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?
Of course, it is natural for us to support someone we are close to, friends and family, or even a comrade from one’s 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.
Not Sexy Enough
We all know that prisoner support is not particularly glamorous or possibly rewarding in terms of apparent immediate effect: we don’t see our ‘circle A’ spray-painted on the wall, cashpoints superglued-up, disruption caused by a picket or the reality of an article appearing in our favourite organ of propaganda (though most of those can also be used as a weapon in any prisoner support campaign). Instead, prisoner support is largely invisible, the writing of letters, the sending of money and the giving of other practical support. Yes, we might go along to a gig raising funds for prisoner support, but are we doing that to donate funds or because we want to see the bands?
We might read a call-out for support for a particular prisoner’s campaign, but are we really paying much attention? Or are we going along to prison pickets when they are called? This is in fact one really simple and effective way of showing solidarity and support for individual prisoners, as well as showing the managers of these factories of repression that we outside the prison walls know and care about what they are trying to do to our comrades, those we chose to support, on the inside. And prisoner support groups regularly get feedback on these events showing clearly that they work, that the prison authorities take notice and are much less likely to abuse the prisoners supported.
The ‘social prisoner’ problem’
Which brings us to the so-called ‘social prisoner’ issue, which has long been a problem within the anarchist movement, with the more liberal elements in the anarchist movement decrying any involvement with ‘common criminals’. Fortunately, most anarchists involved in prisoner support see it somewhat differently.
If you are a long-term prisoner in any prison system, you have two options: either you do the ‘bird’, knuckle down and toe the line, making as little trouble for yourself as possible; or you stand up as an individual and fight for your dignity and the dignity of other prisoners against a system that is designed to squeeze that dignity out of everyone. Prison after all is still, despite what all the PR about rehabilitation and behaviour modification therapy would have us believe, designed to punish the individual prisoner, to make them not want to return and therefore not commit that next ‘crime’ that might earn them more time.
Therefore, when we come across prisoners who have become radicalised by the prison experiences, who are engaged in the class struggle against the system of social control that is prison, we should be supporting them in their struggle. After all, even the most cynical anarcho must see that we as a movement need to get the idea of a non-hierarchical decentralised class-free society more widely accepted and those at the sharp end of the state’s system of social control and conditioning should be more receptive than most.
Practical Things You Can Do:
- Write to prisoners – practical solidarity that entails a commitment to the prisoner we write to as well as a trip to the post office.
- Financial support to prisoner support groups – we spend a lot of our time and effort fundraising, time and effort that could be better spent elsewhere.
- Books to prisoners – instead of spending your ‘hard-earned’ on that next tome on anarchist history, give the money to Haven Distribution books to prisoners project.
- Other letter/faxes/e-mail writing – prisoner support groups often fight campaigns at the behest of prisoners to get them better conditions/parole/even not being executed.
- Organise – in the workplace and community. This is something we could all be doing. No excuses now!
You can download leaflets on ‘Writing To Prisoners’ and ‘Social Prisoners’ from: brightonabc.org.uk/merchandise.html
- Brighton ABC, PO Box 74, Brighton, BN1 4ZQ, e-mail brightonabc@risup.net
- Bristol ABC, c/o Kebele, 14 Robertson Road, Easton, Bristol, BS5 6JY, e-mail Bristol_abc@ riseup.net
- Cardiff ABC, email mail@cardiffprisonersupport.tk
- Leeds ABC, PO Box 53, Leeds, LS8 4WP, UK, email leedsabc@riseup.net
