Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could Happen here a podcast about workers
Speaker 2: and the things that they do to fight to survive
Speaker 2: and live in a better world. I am your host,
Speaker 2: Bio Wong. Some of the worst treated and most depressed
Speaker 2: workers in the United States are incarcerated workers, a group
Speaker 2: of workers who are very seldom talked about much less
Speaker 2: actually like formally organized by the conventional labor movement, and
Speaker 2: here with me today to talk about the Incarcerated Workers
Speaker 2: Organizing Committee as Colin from IWALK, Giselle Garcia, who is
Speaker 2: iwalk's California outreach coordinator, and Adre Dawson, who is a
Speaker 2: formerly incarcerated person and his ma support the all three
Speaker 2: of you, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so very much.
Speaker 4: Thank you well talking to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to all of you, and
Speaker 2: I guess I want to start. Can you explain a
Speaker 2: little bit about what the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee is
Speaker 2: for people who are unfamiliar.
Speaker 3: With it, I'll kick us off and everyone can supplement.
Speaker 3: So I would.
Speaker 5: Definitely say that the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee or EYEWALK,
Speaker 5: is a committee of the incarcerated workers of the world
Speaker 5: Labor union, and it was formed in recognition that there
Speaker 5: is probably not a more exploitative kind of labor setting
Speaker 5: than the prison system, and not just you know, US centric,
Speaker 5: but also across the globe. And so our effort is
Speaker 5: to build a bridge with our incarcerated neighbors, build that
Speaker 5: connection and true solidarity rooted in connection, and then help
Speaker 5: support those inside with resources so that they can not
Speaker 5: only come to an understanding of like be profound intentionality
Speaker 5: behind a labor exploitation inside of carceral settings, but also
Speaker 5: give them support them with tools that they ask for
Speaker 5: when it comes to organizing those conditions. And it's led
Speaker 5: by those inside really, because no one can inform practis
Speaker 5: in this area other than those of large actuation fem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do we want to talk more about like what's
Speaker 2: happening right now and then come back to sort of
Speaker 2: more historical components if you want to try to do the.
Speaker 6: History now, well, I think I can give like a
Speaker 6: tad bit on a sense I was in a carportd
Speaker 6: Amy not long ago inside of CDCR, Satula, California.
Speaker 2: Cd ORC is the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,
Speaker 2: which runs California's prison system.
Speaker 6: And I do understand the significance of working for pennies
Speaker 6: when that same job outside is paying you thirty forty dollars.
Speaker 6: I worked for HFM, I made thirty five forty cents
Speaker 6: an hour. That job out here pays in the streets
Speaker 6: thirty five forty dollars a hour.
Speaker 3: Jesus, the cost of living was low.
Speaker 6: The price of what it costs to live inside when
Speaker 6: a incarcerated situation was high. Two paste two dollars. After
Speaker 6: you do the two pays, you're loashing your few little
Speaker 6: at the small size dollar store size prizes. You don't
Speaker 6: have anything left to live with, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: And it takes a lot to live inside of CDCR
Speaker 6: because they provides you housing because you're incarcerated. But outside
Speaker 6: of housing and the food that they try to put
Speaker 6: together to make right for us, oh my god, there's
Speaker 6: really not.
Speaker 3: Much more they can do for you.
Speaker 6: A lot of the things they want you to do
Speaker 6: for yourself out of your he need job, your job
Speaker 6: to pay cents.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it was really hard. I did almost sixteen years.
Speaker 3: It was a struggle. It was ugly, and it was
Speaker 3: a struggle.
Speaker 6: If not for eye walk, they gave us resources to
Speaker 6: help us with books and paper. They taught us how
Speaker 6: to exercise our labor laws and how to fight for
Speaker 6: ourselves and to know what you are allowed and what
Speaker 6: you can have, and don't let nobody beat you. Don't
Speaker 6: let them cheat you. This is your right to have this,
Speaker 6: you know. I think just before our incarcerated I left,
Speaker 6: they had raised the percentage rate on some of the jobs,
Speaker 6: the more harder labors.
Speaker 3: They gave it a few more pennies.
Speaker 6: But it's crazy how multi billion dollar corporation don't take
Speaker 6: care of the inmates who keep it working.
Speaker 3: We do the laundry, we do.
Speaker 6: The cooking, we do the housing, we do the clerk work,
Speaker 6: made glasses, tea, Everything is done buy inmates. I work
Speaker 6: for carpentry, so I built some of the buildings. But
Speaker 6: yet I only worked for pennies. And if you think
Speaker 6: about it, that penny labor is even lower than slave
Speaker 6: labor in Mexico or some of the more countries that
Speaker 6: don't provide anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so obviously, as you're describing, these are unbelievably horrific
Speaker 2: conditions and wages, and god, I keep thinking about, you know,
Speaker 2: like two dollars for toothpaste. If you're making twenty cents
Speaker 2: an hour, it's like ten hours of work for like
Speaker 2: one of the small rings of toothpaste, which is just nightmare.
Speaker 2: What does organizing look like under those conditions?
Speaker 3: I think most of.
Speaker 6: Us lived in flight or fight mode. You had to
Speaker 6: do what you had to do to survive. The mental
Speaker 6: health level in CITCR is like ninety nine percent over
Speaker 6: super high because people are stealing toilet paper and past things.
Speaker 6: They give us what you need more because there's not
Speaker 6: enough and I don't make enough money to get or
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 3: Toothpaste, you're doing extra.
Speaker 6: So it has made a CDCR system a little violentile
Speaker 6: because people are stealing a robbin and mugging like in
Speaker 6: the free world, but you're taken.
Speaker 3: From penny pinching people that don't have anything. So it's
Speaker 3: made our environment a little bit more violet. If you've
Speaker 3: asked me, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I want to reflect on what Odre said. Prison is
Speaker 4: tremendously expensive, you know, within our circles. I guess it's
Speaker 4: famously more expensive to send someone to prison than to
Speaker 4: send them to Harvard. However, people are in these like
Speaker 4: really desperate material circumstances for stuff like toothpaste, theodor and
Speaker 4: even toothbrushes and things like that, and within people that
Speaker 4: know about CDCR they call it. In your prison system.
Speaker 4: On the men's side, they do a thing where they
Speaker 4: track and monitor the calories that people get because the
Speaker 4: guys all, you know, like to work out a lot,
Speaker 4: and like they just don't want people bulking up that much,
Speaker 4: and so they physically restrict the amount of protein and
Speaker 4: calorie intake to Jesus sort of facilitate their ideal security situation.
Speaker 2: So they're just starving everyone like intentionally.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, precisely, yeah, keeping people yeah alive, you know
Speaker 4: and in purgatory and not not able to like be
Speaker 4: how they want to be. And so like that situation
Speaker 4: of artificial scarcity is it's reflected on you know, the
Speaker 4: outside of prison too, and you know, just hustle culture,
Speaker 4: you know, housing scarcity, artificial housing scarcity, all kinds of
Speaker 4: other artificial scarcity. And I think in prison it's like
Speaker 4: a it's like a form of social conditioning where people
Speaker 4: are being conditioned into this scarcey mindset in like a
Speaker 4: really extreme way and being forced into this kind of
Speaker 4: hustle mindset. And so like all of the things that
Speaker 4: the prison administration kind of like trots out to justify
Speaker 4: their new security quote unquote measures, which is just often
Speaker 4: stuff like banning physical mail, you know, restrictions on visits,
Speaker 4: restrictions on books, restrictions on showers, restrictions on anything you
Speaker 4: know remotely humane about prison. Like these things are all
Speaker 4: justified as security. And the things that they talk about
Speaker 4: when they talk about security is like you know, drugs,
Speaker 4: you know, prison commerce, things like this, And like, prison
Speaker 4: commerce exists because of this situation of incredible scarcity that
Speaker 4: the prison itself is like maintaining to begin with. And
Speaker 4: the point of Eyewalk in part, like part of our
Speaker 4: sort of mission and like strategy is to get people together,
Speaker 4: get people like you know, talking about solidarity, connecting people
Speaker 4: who have a kind of like minded kind of outlook
Speaker 4: on things, so that we can start to form a
Speaker 4: foundation for solidarity that is not based around the prison
Speaker 4: economy as it exists, but rather based on like inside
Speaker 4: outside solidarity, on like a you know, a humanistic socialistic
Speaker 4: level in that sense, like there are stark similarities but
Speaker 4: also very stark differences with you know, other groups that
Speaker 4: do the same thing, right, Like, essentially a lot of
Speaker 4: groups that arise sort of spontaneously that do that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff tend to have a capitalistic nature to them,
Speaker 4: and those are the groups that come with the state
Speaker 4: refers to as gangs oftentimes, and there are different ones
Speaker 4: and they do different things and they have unique cultures.
Speaker 4: Like the term gang kind of flattens them all into one.
Speaker 4: But yeah, they're they're all very different and have different
Speaker 4: sort of survival adaptation mechanisms.
Speaker 3: They're like large clicks.
Speaker 6: I think that would like kind of be better from
Speaker 6: a CDR since CDCR is like one of the most
Speaker 6: largest human trafficking industries in the business.
Speaker 3: They collect people, they work people for nothing.
Speaker 6: And the revenue all goes back to them because no
Speaker 6: matter what we spend, we spend it with CDCR. So
Speaker 6: not only are you collecting fifty sixty thousand a year
Speaker 6: per person, and the institution is overpacked so it carries
Speaker 6: up to twenty five hundred people at a time.
Speaker 3: These people are working for either dollars or cents.
Speaker 6: And every dollar they have is invested back at CDC
Speaker 6: are So it is one hundred percent financial gain for
Speaker 6: CDCR no matter.
Speaker 3: How to look at it.
Speaker 6: Because they supply everything, they sell everything, everything goes right
Speaker 6: back to CDCR at the cost of human lives, for medical,
Speaker 6: for food, the things that they give you is for
Speaker 6: you to barely make it. And what it does is
Speaker 6: it keeps you in the same kind of criminal mind state.
Speaker 6: So you're a better criminal when you leave because you
Speaker 6: have to do what you have to do to survive
Speaker 6: in their And at forty fifty thousand dollars per person
Speaker 6: a year, I feel like nobody should be hungry, nobody
Speaker 6: should need shoes, nobody should need t shirts. Two bases
Speaker 6: should be full sized, shampoos should be full size. They
Speaker 6: invested thousands millions of dollars in mental health, and yet
Speaker 6: the suicide rate is high there because a bruce rate
Speaker 6: is high there, whether it's being abused by staff or
Speaker 6: by inmate. Abuses twenty four hours around the clock in CDCR,
Speaker 6: and only a very few survive. And they don't survive
Speaker 6: on scratch. They survive because they have a super will
Speaker 6: to survive. So for me, that's where I was at.
Speaker 6: I had a super will to survive, So I hid
Speaker 6: in the cracks. I tried to do my barre minimal.
Speaker 6: I stayed in groups and stuff. I fed my mind.
Speaker 6: I neursed my body the best I could. I took
Speaker 6: care of my health the best I could. I just
Speaker 6: stayed focused, but either to go see always I will
Speaker 6: always have me always. I've been a member for almost
Speaker 6: eight years now, eight nine years I was a member incarcerated,
Speaker 6: and now I would be able.
Speaker 3: To talk to college and work through some of the
Speaker 3: worst moments. He would refer me to other entities of
Speaker 3: the organization for support.
Speaker 6: They would give me referrals to how to get me
Speaker 6: books to take my mind out of places, refer me
Speaker 6: to places that would give us papers and pen people
Speaker 6: would help us with laws and stuff we didn't understand.
Speaker 3: Senless copies.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: It was just really a platform for making you a
Speaker 6: stronger individual in an awful situation.
Speaker 3: And for that I will always be grateful. And even
Speaker 3: now that I'm no longer incarcerated.
Speaker 6: In CCCDCR, I get to see the fruit of the
Speaker 6: labor of everything this organization has given to the people
Speaker 6: that are behind bars, and I'm so grateful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, jail conditions in California, and I think a lot
Speaker 4: of places are like even worse than prison conditions. And
Speaker 4: I mean, I remember when I was visiting someone in
Speaker 4: the Sacramento County Jail, and she was excited after multiple
Speaker 4: years in the county jail to go to federal prison.
Speaker 4: She was like over the moon that she was going
Speaker 4: to federal prison and getting out of the Sacramento County jail.
Speaker 4: So I was wondering if you could describe the conditions
Speaker 4: in the Presno County Jail and how we fixed them,
Speaker 4: or at least how they kind of mickey moused it
Speaker 4: for the entire time that you were there, just so
Speaker 4: that this wouldn't happen again.
Speaker 3: So I was incarcerated.
Speaker 6: I went back for re sentence, you know, my life sentence,
Speaker 6: and that Fresnel County Jail is horrible. It's interested people
Speaker 6: are dying daily. If you have nobody, you have nothing.
Speaker 6: It was really sad. I asked callings.
Speaker 3: I walked to get involved short time King.
Speaker 6: They had put in to get some funny to help
Speaker 6: people didn't have hygiens. It was very stinky and nasty.
Speaker 6: So they donated through me, and I bought the girls
Speaker 6: their hygiens, shot poos conditioners too, pays, bought guys.
Speaker 3: Of snacks and make them all little care packs.
Speaker 6: And I got to see the small amount of women
Speaker 6: in my pod spring to life all because the organization cared.
Speaker 3: All because somebody researched their heart and did a little
Speaker 3: something different.
Speaker 6: It made such a difference, Like they really all wanted
Speaker 6: to be involved, Like how do I get involved with this?
Speaker 6: But I left shortly after this all happened, so we
Speaker 6: didn't really get to click it in because using the
Speaker 6: phone and stuff in there is not like being in prison.
Speaker 6: People are dying to get out of county jail. I
Speaker 6: mean people are actually dying in the cells. One lady
Speaker 6: was left to fester in her infestations of cysts and
Speaker 6: stuff she had all over her body. She met another
Speaker 6: lady in there that actually went out long responsive because
Speaker 6: they said nothing was along with her, and yet she
Speaker 6: had an internal disease she had been living with all
Speaker 6: her life and they would not help her. And because
Speaker 6: I don't know a lot, I'm not going to name
Speaker 6: anything or anyone. I just know I was a part
Speaker 6: of the situation. We were denied meals. Sometimes you were
Speaker 6: too late, you didn't come. People were denying meds. You
Speaker 6: should have been there.
Speaker 3: People who couldn't even walk and they had no medical assistance.
Speaker 6: People who were kicking, as we know, to kick alcohol
Speaker 6: or hang on or crystal can be deadly. All they
Speaker 6: would do is bring them gatorade one cup in the
Speaker 6: middle of the night. But these people were throwing up
Speaker 6: their guts, throwing up blood. It was crazy. It was
Speaker 6: really sad in there. But like I said, the one
Speaker 6: moment of joy was when I came in. I came
Speaker 6: in and they literally contributed to making it a better
Speaker 6: environment for us.
Speaker 4: And we did something with that jail that in activist
Speaker 4: vernacular or organizing vernacular, you could call it a phone
Speaker 4: stop or a distribute distributed action. Yeah. So do you
Speaker 4: remember what our demands were with the jail. I think
Speaker 4: we had like four or five and they did. They
Speaker 4: did most of them.
Speaker 3: I know one was what medical.
Speaker 6: It's been so long, I don't quite remember everything. So
Speaker 6: but I know the girls who were able to kyle
Speaker 6: all walk and file complaints or tell people about what
Speaker 6: was happening with them, and they would, you know, give
Speaker 6: them resources and help them out the best they could.
Speaker 6: Women started filing grievouses because they were actually being able
Speaker 6: to receive information that would help them.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I just found what we won by the way
Speaker 4: we won ofvolant Guard transferred from that unit. Undoubtedly they
Speaker 4: were just transferred to another unit and then move back later.
Speaker 4: Increased access to showers in clean water, provided mental health care,
Speaker 4: put in repair work orders for showers and the television,
Speaker 4: and provided grievance forms. All that from just like what
Speaker 4: I have to assume was like the Fresno County jails,
Speaker 4: like first serious encounter with like public anger and scrutiny
Speaker 4: in probably years. Not that people aren't angry at them
Speaker 4: over this stuff, but like the way they just like
Speaker 4: absolutely hopped too, is you know, in my experience, indicative
Speaker 4: of people just used to getting away with it and
Speaker 4: receiving very little pushback.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to say that I think it also
Speaker 5: highlights the importance of mutual aid within our movement work.
Speaker 5: You know, oftentimes in especially labor movement spaces, you hear
Speaker 5: a lot of you know, focus on quote quote organizing
Speaker 5: without recognition of kind of like the human element and
Speaker 5: like the human connection aspect to it, and how you know,
Speaker 5: in different kind of spaces, being able to break bread,
Speaker 5: or if we can provide basic needs and supplies like
Speaker 5: you know, for hygiene, or you know, I remember doing
Speaker 5: COVID being able to provide folks who were incarcerated with soap,
Speaker 5: right was huge, And it's those gestures. Some people challenge
Speaker 5: that and say, well, that's not really organizing, right, Yes,
Speaker 5: it is absolutely. It's recognizing our humanity, our basic needs,
Speaker 5: and showing up to try to support each other. It's
Speaker 5: not just quote unquote fighting, right and that kind of advocacy,
Speaker 5: But advocacy is also about mutual aid and so trying
Speaker 5: to live that, making sure we're meshing that with our
Speaker 5: movement work is essential.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wanted to emphasize that, Like, it's not like
Speaker 4: we sent some incredible amount of money to the to
Speaker 4: Adro when she was in Trosono kind of jail. It
Speaker 4: was like maybe one hundred bucks or like not even,
Speaker 4: and yet it was able to do a lot of
Speaker 4: stuff Autero. You do remember how much it was.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it was seventy five bora.
Speaker 4: It was one of in Yeah, So I mean that's
Speaker 4: that's like one small example of how like when you're
Speaker 4: doing prison solidarity you're able to do so much, like
Speaker 4: you're able to have a tremendous impact for folks in
Speaker 4: a way that you are not able to do in
Speaker 4: any kind of organizing, at least for people in the
Speaker 4: present moment, and that is something that really attracted me
Speaker 4: to it as just kind of a spectrum headed person.
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, this is like a very good
Speaker 4: labor cost to benefit ratio of like you can put
Speaker 4: in the same amount of work and read like much
Speaker 4: greater benefit for a great number of people. And that
Speaker 4: I think remains true today is something that folks should
Speaker 4: consider when considering whether prison solidarity is something that they'd
Speaker 4: like to take her in.
Speaker 3: Thank you Collins.
Speaker 6: The one thing I did remember more than anything out
Speaker 6: of Collins and their organizations coming into our county. The
Speaker 6: one thing I did see that you very get to
Speaker 6: see in and incarcerated situations was in on our pod,
Speaker 6: a glimmer of hope. They planted a seed when they
Speaker 6: made it possible for us to fund help for people,
Speaker 6: and the next time around people were donating a little bit,
Speaker 6: people who had more were donating to make sure those
Speaker 6: people kept things. I see unity in its greatest form
Speaker 6: with culture difference, stigma difference, race difference.
Speaker 3: Gangs didn't exist at that time. I watched just come together.
Speaker 6: We started having prayer socals, the pod became more positive,
Speaker 6: and that all started with a heartfelt seventy five to
Speaker 6: one hundred dollars. It brought people together and that never left,
Speaker 6: that never left, And I think it's the same thing
Speaker 6: in an incarceration situation, when you're in prison. When we
Speaker 6: build our little inside organizations and we help each other.
Speaker 3: We give hope to each other.
Speaker 6: I am so grateful to be a member of such
Speaker 6: a profound organization that believes in neighbor laws to help
Speaker 6: us be treated fairly, abolishments of institutions because know God,
Speaker 6: they need to reap a little bit of what they sow,
Speaker 6: and a hand and a heart that says we care
Speaker 6: from across the mouth. And this organization reaches different parts
Speaker 6: of the US, so it's not from one place, it's
Speaker 6: it's a whole unit and it's I'm grateful to be
Speaker 6: a part of it right.
Speaker 4: And in fact IOWAK exists in the United States, we
Speaker 4: have interests from some lobb belief in Canada, and there
Speaker 4: is also established IWALK presidence in the UK, including Northern Ireland.
Speaker 2: What does it actually look like to be doing sort
Speaker 2: of jail house law, to be helping people understand what
Speaker 2: their rights are and trying to fight for better conditions
Speaker 2: through the internal legal system.
Speaker 6: I work for the Law Library in CDCR at Chachilla, SECWA.
Speaker 2: SCCWF is the Central California Women's Facility, a California women's prison.
Speaker 6: And I am what they call a jail house lawyer
Speaker 6: because I helped a few people go home.
Speaker 3: Not that I was brilliant.
Speaker 6: I just comprehend very well and I articulate very well.
Speaker 6: So by me working there, I got to learn first
Speaker 6: hand law books and penal codes and processes, and it
Speaker 6: was a wonderful thing. But it can also be a
Speaker 6: sad thing because before you know, you make a lot
Speaker 6: of mistakes, and those mistakes hurt people because people can't
Speaker 6: afford lawyers. I mean I went in there with thirty
Speaker 6: six to life, lost all my levels of my appeal,
Speaker 6: and never thought I would ever see the light of day.
Speaker 6: I knew I would die in prison, and a lot
Speaker 6: of jail house lawyers helped me, and just it didn't
Speaker 6: happen because financially I was not able to do a lot.
Speaker 6: If it hadn't Gavin Knwsom, we sentenced me under exemplary programming.
Speaker 6: Obviously I did a good program. I've done over one
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty years old of their groups and I facilitate.
Speaker 3: So I worked my way out.
Speaker 6: But you got documentation in there that's probably twenty or
Speaker 6: thirty years old, isn't even apply with the laws that
Speaker 6: are today. People are using old documentation. The course are
Speaker 6: rejecting them because they have the wrong paperwork. A lot
Speaker 6: of things had been happening until some of us started
Speaker 6: six oh two een, like we need the right paperwork.
Speaker 6: We started fighting for that, and we started getting it,
Speaker 6: and people are now being able to see a glimmer
Speaker 6: of hope.
Speaker 3: It's all about for me, It's about the fight. How
Speaker 3: bad do you want it?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 3: I know what I would do to throw my life away?
Speaker 3: What would I do to have my life back?
Speaker 6: You know, after I've yeah worked it out, the same
Speaker 6: energy you put into it. It's the same energy you
Speaker 6: got to put it into it to get out of it.
Speaker 2: If not a little bit more, did you talk a
Speaker 2: little bit more about how you went about actually getting
Speaker 2: the correct copies of the legal code, because that seems
Speaker 2: like just an absolute nightmare.
Speaker 3: No, it is a nightmare.
Speaker 6: When I first started, I had two incarcerations, two life sentences.
Speaker 6: I just beat my second life sentences. I was a
Speaker 6: three striker, first. At that time, they didn't have a
Speaker 6: lot of paper and there was a lot of Rigoro
Speaker 6: war going on because of the law was so inadically
Speaker 6: we put together just to please the people of the US,
Speaker 6: but not to be fair all the way around. A
Speaker 6: lot of people were getting life sentences for slices of
Speaker 6: pizza and hawk dolls and you know, and I was
Speaker 6: one of those people, don't get me wrong. So at
Speaker 6: that time, there was not a lot a lot of
Speaker 6: legal paperwork. The paperwork was so outdated they were giving
Speaker 6: us and people started we started filing the pills.
Speaker 3: Hey, we have a right to the right paperwork? How
Speaker 3: am I going to get home?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: If I don't, I'm a fight if I don't have
Speaker 6: the right forms to fight with. Or we would organizations
Speaker 6: would print us paperwork out that we wrote out to
Speaker 6: and they would send us the right one in and
Speaker 6: we would make copies in our own self at ten
Speaker 6: cents of copy and put change the copy that they
Speaker 6: used to copy the copy and the original would be in.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of scheme inism, but it was
Speaker 3: worth it because we were starting to go home. The
Speaker 3: paperwork was being updated.
Speaker 6: You know, they had a lawsuit because they did have
Speaker 6: the right paperwork. They really started up dating then because
Speaker 6: we had some legal mongros.
Speaker 3: You know, lawyers go to prison too.
Speaker 2: So if I'm understanding this right, are you saying that
Speaker 2: they had the right paperwork they were just giving you
Speaker 2: the old one.
Speaker 3: No, they had the wrong paperwork.
Speaker 6: So we were sending out for the right paperwork, throwing
Speaker 6: away to old paper work and sliding the right paperwork in.
Speaker 6: The clerks that worked at the lawbrary. We would do
Speaker 6: anything to make sure we can go home, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, but like I said, we had people who
Speaker 6: used to be lawyers.
Speaker 3: I mean, if we had to wait a little bit longer,
Speaker 3: we could have had a president. I don't know. People
Speaker 3: were going to prison these days.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so, you know, but it was just that you
Speaker 6: had to have a will to be a success, and
Speaker 6: it took organizations like a walking when I was there,
Speaker 6: I need a certain paper work and college will look.
Speaker 3: It up and reference for in send it to me.
Speaker 6: You know, legal paperwork that would help us whether we
Speaker 6: were fighting for our jobs, not paying us right, or
Speaker 6: we can't get a hold of this paperwork for us
Speaker 6: to be free. Yeah, he would send it and I
Speaker 6: would spread it like fire, you know. Once she I'm
Speaker 6: a clerk. I make a hundred copies hoping I don't
Speaker 6: get caught. You know, it is what it is, and
Speaker 6: just trying to say why that was important.
Speaker 3: But I'm on this thing talking.
Speaker 6: I really want to hear Gigi's aspect, because she is
Speaker 6: like so superheroes. She's a great human being and she
Speaker 6: fights for incarcerated inmates, and she fights for labor rights,
Speaker 6: and she fights for her organization, and she fights for everything.
Speaker 3: And I would really like to hear her. I haven't
Speaker 3: heard her much. I don't like to hear her side.
Speaker 5: You are incredible, and I just I just want to
Speaker 5: listen to you. Thank you, and you are, you know,
Speaker 5: the one that we are taking notes from. So thank
Speaker 5: you for everything that you do and everything that you
Speaker 5: did will incarcerated and everything that you're doing now.
Speaker 3: Just so just so you know that we are all
Speaker 3: inspired by you. Always. Thank you.
Speaker 5: I you know, as someone who has been in the
Speaker 5: legal field for many years, you really the more you're
Speaker 5: around legal professionals, specifically lawyers, you learn how little they
Speaker 5: actually do. I think a lot of the times are
Speaker 5: perception of civil rights and just movement work.
Speaker 3: We think of lawyers. We think of big.
Speaker 5: Organizations right that have been you know, those big gains
Speaker 5: in the courts, But the reality is that the real
Speaker 5: work happens on the ground, grassroots, and so in the
Speaker 5: case of our prisoner movement, it happens behind those bars,
Speaker 5: behind those concrete walls. And when it comes to the
Speaker 5: most vulnerable, as you kind of go down right in
Speaker 5: terms of how impacted folks are, there are less and
Speaker 5: less lawyers that are willing to do that work, and
Speaker 5: definitely less.
Speaker 3: That are even able to.
Speaker 5: They just don't bother, you know. And so what you
Speaker 5: really see when it comes to jail house lawyers is
Speaker 5: that they said, we can't depend on these privileged class
Speaker 5: of people to fight for us, let alone free us.
Speaker 5: So they've taken it into their own hands. And that's
Speaker 5: why it's such an honor for organizations like Eyewalk and
Speaker 5: and our members to be able to support in that
Speaker 5: hands on participatory defense model, where it truly is about
Speaker 5: it's understanding that our liberation will not come from external hands.
Speaker 5: It will come, you know, internally, will come from us
Speaker 5: who are impacted, and so supporting each other is what
Speaker 5: is going to make the difference. And I sound so simple,
Speaker 5: but sometimes it looks like sending in a book, an article,
Speaker 5: pulling up supporting evidence that someone can use, right, doing
Speaker 5: some research and sending it in. And California has.
Speaker 3: The Racial Justice Act, which is opening.
Speaker 5: A pathway for a lot of folks to reopen their
Speaker 5: cases and have some resentencing done. And a lot of
Speaker 5: folks are, you know, being free now because of that legislation.
Speaker 5: And so you know, how can we support in that way?
Speaker 5: But also I always go back to building the relationship
Speaker 5: with the folks inside, because sometimes it looks like writing
Speaker 5: a letter of support for folks.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can tell when someone.
Speaker 5: Writes a letter that didn't have a relationship with the
Speaker 5: person who needs a letter, right, But the opposite is
Speaker 5: also true. You can really tell when someone actually has
Speaker 5: a relationship with that person. It comes to life what
Speaker 5: you're writing and you feel that connection, right, So truly
Speaker 5: building those relationships, those friendships, how use some of our
Speaker 5: comrades inside, I bigger with and we fight and we
Speaker 5: make up, you know, and we're there for the ups
Speaker 5: and downs and we give each other advice. And it's
Speaker 5: true friendships that we built behind those walls. And that
Speaker 5: alone is also a form of radical love and a
Speaker 5: radical part of this movement to form those bonds with
Speaker 5: those who the system tried to bury alive, and circling
Speaker 5: back to jail house lawyers and how our incarcerated neighbors
Speaker 5: have taken control and a lead of their own defense.
Speaker 5: How important it is for us to be plugged in
Speaker 5: on the outside to different advances or regressions.
Speaker 3: When it comes to the legal system, because.
Speaker 5: Oftentimes we need to recognize that to be able to
Speaker 5: ignore policy, to be able to ignore what's happening in
Speaker 5: the streets, is a tremendous privilege. It's not impacting you
Speaker 5: when you are impacted. You cannot ignore what's happening around.
Speaker 3: You because it's happening to you, right.
Speaker 5: And so for us, if we feel like we're not impacted,
Speaker 5: even though we are, because it's all interconnected struggle, right.
Speaker 5: But if we feel like maybe we don't need to
Speaker 5: pay attention to struggles or advancements that could be used
Speaker 5: by people inside, then we're really privileged and we're failing
Speaker 5: are our neighbors inside. So I just hope that we
Speaker 5: can recognize that and understand that it is an obligation
Speaker 5: of ours to move through life in a way that
Speaker 5: is thoughtful of those who who could use our support
Speaker 5: and who we could empower because they don't have the
Speaker 5: same access to that information or the resources.
Speaker 3: And so in many ways, that's what I walked us.
Speaker 5: And there's just something so powerful about getting out a
Speaker 5: piece of paper and pen and writing a handwriting letter,
Speaker 5: stuffing an envelope with literature with zine, or sending a
Speaker 5: book inside and putting that stamp on the envelope. It
Speaker 5: feels like a material manifestation of your solidarity.
Speaker 3: Oh no, that was awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if it's okay, I'd like to dig into some
Speaker 4: details on the sort of state of the civil rights
Speaker 4: liberalism as we know it here in California, because I
Speaker 4: think like we glossed over certain things that I'd like
Speaker 4: to clarify are not acts of benevolence on the part
Speaker 4: of the state and are in fact acts of just
Speaker 4: kind of like self glazing on their part, and like
Speaker 4: things that they do to sort of pat themselves on
Speaker 4: the back and then move on. So, I mean, first
Speaker 4: of all, Audra mentioned that Gavin Newsim had something to
Speaker 4: do with her release. I just wanted to circle back
Speaker 4: to that and point out that he's also completely screwed
Speaker 4: over some of our members, like gone completely out of
Speaker 4: his way to use his like what it's basically like
Speaker 4: a veto power over parole that should not exist, and
Speaker 4: it's just like set up to yeah, create like me.
Speaker 4: I mean, like this is how Gavin Newsim does everything
Speaker 4: in California. He's like, if I'm going to either take
Speaker 4: an action or not take an action as governor, is
Speaker 4: there any possibility that my action or inaction could make
Speaker 4: me look bad later on the national stage to people
Speaker 4: that are not my current constituents when I'm running for president.
Speaker 4: And he always does what he thinks is going to
Speaker 4: create the least risk and make him look good to
Speaker 4: a national audience rather than to his current constituents. And
Speaker 4: that is pretty clearly what happened with another one of
Speaker 4: our members recently. So yeah, fuck Evan Newsom. Actually, why
Speaker 4: does he even have.
Speaker 2: The power to overratee parole? Why does that even exist?
Speaker 5: A's absurd?
Speaker 4: I don't know. Yeah, you'd have to talk to some
Speaker 4: sort of like California constitutional historian to learn that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The other thing I want to talk about was this
Speaker 4: Racial Justice Act thing. So this is something that on
Speaker 4: its surface it sounds really radical. So first what they
Speaker 4: did was like in twenty twenty, when, as we all know,
Speaker 4: nothing in particular was happening, they passed this law called
Speaker 4: the Racial Justice Act that was like, hey, if you're convicted,
Speaker 4: but it was like due to racial animus or like
Speaker 4: the length of the sentence perhaps, and if not, the
Speaker 4: conviction itself is due to like a racial bias. You
Speaker 4: can you can try to prove that or not prove it,
Speaker 4: but like do what's called a prime of fates are showing,
Speaker 4: which is like the lowest level of you know, demonstrating
Speaker 4: something in court, and then we'll just like let you
Speaker 4: go based on that alone. Right, So that's wow, where
Speaker 4: are you radical?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: Okay, So a couple things. First of all, that was
Speaker 4: only from the future ontward, so that was not retroactive.
Speaker 4: Later there was outcry about that, and so they came
Speaker 4: back and were like, oh, okay, yeah, all the people
Speaker 4: in prison now can do it too. So the thing
Speaker 4: is this is also the kind of thing that can
Speaker 4: like overwhelm the courts. Right, So, like the way that
Speaker 4: this is being done in practice is like you get
Speaker 4: one shot at this. Ever, Yeah, as I understand it,
Speaker 4: and just like appeals. You get different amounts of appeals
Speaker 4: I think based on the conviction. But like basically if
Speaker 4: you fuck it up, like you're done, because the courts
Speaker 4: are limited in their capacity and need to be able
Speaker 4: to move on to hear other people's saying, and of
Speaker 4: course people file it and it's it's not good, it's
Speaker 4: not done well. And like the infrastructure to violate your
Speaker 4: rights is like better funded all the time. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 4: institutions to like defend your rights are typically not publicly
Speaker 4: funded at all outside of like the court's proper and
Speaker 4: you know, maybe there's certain government agencies in some states.
Speaker 4: But then like private civil rights attorneys are who have
Speaker 4: the option to be kind of the real civil rights defenders,
Speaker 4: and they get funded based on like court fees that
Speaker 4: are like set by the government. Right, and so the
Speaker 4: government like creates these systems where you know, the legislature
Speaker 4: essentially has the power to decide how much money a
Speaker 4: civil rights lawyer is going to be able to get
Speaker 4: practicing civil rights law by like suing the cops and stuff.
Speaker 4: In California and probably elsewhere, it's already like been settled
Speaker 4: that like if you do a civil rights case for
Speaker 4: something happening on the street, and then you do the
Speaker 4: same civil rights case for like the same thing happening
Speaker 4: to people in prison, You're going to make less money
Speaker 4: when it occurred in prison, basically. And you know, maybe
Speaker 4: some legal person has a finer, you know, detailed analysis
Speaker 4: of that than what I just said, But that's essentially
Speaker 4: my understanding. And I did work for for some attorneys
Speaker 4: who practice is kind of law at one point, so
Speaker 4: that is pretty egregious, yea. And yeah, I mean I
Speaker 4: think that like there's there's a lot of stuff in
Speaker 4: the kind of abolitionist sphere that is really kind of
Speaker 4: like nails on a chalkboard to me, And I think
Speaker 4: a lot of other people who tend to take a
Speaker 4: more like radical yet like radical in the long run,
Speaker 4: yet day to day pragmatic approach. I mean one of
Speaker 4: those things is like the nonprofit route basically, or like
Speaker 4: the five oh one C three route, where you you know,
Speaker 4: staff up, hire a bunch of people. If you started out,
Speaker 4: you know, being in the same class as the people
Speaker 4: who are in prison, you like propel yourself out of
Speaker 4: that class by doing this if you're successful, and then
Speaker 4: like things deteriorate from there as far as relationships go
Speaker 4: with people who are impacted. And then the other thing
Speaker 4: is like there's this strain of abolitionists who are like, well,
Speaker 4: we're the truest abolitionists because we just believe in like
Speaker 4: infinite second chances basically, and so like we sometimes get
Speaker 4: questions of like, how are you different from other abolitionist groups.
Speaker 4: So I would say, yeah, like a, we're not afraid
Speaker 4: to like pick people out. But it's like, you behave badly.
Speaker 4: I walk like you're talking, like you're out, Like that's
Speaker 4: not the same as throwing someone in prison. All the
Speaker 4: people will make that equivalence.
Speaker 3: I love this, but I do have to go. I
Speaker 3: appreciate you guys allowing me a chance to speak.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 6: I appreciate calling your support. I appreciate your support for
Speaker 6: a Lowdness on your podcast. I would just want to
Speaker 6: say one thing. When I was incarcerated, I would write,
Speaker 6: and Collins helped me start me a little website because
Speaker 6: I would write my emotions. I don't know if I
Speaker 6: can leak that website. Can I say what that website is?
Speaker 6: In case you guys want to look at it.
Speaker 4: It's your website.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you.
Speaker 6: It's adras A U d r A S Real Thoughts
Speaker 6: r e A L Thoughts with the S dot WordPress
Speaker 6: dot com. And it talks about my trauma, my prison
Speaker 6: life and everything. It has pictures and everything, And it
Speaker 6: would not be possible if it was not for Colins.
Speaker 6: It was my way of forming a support group from
Speaker 6: inside out. But I have to go because I do
Speaker 6: have somewhere.
Speaker 3: Else to be.
Speaker 4: It's been great having you here, Adra, Yeah, it's been
Speaker 4: it's been amazing having you here.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love Gg Collins. Thank you guys so much.
Speaker 4: I'll talk to you later if you're comfortable with the
Speaker 4: only if you're comfortable with it before you go, Do
Speaker 4: you want to tell me and the audience what her
Speaker 4: third strike was? Allegedly yes.
Speaker 6: I was sentenced in nineteen ninety four for sales of
Speaker 6: a twenty dollars piece of cocaine and I was given
Speaker 6: twenty five to life plus a five year enhancement. This one,
Speaker 6: I was sentenced to thirty six to life for second
Speaker 6: degree robbery. A lady say I robbed her while she
Speaker 6: was with her child, and then she recanted that story
Speaker 6: in court. I still was sentenced to thirty six to
Speaker 6: life because she couldn't find her forty dollars that she lost.
Speaker 6: There's a lot behind it. Actually, me and my partner
Speaker 6: at the time were co defendants. He was let off
Speaker 6: because he hadn't been in trouble in California, which was
Speaker 6: a good thing because he really was innocent. But I
Speaker 6: had to spend almost sixteen years on my life in
Speaker 6: prison for a crime I did not commit. It has
Speaker 6: its pros and as cons I'm a better human being today,
Speaker 6: not because it's CDCR, but because of me and the
Speaker 6: support system that I had while incarcerated in CDC, and
Speaker 6: it just made me a stronger person. They say, if
Speaker 6: it doesn't break you, it'll only make you stronger. So
Speaker 6: for anybody out there in the incarcerated world, don't give up,
Speaker 6: because if this doesn't break you, it will only make
Speaker 6: you stronger and you will get out because I did.
Speaker 6: And it's not always by the means that we think
Speaker 6: it will be, but when it's time, it happens. I've
Speaker 6: lived in the system long and I've lived a life
Speaker 6: span as a human being. I spent more time incarcerated
Speaker 6: for little stupid things.
Speaker 3: No murders, no mayhems.
Speaker 6: No beat ups, no DUIs, no nothing, none, nothing like
Speaker 6: that thinks that no one should ever see prison walls behind.
Speaker 6: But I did, and like I said, I was made
Speaker 6: the stronger.
Speaker 3: Because of organizations like you who support me. There were others,
Speaker 3: but you.
Speaker 6: Guys were the most impact in my life. You came
Speaker 6: in my life like a whirlwind and straightened everything. I
Speaker 6: helped me straighten my thoughts out in my life. You
Speaker 6: helped me in many ways because you didn't come in,
Speaker 6: get overwhelmed and take off. You stayed the long call.
Speaker 6: Your organization is not an organization that quits.
Speaker 3: It's we're gonna get some more to help us.
Speaker 6: Fight type of thing going on. And there's not a
Speaker 6: lot of organizations like that. They get overwhelmed. It's too
Speaker 6: much going on. We ain't got enough manpower. You guys
Speaker 6: only had people and you were making movements. And I
Speaker 6: don't understand correctly. I think you guys wrote a letter
Speaker 6: for a friend and supported her through board.
Speaker 3: Now she's out in the free world. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So you guys change lives because you don't give up
Speaker 6: on life, and for that, I hope you guys be
Speaker 6: around one hundred thousand years from now and I'll always
Speaker 6: be a member.
Speaker 3: You guys have a great thing.
Speaker 5: Luckily prisons aren't around for one hundred thousand years.
Speaker 3: But we love the odra. Hell yeah.
Speaker 5: I just want to add when I clarified, like about
Speaker 5: the Racial Justice Act, I don't want to you know,
Speaker 5: applaud it as.
Speaker 7: A victory of the system, like they're not really victories
Speaker 7: when the systems will exist, right, But I just want
Speaker 7: to say that it is still our duty to know
Speaker 7: when we can find those little kind of avenues for some.
Speaker 8: Momentary reprie for some people, and that can look like
Speaker 8: some creative ways. During COVID, we actually created hundreds of
Speaker 8: pockets for incarcerated folks so that they can actually file
Speaker 8: some tax documents and get their stimulus checks.
Speaker 3: Oh, which was major, right, So a ton.
Speaker 5: Of people were able to get their stimulus checks while incarcerated.
Speaker 3: Do you know how far that went?
Speaker 5: So it's just like those kinds of creative ways, you know,
Speaker 5: we often think, you know, we drive past a coffee
Speaker 5: shop and we're think, oh, yeah, my mom loved that
Speaker 5: coffee shop. We just hope that if we can make
Speaker 5: these connections with incarcerated neighbors. Then we can you know,
Speaker 5: as we're going through the world on the outside, we
Speaker 5: also make those connections like, oh, you know what, sumulus checks.
Speaker 3: Oh you know what, how do we.
Speaker 5: Get our incarcerated comrades to get those two? Right? Making
Speaker 5: those connections with the people that you build bonds with
Speaker 5: it's really important.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Can I go on a rant that covers most
Speaker 4: of the notes that I have that I haven't covered yet?
Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you. Prison organizing is tremendously popular with people
Speaker 4: in prison, and a lot of people on the quote
Speaker 4: unquote left or just with humanitarian sentiments on the outside
Speaker 4: are really great at you know, encouraging us and being
Speaker 4: like what you're doing is awesome and kind of giving
Speaker 4: us that like moral support which does help. And also
Speaker 4: you know, subscribing to our newsletter and sometimes doing phones
Speaker 4: apps and stuff like that. But generally it is tremendously
Speaker 4: difficult moving people from passive to active support in this
Speaker 4: kind of organizing. Typically, I think there is that kind
Speaker 4: of out of sight, out of mind factor going on
Speaker 4: for a lot of people, and I think there are
Speaker 4: organizing avenues out of that that I think we are
Speaker 4: you know, always exploring new new ways to kind of
Speaker 4: try and make those connections in an experiential kind of
Speaker 4: way rather than just like have you thought about how
Speaker 4: these things are connected, but like actually making it like
Speaker 4: real for people.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: But we have just found that like the most stalwart,
Speaker 4: steadfast people in this struggle for the most part, are
Speaker 4: people you know directly impacted by it, are people who've
Speaker 4: been to jail in prison or who have like close
Speaker 4: family members who are often currently there or were recently there.
Speaker 4: And so you know, we'd love to hear from you,
Speaker 4: if that's you in particular, we'd love to hear from you,
Speaker 4: love to plug you in. We are speaking, you know,
Speaker 4: from California, But again, the organization exists across the United
Speaker 4: States and aspirationally Canada as well and the UK, and
Speaker 4: there are also other prisoner solidarity organizations with a similar orientation,
Speaker 4: so it's not like we're doing something totally unique and
Speaker 4: unheard of here. There's something called gg slash BO in Germany,
Speaker 4: which is also like a union for prisoners, and I
Speaker 4: want to say there's pretty similar stuff in Spain to
Speaker 4: associated with the anarchist movement there. In the United States,
Speaker 4: I think people are probably pretty familiar with like political
Speaker 4: prisoner support or like support committees for groups like the
Speaker 4: Minnesota fifteen or the Prairie Land Defendants and situations like that,
Speaker 4: And that's really valuable and really important. And no movement
Speaker 4: that like doesn't look after its people when they're in prison,
Speaker 4: like is a serious movement that will go anywhere at
Speaker 4: the end of the day. So that work really really matters.
Speaker 4: And I think that when people hear us as Iowa
Speaker 4: repeat one of our mottos that like all prisoners are political,
Speaker 4: they don't quite necessarily get the analysis there. I mean,
Speaker 4: for one thing, like you know, I'm going to give
Speaker 4: the spiel from the ground up. I guess for a second,
Speaker 4: like crime as an artificial category, like what a conviction
Speaker 4: says on paper is not like reflective necessarily of what
Speaker 4: really happened. And there has yet to be I think
Speaker 4: some really damning like study about this, just because there
Speaker 4: just hasn't been a study. But it is widely understood
Speaker 4: that like essentially all women in prison have suffered some
Speaker 4: kind of abuse in their lives, and almost all of
Speaker 4: the women in prison for murder murdered an abuser of
Speaker 4: either themselves or their kids or both. And in my book,
Speaker 4: that ain't a crime. Yeah, but Gigi maybe if she's
Speaker 4: if she wants to, can talk about how narrow the
Speaker 4: self defense rule actually is. And this is something that
Speaker 4: is like a popular myth, like the self defense rule
Speaker 4: is actually really wide, and like, if you know someone's
Speaker 4: coming to kill you, you can kill them first and
Speaker 4: it's not murder. Absolutely not true. I actually had a
Speaker 4: manager at a job. He was doing a training on
Speaker 4: something completely unrelated, I assure you, and he was just
Speaker 4: sort of going off and he was like and he
Speaker 4: was this fucking macho prick, right obviously based on what
Speaker 4: I'm about to say, but like he was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: like if I anyone attacks you in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 4: you should just like kill them if you have the chance.
Speaker 4: And then there's only one story being told. And I
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, so that would be murder and he
Speaker 4: was like, well, not if they attack you first, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, it is actually, you know, like if
Speaker 4: there's just a body and you're like, yeah, you talk
Speaker 4: to me, like you should not assume that you will
Speaker 4: just get away with that, Like that is not how
Speaker 4: things work at all. Yeah, GD, do you want to
Speaker 4: elaborate on the self defense rule and what it is
Speaker 4: versus what people think it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's really important for us to understand that
Speaker 5: are doctrines in the United States are created to have
Speaker 5: loopholes for those in power and to be very convoluted
Speaker 5: and impossible to benefit from for those who are poor.
Speaker 5: So when it comes to the self defense doctrine, we
Speaker 5: actually have seen that it is disproportionately unavailable to victims
Speaker 5: of domestic and intimate partner violence. We have seen it
Speaker 5: disproportionately unavailable to black and brown men, to trans and
Speaker 5: non gender conforming neighbors. And a big part of that
Speaker 5: reason is because a complete self defense claim has six
Speaker 5: really important elements. You know, you cannot be like the
Speaker 5: first aggressor, there's distinctions between the use of deadly versus
Speaker 5: non deathly, a reasonable belief that the level of force
Speaker 5: that you use was necessary to protect yourself. But also
Speaker 5: this concept of proportionality. Right. We've seen that absolutely impact
Speaker 5: and am using DV cases because of this kind of
Speaker 5: concept of imminence. Right, So, if someone was being abused
Speaker 5: for a long time by their partner or their spouse,
Speaker 5: and you know, our psychology as humans are psyche sometimes
Speaker 5: you know, sometimes we snap. Right, If you didn't snap
Speaker 5: in the moment as a reaction to you know, being
Speaker 5: harmed in that moment, right, if your brain didn't make
Speaker 5: the proper calculation, that defense is not available to you.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: There's so many, fortunately, bars to actually being able to
Speaker 5: cleiming self defense in a successful way, and it's very intentional. Unfortunately,
Speaker 5: it was intentionally designed that way to avoid the most
Speaker 5: vulnerable from using it. For example, there's this kind of
Speaker 5: concept of perception of threat, right along with proportionality. Right,
Speaker 5: So if someone is taller or maybe physically larger than
Speaker 5: their abuser, then there's this concept that, well, is.
Speaker 3: Your abuser actually a threat to you?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 5: And so there's just so many ways in which the
Speaker 5: law has not actually caught up with our new knowledge
Speaker 5: when it comes to the psychological effects of living with
Speaker 5: intimate partner violence, the impact that it has on our
Speaker 5: reaction times, right on the cycles, on the challenges for
Speaker 5: many survivors to be able to even compile long term
Speaker 5: proof of abuse, et cetera. Right, we can go on endlessly,
Speaker 5: and so unfortunately, I think it's just a reflection of
Speaker 5: our legal system again, just created to bar those most
Speaker 5: vulnerable for many protection and it's really just there so
Speaker 5: that those who have the resources and those who have
Speaker 5: the control of social norms, right, those like young white
Speaker 5: men who have been perceived by juris as kind and innocent.
Speaker 9: Right, Kyle Rittenhouse, exactly right. That's who our laws were
Speaker 9: designed to protect, not our individuals. And so that's just
Speaker 9: just tie into our understanding of incarceration in this country
Speaker 9: and how it's truly not a reflection of what really happened.
Speaker 5: Most of the time. It's void of context and it's
Speaker 5: just out right in Jess.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there are a couple resources I think for
Speaker 4: people to check out if you're more interested in this.
Speaker 4: I Mean, one question is like, how many people are
Speaker 4: in prison right now who are straight up innocent? And
Speaker 4: the straightforward answer is, we have no idea. And you know,
Speaker 4: as a rule, we just tend to take prisoner's word
Speaker 4: on stuff. I mean, what everyone else does is just
Speaker 4: take the cops word on stuff, frankly, including the news. Oftentimes.
Speaker 4: A big part of what we do is we are
Speaker 4: available to give comment to journalists when possible around certain
Speaker 4: jail and prison disturbances or actions that people in prisoner
Speaker 4: jail have taken to defend themselves against you know, quote
Speaker 4: unquote the law, the people you know, torturing them essentially
Speaker 4: because oftentimes, you know, local news in particular will just
Speaker 4: be straight up stenographers for whatever the police press releases.
Speaker 4: I mean, they'll often also just refer to things as
Speaker 4: riots that are not Like if people sit down and
Speaker 4: like refuse to leave the lunch area or like the
Speaker 4: you know, like the central sitting area, they will refer
Speaker 4: to that as like a riot, even if no one
Speaker 4: is like throwing punches and just to sort.
Speaker 5: Of circle labor. If you refuse to work, you get
Speaker 5: punished for it. It's not necessarily optional, right. It is
Speaker 5: absolutely slavery, not just because of the conditions and because
Speaker 5: of the you know, poor payment basically lack of payment, right,
Speaker 5: but because you are forced to work or you get punished,
Speaker 5: and sometimes it goes on your record that could actually
Speaker 5: impact you for any kind of parole opportunities, et cetera.
Speaker 5: So it is punitive, it is exploitative, and there's nothing
Speaker 5: more than slavery.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to also touch base on, yeah, like the fact
Speaker 4: is it's slavery. I think that's like we and other
Speaker 4: organizers have done a pretty good job. I feel like
Speaker 4: of like getting that fact into the mainstream and being
Speaker 4: like yeah, like this is slavery, like period, end of sentence.
Speaker 4: It is legally and material slavery. And now we're entering
Speaker 4: this process in which states like Colorado, for example, are
Speaker 4: passing laws that's like yeah, so we're just like abolishing
Speaker 4: this slavery thing. And it's like it's like the apparatus
Speaker 4: to deprive people of their rights has not itself been
Speaker 4: disempowered in any way, and so they're just like waving
Speaker 4: a bond over this system of slavery, being like it's
Speaker 4: not now like okay, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 4: like when we demand, you know, abolish the thirteenth, it's
Speaker 4: like that's like kind of a long term, like strategic
Speaker 4: like legal demand, but just because a state, like I
Speaker 4: feel like this is being recuperated into the kind of
Speaker 4: like self congratulatory you know, like like foe civil rights
Speaker 4: like liberalism at this point, because like states are like
Speaker 4: abolishing their version of the thirteenth and then being like cool,
Speaker 4: our work here is done. Oh but you didn't do
Speaker 4: anything actually right, And Colorado in fact still forces people
Speaker 4: to work in their prisons and it is illegal technically,
Speaker 4: but like it ain't quite as illegal as you know,
Speaker 4: it ain't the same type of illegal when the state
Speaker 4: is doing it right, the state is not in fact
Speaker 4: gone by its own laws in practice. Yeah, and I
Speaker 4: mean also juxtaposed like everything that Jigi just said about
Speaker 4: self defense with like the excuses that cops are allowed
Speaker 4: to give when they shoot people out out at random. Right,
Speaker 4: it's like, oh, well, the standard for a human being,
Speaker 4: you know, killing another human being is it has to
Speaker 4: be like in mutual combat, like you have to be
Speaker 4: using proportionate for da da da da da, whereas like
Speaker 4: a cop can just be like well I kind of
Speaker 4: thought that he was holding something or whatever. So yeah,
Speaker 4: and as far as organizing goes, I mean, people, I
Speaker 4: just want to say, people take lots of actions. So
Speaker 4: a lot of the form that our organizing takes is
Speaker 4: like we establish ourselves as a presence. We have our
Speaker 4: incarcerated members. They give us information about what either they
Speaker 4: or other groups of people are doing. Other people on
Speaker 4: the outside know about us. They give us information about
Speaker 4: what's going on in places, and we are kind of
Speaker 4: known as like the prison labor organization that like does
Speaker 4: stuff around us, And there really isn't as far as
Speaker 4: I'm aware, a kind of organization that like does that
Speaker 4: direct support specifically around labor issues anywhere else in the
Speaker 4: United States, again outside of the local level perhaps. So Yeah,
Speaker 4: what we do is we pressure the prisons and jails
Speaker 4: to give into the prisoner's demands. And they're not necessarily
Speaker 4: going to like be like, oh, well, now that we've
Speaker 4: heard from the public, we will do all the demands.
Speaker 4: But like you heard the list of stuff that we
Speaker 4: read off about the Fresno jail, Like that was a
Speaker 4: surprising list of stuff, and they weren't actually striking or anything.
Speaker 4: And so so oftentimes because of the power and balance,
Speaker 4: it does sort of just make more sense for us
Speaker 4: to just pressure the prison directly, regardless of whether there's
Speaker 4: a strike or not. But people do go on strike
Speaker 4: in prison and do work slow downs in prison and
Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff, And it helps to have
Speaker 4: an outside like buffer and like support team and like
Speaker 4: a relational network of support, just like it does with
Speaker 4: other workers, right, Like building that kind of network of
Speaker 4: mutual aid and respect and support is what makes more
Speaker 4: action possible. And so that's what we kind of seek
Speaker 4: to do. And prison solidarity is something that is also
Speaker 4: not one directional. You know, you probably got a sense
Speaker 4: of this, you know, in the snippets with Odra. But
Speaker 4: we learn a lot from our inside numbers. We learn
Speaker 4: life changing lessons from our inside members a lot, and
Speaker 4: they learn from us too. But we always tell new members,
Speaker 4: like especially you know, if they don't have a lot
Speaker 4: of experience with prison or whatever, it's like, do not
Speaker 4: approach this or from like a paternalistic standpoint, Like, yes,
Speaker 4: they have a lot to learn, but so do we,
Speaker 4: And relationships and lessons go both ways. And also like
Speaker 4: prison admins are just incredibly vulnerable to public scrutiny, Like
Speaker 4: we heard how bad things are there, and it's like
Speaker 4: they don't want people knowing this, like they have just
Speaker 4: skated by on like the kind of general Reagan eighties
Speaker 4: vibe of like oh yeah, this is actually part of
Speaker 4: the punishment, like this entire time, and like that is
Speaker 4: still their mindset. It's like, yeah, it's prison isn't supposed
Speaker 4: to be fun. What do you mean we need to
Speaker 4: give people toothpaste? Like that is still like their attitude
Speaker 4: to the tea and we need to intervene in that
Speaker 4: because that's really terrible. Actually, yeah, and you know, this
Speaker 4: is an authoritarian country like straight up for the less
Speaker 4: wealthy half of the population, and this is like a
Speaker 4: huge part of that. And we can't just like not
Speaker 4: challenge the prison system and then do like radical organizing
Speaker 4: of any other kind and be like, yeah, we can
Speaker 4: just ignore this prison thing. It surely will not come
Speaker 4: to eat us at any point.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: There's also this kind of myth of like labor as rehabilitation,
Speaker 4: which is just like a you know, kind of calvinist
Speaker 4: sort of you know, humbug. But it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: we've already established that a lot of people in prison
Speaker 4: didn't do anything wrong, but like for those who did,
Speaker 4: like you know, within whatevery mortal framework you're using like
Speaker 4: if you're if you're someone who like goes around causing harm,
Speaker 4: how is like performing labor going to make you not
Speaker 4: that person? It's not. They're just producing surplus value, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: So that's total bull shit. And uh and it's also
Speaker 4: you know, it's just kind of like this this old
Speaker 4: fashioned eighteen hundreds logic of like coorehouses and shit, you know,
Speaker 4: like make them work, We'll make everything better somehow. And
Speaker 4: as for being sued, like we know that the persons
Speaker 4: hate being sued. The people who really see them the best,
Speaker 4: oftentimes are jail house lawyers, and we know that they
Speaker 4: hate that because like they will straight up try to
Speaker 4: have those people killed. Not only will they try to
Speaker 4: have those people killed, they will try to have any
Speaker 4: kind of prison staff reguard. That like grows a con
Speaker 4: and it's like, yeah, this thing that we did is
Speaker 4: kind of fucked up. Like I can't say with certainty,
Speaker 4: but like those people have died under suspicious circumstances. Just
Speaker 4: to contextualize it, like the prison adminsphere of public scrutiny
Speaker 4: like so much. And whenever we do something like this
Speaker 4: that is like sustained and like strategic and involving a
Speaker 4: lot of participation, which it's unfortunately not always and we
Speaker 4: need to work on that. And that is part of
Speaker 4: building a like staunch support base right is doing these
Speaker 4: distributed actions in a way that is like really sustained,
Speaker 4: so you know, we communicate with specific people and apply
Speaker 4: it pressure to the institution directly without going through any
Speaker 4: kind of like proper channels necessarily which tend to just
Speaker 4: do nothing. But doing this, we have stopped jail house
Speaker 4: lawyers from being killed. We have gotten firefighters at the
Speaker 4: Central California Women's Facility their time credits, which the prison
Speaker 4: was like dragging the feet on giving them to the
Speaker 4: extent that like it was actually going to affect when
Speaker 4: they got out, like they were having like six months
Speaker 4: of time that they like weren't applying like eight months
Speaker 4: from like their current get out time, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, Jesus. And so we fixed that. We have
Speaker 4: gotten multiple people like real medical care as opposed to
Speaker 4: like fake medical care. There was actually a kitchen strike
Speaker 4: that we didn't we didn't directly support, just because it
Speaker 4: like happened too quickly. Like I just I think I
Speaker 4: gave some like advice, but that was about it. And
Speaker 4: like they just like stopped paying them. Like in california're
Speaker 4: supposed to make like eight cents an hour or whatever,
Speaker 4: and they just were like, we're just not going to
Speaker 4: pay you your eight cents anymore, but eight since an.
Speaker 2: Hour is too expensive for you as a person could
Speaker 2: fuck it off. God, Jesus Christ to hate these people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this is just the nature of exploitation. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like they're always just trying to like, oh, we've gotten
Speaker 4: away with a million things. Let's get away with a
Speaker 4: million and month things. Yep, you know, like it's it's
Speaker 4: it's the nature of oppression and exploitation, right, But yeah,
Speaker 4: so they struck and they won back their eighth since
Speaker 4: an hour, and there was a slowdown that you can
Speaker 4: read about in Prison Reports, which is like a movement
Speaker 4: news outlet where people did a slow down. People that
Speaker 4: were producing, like the boxers for other prisoners I believe,
Speaker 4: did a work slow down about two years ago, eighteen
Speaker 4: months ago or so. And this was just to get
Speaker 4: access to the commissary. So like they were making good
Speaker 4: money by like prison standards, but like the commissary closed
Speaker 4: while they were still working, and so they couldn't spend
Speaker 4: their money, oh Jesus, Yeah, and so they did a
Speaker 4: slowdown to like fix that. This was part of California
Speaker 4: Prison Industries Authority, which like is the manufacturer of oftentimes
Speaker 4: first resort for like all kinds of like furniture and
Speaker 4: other supplies for the state of California, including the UC system.
Speaker 4: And this is often the case with other states as well.
Speaker 4: And we also just are disseminating helpful info all the time,
Speaker 4: like with that legal info. It's like if you show
Speaker 4: up with like a bunch of like radical literature and
Speaker 4: like some legal info to like a puncture. People are like,
Speaker 4: why you have legal info befooring as well, but like
Speaker 4: in prison, it's like, yeah, you're gonna find some people
Speaker 4: interested in the radical info and like that stuff. People
Speaker 4: are interested in it too, But like the legal info
Speaker 4: is what people really want because it is more practical.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, we of course we distribute information
Speaker 4: about the IWW and about solidarity, unionism and and you know,
Speaker 4: feminism and all kinds of other stuff, you know, the
Speaker 4: Black Panthers, you know, the whole nine. But like what
Speaker 4: people really do want, because it's the most practical, is
Speaker 4: like how do I sue the prison? How do I
Speaker 4: legally hack my way out of this beast? And like
Speaker 4: it works, and a lot of our best and like
Speaker 4: brightest outside members who were once inside members, like they
Speaker 4: didn't just wait for their sentence to expire. They like
Speaker 4: had to file grievances and like take every opportunity to
Speaker 4: like be the prison's worst op to the point that
Speaker 4: the prison was just like just the fuck out already,
Speaker 4: like enough of this person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, that's most of what I got how
Speaker 2: can people support y'all and get involved more.
Speaker 5: So, definitely, folk should visit us at incorsulative workers dot
Speaker 5: org and we will provide those links, and definitely sign
Speaker 5: up for our newswatter where we give some updates on
Speaker 5: what's happening inside in a safe way to protect our
Speaker 5: members inside and their organizing work, but also hear about
Speaker 5: you know, work happening across the country and across the
Speaker 5: world as well.
Speaker 4: I would also, I guess just add that we really
Speaker 4: want labor union nets and healthcare workers and lawyers and
Speaker 4: law students and researchers to plug into our website because
Speaker 4: there are spaces just and reporters and journalists, I should
Speaker 4: say as well, to plug into our website because there
Speaker 4: are spaces for just them. That doesn't mean that we
Speaker 4: don't want other people signing up too, but those professions
Speaker 4: I think, in particular, you know and educators also have
Speaker 4: a lot of impact and like a lot of relationship
Speaker 4: direct and indirect to the system that we want to
Speaker 4: kind of zero in on and do something with. And
Speaker 4: the website elaborates on that. If you're addicted to Instagram,
Speaker 4: you can follow us there at Incarcetrated Workers and also
Speaker 4: at thea underscore Iwalk or California. But if you're not,
Speaker 4: then good for you, and instead you should sign up
Speaker 4: to our email newsletter.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I will leave it at that.
Speaker 3: In sure, let's burn it down amazing.
Speaker 2: Now, before we go, I want to mention something extremely
Speaker 2: important that we'll be covering in more detail in a
Speaker 2: later episode, which is the planned twenty twenty seven National
Speaker 2: Prisoners Human Rights Strike plan to run from May Day
Speaker 2: to juneteenth and twenty twenty seven. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: more about this in a later episode and get more
Speaker 2: of the history of the twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: prisoner strikes that I walk and jail House Lawyers Speak,
Speaker 2: who we're going to be reading a statement from in
Speaker 2: a second we're involved in. But for now, I'm going
Speaker 2: to close this episode by quoting the statement released by
Speaker 2: Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, why we strike. A political storm is
Speaker 2: sweeping through many prisons across the nation, as the prison
Speaker 2: class plainly see the hidden mechanisms of a system designed
Speaker 2: to dehumanize the imprisoned population. For too long, many of
Speaker 2: us were kept in the dark about the machinery behind
Speaker 2: our confinement. How law enforcement district attorneys politicians and judges
Speaker 2: win elections on platforms of mass imprisonment and how private
Speaker 2: interests and rural economies profit off our bed counts. Our
Speaker 2: captive bodies are weaponized through prison based gerrymandering, where our
Speaker 2: numbers are used to swell the political power and draw
Speaker 2: federal funding into rural districts, all while stripping us of
Speaker 2: any voter representation. Through these exceptional clauses, the prison class
Speaker 2: is relegated to conditional citizenship, a status where constitutional rights
Speaker 2: are granted at the pleasure of the state. When officials
Speaker 2: can openly discuss transferring imprisoned citizens to foreign prisons without
Speaker 2: constitutional barrier, it is because these exception clauses have already
Speaker 2: stripped the prison class of the full protections of citizenship.
Speaker 2: Behind the razors, this legal disenfranchisement is paired with the
Speaker 2: reality of living in unventilated, boiling cells during climate extremes,
Speaker 2: enduring endless so called staffing shortage lockdowns ordered by prison crats,
Speaker 2: washing militarized roundups and ice attention centers, and seeing poor
Speaker 2: people funneled into plea deals simply because they cannot afford
Speaker 2: cash bail or paid legal defense. The traffic extends beyond
Speaker 2: the walls. Thousands on thousands of people in prison who
Speaker 2: meet the basic parole requirements are repeatedly denied parole by
Speaker 2: arbitrary boards citing quote the nature of the original crime
Speaker 2: end quote, a static reason that never changes, solely to
Speaker 2: maintain prison bed quotas even upon release. The karstural state
Speaker 2: traps formerly imprisoned people under supervision, debt, electronic surveillance inco monitors,
Speaker 2: and restricted probation and parole systems that serve as a
Speaker 2: revolving door back to a cell the core demands. While
Speaker 2: the full ten national demands remain active, strike organizers across
Speaker 2: committed states are focusing on three core demands. One and
Speaker 2: legalized slavery. Repeal the exception clause at a thirteenth Amendment
Speaker 2: to the US Constitution. This is the cause that last.
Speaker 2: Slavery is punishment in prisons. Two Restore voting rights. Repeal
Speaker 2: exception clauses such as Section two of the fourteenth Amendment
Speaker 2: that striped voting rights from confined citizens, pre trial detainees,
Speaker 2: and former felons. Three free all the political prisoners in
Speaker 2: the US prisons. Thank you all both for doing this
Speaker 2: work and for fighting this fight, and for being on
Speaker 2: the show, and I hope we all go out into
Speaker 2: the world and fight for workers everywhere, wherever they may.
Speaker 4: Be, and then fought.
Speaker 3: It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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