If they build a new prison they are going to fill it up with Black and Brown people, they’re going to fill it up with Muslims, they are going to fill it up with the deprived.” “Campaign groups Sisters Uncut Leeds and Community Action on Prison Expansion (CAPE) are calling for the immediate transfer of Kevan Thakrar to a safer prison, as he has been the victim of racist violence from both guards and other incarcerated men.”

“Imprisoned since 2008 under the controversial ‘joint enterprise’ law in what his family have called a ‘miscarriage of justice’, Kevan Thakrar was held in ‘Supermax’ Close Supervision Centres (CSCs) – described as ‘prisons within prisons’ – for 11 years, restricted to his cell for 23 or more hours per day. Supporters say this treatment is violent retribution after he defended himself against a racist attack by prison guards in 2010.”

“Kevan Thakrar has been held in a dirty segregation cell with no electricity since the middle of April 2021. In 2019, he was also stabbed four times by a known racist also incarcerated at Full Sutton.”

“Dwayne Fulgence, a Black Muslim man also held in the segregation unit at Full Sutton, was severely beaten by four white officers in a racist attack on the 22nd April. The prison denied Dwayne access to medical treatment or a lawyer, and refused his applications to have photos taken of his injuries.”

“CAPE and Sister Uncut Leeds are also calling for a halt to the government’s plans to build a 1440-bed ‘mega prison’ at the site of HMP Full Sutton, part of the government’s plan to create more than 10,000 new prison places.A spokesperson from Sisters Uncut Leeds said: ‘As we see from the horrific racist attacks experienced by Kev and Dwayne, prisons are not the answer to serious violence in our society – they instead create more violence. The planned mega prison at Full Sutton means throwing more money at violence against people from marginalised communities at a time when essential domestic violence services are critically underfunded and austerity has deprived our communities for over a decade.’”

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statement from community action on prison expansion (cape) for the national demonstration on jun 5, 2021:

The Government are planning to build a 1440 bed mega-prison at the site of HMP Full Sutton. It will lock up thousands of people for years to come if built.

HMP Full Sutton has a long legacy of violence and racism. Officers act with impunity in the rural prison with beatings, racist abuse and violence as common occurrences.

Prison officers recently attacked Dwayne, a Black Muslim man held in the segregation unit. Dwayne was severely beaten by 4 white officers in a racist attack. He was left vomiting and dizzy in a cell covered in blood, denied medical treatment and access to a lawyer. His applications to have photos taken of his injuries have been refused by officers. It was three days until the prison staff cleaned the blood from his cell.

The prison is holding Kevan Thakrar in solitary confinement in the prison’s segregation unit. Kevan is a long term prisoner who has been campaigning for his freedom since 2008 when he was wrongly convicted due to systemic racism, ID parades and police corruption. Kevan was convicted under the racist Joint Enterprise Doctrine and the prison has repeatedly acted with violent retribution where he has tried to defend himself. Learn more about his case here: justiceforkevan.org

Kevan has been held in a dirty punishment cell with no electricity since the middle of April 2021. This demonstration is a demand to get him transferred out of the prison.

HMP Full Sutton is also the site of one of the country’s Close Supervision Centres. These are ‘prisons within prisons’, the UK equivalent of the USA’s ‘Supermax’ prisons. They are the highest security and most repressive prison units within the country, where prisoners are held in solitary confinement in an extremely controlled environment for long periods of time. Kevan Thakrar was placed in the CSC system after he defended himself against a racist attack by prison guards in 2010.

Kevan’s case and the broader CSC system have recently been the focus of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. They wrote: “…we express our grave concern at the indefinite and prolonged detention of Mr. Thakrar in what appears to be conditions of solitary confinement. Both in this individual case and in terms of general policy, we are particularly concerned at the reported use of prolonged or indefinite solitary confinement in Close Supervision Centers, thus predictably inflicting severe pain or suffering amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, or even torture.”

image: demonstration outside of hmp full sutton on jun 5, 2021 via freedom news

[image description: a picture taken from behind a group of people marching. two people in the foreground are holding a banner. on the left, a long and high wall; tall trees on the right. there is grass beneath and blue sky above.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

excerpts from david scott, afterward for for abolition: prisons and socialist ethics (2020)

“in early 2020, the uk government was provided with detailed epidemiological evidence of the ways in which prisons could become hotbeds of contagion during the covid-19 global pandemic. government experts advised that somewhere between 15,000-20,000 prisons of the then 83,000 prisoner population in england and wales should be released to avoid a potential humanitarian catastrophe of up to 3,000 prisoner deaths. at a time when politically there would have been little concerted challenge to the mass release of prisoners... the conservative government proved unable to escape from its punitive law and order mindset.“ (p. 231)

“prison regimes have always been unhealthy and unsafe for prisoners which, in turn, has had a devastating impact on their physical and psychological health. when it comes to deaths in custody, this has led to prisoners being blamed for their own deaths either because of individual pathology or they have died ‘naturally.’“ (p. 234)

“in the abolitionist imagination, it is essential that connections are made across a wide range of sites of exploitation, repression and domination. when calling for the dismantling of the penal apparatus of the capitalist state, such as the state police and prisons, it is essential that abolitionists consider together the historical legacies and contemporary manifestations of state racism; the insidious masculinist bias within the law and broader society; and the profound exploitation of capitalist labour relations. further, abolitionism must come from below. engagement with the political, social and economic elite will not deliver social justice and radical social and economic transformation unless it is strongly tied/connected to the ’view from below’ and infused with socialist emancipatory politics and praxis... ordinary rebels, everywhere, should utilise an ‘abolitionist imagination’ that situates the personal within the structural and ideological; and as a consequence, this can inform a pedagogy of freedom and help understand how the intersections of social divisions cut across state institutions and agencies of legal repression.” (pp. 235-236)

image: a bird’s-eye view of the surrey house of correction, wandsworth, now hmp wandsworth in london (circa 1860), via the national archives

[image description: a bird’s-eye view drawing of a prison; at the centre of the picture the main buildings can be seen in the shape of a cross, surrounded by other smaller buildings. at the bottom of the picture the text reads: “bird’s-eye view of the surrey house of correction at wandsworth.”]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

“to create safety is to build meaningful, accountable relationships”

excerpts from ejeris dixon, “building community safety: radical steps toward liberatory transformation” in dixon & piepzna-samarasinha, eds, beyond survival: strategies and stories from the transformative justice movement (2020)

“Transformative justice and community accountability are terms that describe ways to address violence without relying on police or prisons. These approaches often work to prevent violence, to intervene when harm is occurring, to hold people accountable, and to transform individuals and society to build safer communities. These strategies are some of the only options that marginalized communities have to address harm.” (p. 20)

“The work of transformative justice can happen in a variety of ways. Some groups support survivors by helping them identify their needs and boundaries while ensuring their attackers agree to these boundaries and atone for the harm they caused. Other groups create safe spaces and sanctuaries to support people escaping from violence. There are also community campaigns that educate community members on the specific dynamics of violence, how to prevent it, and what community-based programs are available.” (p. 21)

“As a person who has survived multiple forms of violence, I know that ending state violence alone will not keep me, my family, my friends, or my community safe. I’m excited by the campaigns that organizers are pursuing to divert money away from police departments and into community services. However, I want us to push this work one step further. I believe we can build community safety systems that will one day operate independently from the police and government.” (p. 21)

“The process of building community safety poses some critical questions to our movements: What is the world that we want? How will we define safety? How do we build the skills to address harm and violence? How do we create the trust needed for communities to rely on each other for mutual support?” (p. 22)

“Violence and oppression break community ties and breed fear and distrust. At its core, the work to create safety is to build meaningful, accountable relationships within our neighborhoods and communities.” (p. 23)

“Time and time again, I’ve known people who were saved by the relationships they built. I’ve witnessed people selling drugs address and intervene in transphobic violence because of relationships. I know friends who’ve helped their neighbors escape from violent relationships based on the connections they have built together. If and when violence occurs, the people who live closest are most likely to help us, and vice versa. Relationship building doesn’t have to involve old-school door-knocking. It can be as simple as attending community events, saying hello and introducing yourself to your neighbors, or inviting your neighbors to events that you organize. It can be talking to your noisy neighbor about calling the cops. It’s about the necessity of meeting the businesses and store owners in your immediate areas and on routes that you frequently use.” (pp. 23-24)

“The crucial questions are: What can you help build? What conversations can you start to increase the safety of your community? What new structures or collaborations will you create to decrease your reliance on the criminal legal system? Perhaps you want to think about one form of violence to work on and build your knowledge from there. You could start simply by having a dinner with your friends, family, and chosen family to discuss how you all can better support each other. Or you could raise the issue of police violence and harassment at your next tenants’ association meeting and see if there’s a way that your neighbors want to engage with each other rather than with the police. Next, you could research ways people can get emergency medical assistance outside of 911. The possibilities are endless.” (p. 27)

“No matter how small they are, our experiments should aspire to center the experiences of the most marginalized folks within our communities. One of the major challenges of the movements of the 1960s and 1970s was their inability to fully hold and implement an intersectional analysis. We need to make sure that our bold experiments center the experiences of Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, disabled people, trans people, poor people, low-income people, migrants, and all marginalized people. Starting small gives us the opportunity to collectively imagine community safety responses without telling anyone to wait their turn.” (pp. 27-28)

“In order to ensure safety for our communities, we need to have the necessary skills, whether those are skills in deescalating violence, planning for safety, resolving conflicts, holding community accountability processes, or navigating consent. In each case, there is a core skill set that creates a foundation for addressing interpersonal and state violence within our communities. One of our largest failures in this arena seems to stem from arrogance. There are times we believe we have the skills to address harm simply because we have a strong political analysis or a strong desire to address harm. There’s a substantial distinction between having skills and learning skills, between being experts and practicing.” (p. 28)

“I’ve spent the last ten years practicing verbal de-escalation strategies to address violence on the street, at events, and at actions and protests. I am constantly learning and growing. Every incident is different; sometimes I can reduce or diffuse conflict, and other times I fail miserably. The strategies or tactics that work in one instance can go horribly wrong in others, even under similar conditions. Intervening in violence in the moment calls for using nonverbal communication to read, communicate, and negotiate safety. With each incident I am developing my instincts; by practicing I learn, despite the outcome. We must practice community safety as we would practice an instrument or a sport. By practicing in slow, measurable, and deliberate ways, we build the knowledge we need to diffuse and address conflict within our communities.” (p. 29)

“What has kept you alive so far? What are the lessons and themes and patterns that you can draw from? How can you practice safety? Where can you deepen your knowledge? And what unlikely allies can you recruit as learning partners?” (pp. 31-32)

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

june’s “movement memento” for prompt #4 (jun 5) — video + text

this is a letter to nowhere, for someone i can’t claim that i know. the relation is so tenuous that even using the second-person address feels disingenuous. is it possible and do i have the right to write to someone i barely know? someone in the extended family—is it by chance or by circumstances that there is this measureless distance between us? years between us on an island ruled by a settler colonial state, in an era still reeling from the aftermaths of decades of martial law and state terror.

at the edges of memory, in the outer circle of kinship, i remember little. there were words spoken with a hushed voice. awkward greetings and acknowledgments. a name seldom mentioned and when it did, not much to be said and not to be brought up again. i cannot even recall your name; i don’t know your name. and i can’t remember your face clearly either.

troubled. delinquent. adrift. these were the words associated with someone who disappeared into the far background of a family gathering. far away from the centre of attention where the kids were; i was too young to take notice. there stood someone reserved, quiet, inscrutable even. pushed to the margins of familial relations and failed by the capitalist social-economic order. in a system that is relentless and denigrating to those who have a record—how have you survived all those years when care could be withheld, love was conditional and loss was always imminent?

abolition is a practice of relationship. but what relationship was and is possible between us?

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

brianna mims, jail bed drop (2017-2020) --- performance + interactive installation

project description from the artist’s website:

“The #jailbeddrop experience consists of a performance and interactive installation rooted in challenging our inherent notion between ‘crime’ and punishment. The work contextualizes and facilitates a space to explore interpersonal accountability and reflect those values back on our ‘criminal justice system.’ This work is an extension of the #jailbeddrop art series created by Patrisse Cullors and Cecilia Sweet-Coll through Justice LA.”

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excerpts from “brianna mims on prison abolition” in pure nowhere (jan 6, 2021)

“Back at the end of 2017, a coalition called JusticeLA (Los Angeles) was founded to address the issue of families being separated by the largest jail system in the world. I joined their creative action team as they were looking for ways to bring awareness to the issue. That's when Jail Bed Drop was birthed. We took 100 prison beds and set them up in front of the Board of Supervisors office in downtown LA as a demonstration and it went on from there. Since then we've given jail beds to artists for them to conceptualize their own pieces around the idea. There have been other Jail Bed Drops too. Some at Cal State, town hall, and other places. These were all building blocks, though not intentionally. I then teamed up with a friend for our performance art piece.”

“[T]here are two parts. One is a room we constructed that is the same size of a jail cell. We juxtaposed what a bedroom space usually symbolizing for most people safety, dreams, and comfort verses that shift when it becomes a cell. Your place of rest becomes the opposite of what it used to be. As my partner, Bindhu, recites her spoken word, she is also putting actual personal items like toothbrushes, stuffed animals, and books throughout the room as a sort of ceremony to honor the lives of those currently or formerly incarcerated. Next to the room, is a dome that is similar to a playground jungle gym as a way to bring children back into the conversation. The headpiece that is attached to my head as I chant, ‘This is a spatial violation’ brings about two things — the idea of being incarcerated and that label that follows after becoming free.”

“Then after the performance is over, people can explore and interact with the piece. This allows entrance into the conversation in different ways. They can pick up the personal items and feel that personalization. The dome also has facts and questions tied to it. Those who wish to enter the dome and have conversations centered around human touch, dignity, community, and safety can do so. Through this process they are beginning to challenge these notions of the PIC, crime and punishment, while centering incarcerated folks their experiences and stories.”

“I always say abolition starts at home with ourselves, our relationships and the principles and ideologies that we have rooted in our society. It's deep, complex and interconnected. It is impacting my people.”

“How we think about crime and how we respond to harm needs to be addressed at the root. What the current system is doing is applying a topical level solution to hide problems deep down. Locking people away and perpetuating harm while making money off of black people and destroying black communities is not how it should be.”

“A world without prisons would look like people having the resources they need especially in areas of mental health, education, and food safety. People having access to those things. When harm [violence] does happen then people's healing should be prioritized. We would also have people who can actually address the root of these issues during crises.”

“If you think about it, people are put in violent conditions. The systems are violent. It is inflicting harm to navigate everyday life simply trying to survive and I don't think people understand that everyday is a violent experience for some people. It's not always someone who kills someone. There are food deserts. There are kids going to school without having the resources they need. People living in poverty. These are some forms of violence and it's everyday for some people. To abolish, we want to completely dismantle and re-imagine public safety and it's definitely not an overnight idea.”

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excerpts from “artist brianna mims on the embodiment of an abolitionist framework” in curate la (mar 4, 2021)

“I’m constantly looking for the gaps between our abolitionist framework and our collective praxis and creating work to meet those needs. What mediums are needed are always different.”

“With the larger-scale projects, I’m thinking about what shifts are needed on a cultural level to create an abolitionist world, how to support policy, how to redistribute money, how to facilitate spaces for conversation, dreaming, and educating. And, you know, how we can better engage with each other and our relationship to the earth. And that’s kind of the throughline of those sort of large-scale projects.”

“Abolition is the dismantling of anything that polices, imprisons, or surveils us. That not only includes things on a systemic level, but these carceral ideologies that show up in our culture, institutions, and the way we relate to ourselves and one another. We have to practice care-based accountability, not punishment-based accountability that perpetuates cycles of harm. Abolition also includes the reimagining of public safety, which Ruthie Wilson Gilmore always says requires a shift in everything.”

“I love to really make sure the policy work and cultural work are in alignment and informing one another so that the shifts we are creating are sustainable... [I]t’s really about a new way of being and living amongst each other. We have to learn how to live more interdependently.”

“A lot of my art practice is focused on facilitating spaces to collectively unpack and explore the ways in which these carceral ideologies play out in our culture. Like I mentioned before, this will create more sustainable policy shifts when we do this cultural work alongside it.”

“In Jail Bed Drop, we always support a piece of legislation. I always make sure our work has a ‘call to action’ and there is usually a ballot measure or bill included amongst other things. We supported Measure R for about a year. We dedicated one wall of the installation to Measure R where we included basic information about the measure and how people can be involved. It also included a QR code where people can sign up to volunteer with the campaign. It’s important to me to create these direct throughlines from policy to culture.”

“What I’m really focusing on right now is how we can imagine and create these dream spaces for folks to try out these new worlds, and practice them. I feel like there’s so much that art can do to serve the mission of abolition — on a cultural level and to support policy at the same time.”

“I think the different access points into the conversation helps the success of the project. From the performance element, getting inside of the dome to reflect on personal values, to the questions on the back wall of the room, to reading the stories of the personal objects of system-impacted people in the room, to the broken down timeline of the prison system in the US, and the calls to action, the project as a whole allows everyone to collectively explore and sit with questions together.”

“The performance happens first, and Bindhu and I are grappling with these questions through our own artistic mediums. We are also having a ceremony during the performance to honor the lives of system-impacted folks. When the performance is over, the audience is able to interact with the installation.”

“They are able to get into the dome and be in dialogue with other folks around self-reflective questions like, ‘Is human touch important to you?,’ ‘What makes you feel you have a sense of dignity?,’ ‘What does accountability look like in your personal relationships?,’ and ‘What would you like to see in your community?’”

“There are also questions on the back wall of the room that help folks analyze some of the ideologies that uphold the prison-industrial complex. Questions like, ‘What makes someone deserving of imprisonment?’ Something about abolition that I love is it breaks this notion of the deserving versus the undeserving.”

“They have access to historical and statistical information via the timeline and they get to sit with the personal stories behind the items in the room. People are introduced to new ideas and new questions that they might not even be able to answer right there on the spot, but they can go home and sit with them.”

image: geodesic dome at an iteration of jail bed drop at a noise within theatre, los angeles (nov 9, 2019), photo by mary mallaney and ella mikayelyan

[image description: a picture of a group of people sitting inside a dome-like structure and having a conversation]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

excerpts from angela davis, introduction to are prisons obsolete? (2003)

“In most circles prison abolition is simply unthinkable and implausible. Prison abolitionists are dis­missed as Utopians and idealists whose ideas are at best unre­alistic and impracticable, and, at worst, mystifying and foolish. This is a measure of how difficult it is to envision a social order that does not rely on the threat of sequestering people in dreadful places designed to separate them from their communities and families. The prison is considered so ‘natural’ that it is extremely hard to imagine life without it.” (pp. 9-10)

“[A]s the U.S. prison system expand­ed, so did corporate involvement in construction, provision of goods and services, and use of prison labor. Because of the extent to which prison building and operation began to attract vast amounts of capital—from the construction industry to food and health care provision—in a way that recalled the emergence of the military industrial complex, we began to refer to a ‘prison industrial complex.’” (p. 12)

“On the whole, people tend to take prisons for granted. It is difficult to imagine life without them. At the same time, there is reluctance to face the realities hidden within them, a fear of thinking about what happens inside them. Thus, the prison is present in our lives and, at the same time, it is absent from our lives. To think about this simultaneous presence and absence is to begin to acknowledge the part played by ideology in shaping the way we interact with our social surroundings. We take prisons for granted but are often afraid to face the realities they produce. After all, no one wants to go to prison. Because it would be too agonizing to cope with the possibility that anyone, including our­ selves, could become a prisoner, we tend to think of the prison as disconnected from our own lives.” (p. 15)

“We thus think about imprisonment as a fate reserved for others, a fate reserved for the ‘evildoers’... Because of the per­sistent power of racism, ‘criminals’ and ‘evildoers’ are, in the collective imagination, fantasized as people of color. The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs—it relieves us of the responsibility of seri­ously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.” (p. 16) 

“[C]orporations associated with the pun­ishment industry reap profits from the system that manages prisoners and acquire a clear stake in the continued growth of prison populations. Put simply, this is the era of the prison industrial complex. The prison has become a black hole into which the detritus of contemporary capitalism is deposited. Mass imprisonment generates profits as it devours social wealth, and thus it tends to reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison. There are thus real and often quite complicated connections between the deindustrialization of the economy—a process that reached its peak during the 1980s—and the rise of mass imprisonment.” (pp. 16-17)

“Effective alternatives involve both transformation of the techniques for addressing ‘crime’ and of the social and economic conditions that track so many children from poor communities, and espe­cially communities of color, into the juvenile system and then on to prison. The most difficult and urgent challenge today is that of creatively exploring new terrains of justice, where the prison no longer serves as our major anchor.” (p. 20-21)

image: sandow birk, “california substance abuse treatment facility and state prison (satf)---corcoran, ca” from the series prisonation: visions of california in the 21st century (2001)

[image description: a painting of a prison---a brick-coloured building to the left and a blue-grey-coloured watchtower at the center-right. at the bottom left in front of the building a prison guard can be seen. behind the building and the tower, blue sky.]

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

petition: stop sim---mental illness is not a crime (apr 2021)

“SIM is a model of mental healthcare targeted towards some of the most vulnerable and mentally unwell individuals in our communities, who frequently come into contact with emergency services. SIM refers to these individuals as ‘High Intensity Users.’ SIM documents say these individuals place an ‘unnecessary financial burden’ on the NHS and use services in a ‘malicious’ way. The model is heavily reliant on ‘coercive’ powers of the police to enforce ‘behavioural responsibility’ and ‘behavioural management’ on ‘High Intensity Users’. ‘High Intensity Officers’ are placed in mental health teams and have full access to the individual’s medical records, with or without their consent.”

“Messages such as: ‘We are responsible for the consequences of our actions and we need you to understand what the consequences of your actions will be if they continue’ are ‘compassionately, but firmly reinforced over the course of several weeks/months.’”

“Individuals are not placed under SIM because they have committed a crime. They are extremely vulnerable and frequently at high risk of self-harm and suicide. Despite these high levels of risk, patients under SIM have crisis ‘response plans’ which prevent them from accessing potentially life-saving treatment from services which they have been directed to for support during a crisis in the past (and which other users of mental health services are expected to use during a mental health crisis). This includes: ambulance services, A&E, mental health services and the police.”

“SIM has 5 key outcome measures that are used to measure the success of the programme, both at an individual patient level and a whole programme level. These focus solely on reducing service demand (how frequently people come into contact with emergency services) in order to save money, rather than the patients’ well-being or experience. Additionally, they are not using any outcome measures commonly used in community mental health services to assess changes in the individual’s psychological wellbeing.”

“We ask you to sign this petition, calling on NHS England to:

Halt the rollout and delivery of SIM with immediate effect, as well as interventions operating under a different name, which are associated with the High Intensity Network (HIN).

Conduct an independent review and evaluation of SIM in regards to its evidence base, safety, legality, ethics, governance and acceptability to service users.”

“Our concerns about SIM relate equally to interventions or service models which may be known by a different name, which are associated with the High Intensity Network.”

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from stop sim’s website:

“We are the StopSIM Coalition: a group of current and ex-mental health service users and allies. We are campaigning for a model of care called Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM) to be halted immediately, and for an independent inquiry and review to be conducted as soon as possible. We believe that SIM is unlawful, unethical and unacceptable.”

image: art from @stopsimmh instagram

[image description: an illustration of a police car against a blue-grey background. text in the background reads: “sim (serenity integrated mentoring) is a mental health service model being rolled out across the nhs. the ‘coercive’ approach of a police officer, sim involves withholding potentially life-saving treatments from vulnerable individuals and taking legal action against service users who regularly seek support in mental health crises. these people have not committed any crimes.”] 

[abolitionist-kinaesthetics]

excerpts from zoe luba, “secure schools and prison abolition in the uk: during covid-19 and beyond” in abolition journal (jun 29, 2020)

“A group of prison abolitionists from across the UK travelled to Rochester to get a sense of the size and scale of the site of one of the prisons, Medway Secure Training Centre (STC), which is marked to become England’s first Secure School. Historical patterns demonstrate that the names of youth prisons in the UK have changed over the past century, but the violence enacted on the young people inside has remained constant.”

“Medway STC has now been deemed the first site for a new form of youth prison in the UK, known as a ‘Secure School,’ in a mass incarceration project that aims to re-brand youth incarceration in an attempt to evade further community outrage about the abuse, violence, and death inside UK youth prisons, while still keeping children locked up. This facade is transparent, as government documentation clearly shows the aim of Secure Schools is incarceration not education.”

“Secure Schools are just one element of racial capitalism, locking up Black and other kids of color at vastly disproportionate rates and using a model that rewards those running the prison with financial compensation based on the number of kids they incarcerate. Most recent UK statistics demonstrate that Black kids are over four times more likely than white kids to be arrested. Furthermore, the Ministry of ‘Justice’ has contracted the first Secure School to mega-charity, Oasis, in what is a continuation of colonial patterns historically perpetuated by missionaries and charities.”

“The over 85,000 people incarcerated in the UK make up the largest prison population in western Europe. The development of Secure Schools coincides with the development of an expansive mass incarceration push in the UK: The Prison Estate Transformation Programme, developed in 2016, which aims to create 10,000 new prison places by building or redeveloping 9 mega-prisons.”

“COVID-19 has had a serious impact on the incarcerated population in the UK, and the response from the state has been woefully inadequate, as people with symptoms must share cells with those without symptoms. Most recent data shows 21 deaths from COVID-19 inside UK prisons. In 2018, 325 people died in UK prisons, 92 of the deaths being suicides. The number of deaths in prison has almost doubled over the past decade. Self-harm rates in UK prisons are the highest they have ever been. The conditions of prisons were killing people long before COVID-19. Prisons are the pandemic.”

“Racialized peoples’ overrepresentation in the UK prison system stems from racist sentencing and racist arrest rates. Recent data shows Black and Brown people are 240% more likely to be sentenced with incarceration for drug offenses than white people. Black men are three times as likely to be arrested than white men in the UK, and it is these racist arrest rates that are largely responsible for the overrepresentation of Black men in the UK prison system, demonstrating the connections between the police and prison industrial complexes.”

“Abolitionists immediately demanded full release following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the UK, and 16 different migrant solidarity, prison abolitionist, and anti-racist grassroots organizations came together to make clear collective demands, including the full release of everyone from prisons and detention centres.”

image: an aerial view of medway secure training centre in rochester, by children & young people now

[image description: an aerial-view photo of some buildings with white roofs; the buildings form roughly 2 connected quadrilateral. between and beyond the buildings are grass and trees.]