This past year, Critical Resistance (CR) members have strengthened our connections and organizing with thousands of imprisoned people by sharing resources, strategies, and political dialogue across walls. We have maintained our standing lines of communication with people inside prisons, jails, and detention centers:
- Distribution of The Abolitionist newspaper, a bilingual (English/Spanish) publication released twice per year
- Remotely-powered phone lines that answer collect calls from imprisoned people
- Prisoner mail correspondence programs through our Oakland, Portland, and New York City chapters, with a revamped program in our Los Angeles chapter as well!
We have produced two issues of the The Abolitionist newspaper this year and distributed to an increased inside readership of nearly 5,000 imprisoned people for free, supported by hundreds of paid subscriptions of community members and movement partners on the outside. This was a big year for CR’s longest running political education tool. This past Summer, we released Issue #39 on reproductive justice and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition (now available for free download on our website here). CR also hosted an accompanying webinar tying together struggles for PIC abolition, reproductive justice, queer liberation, the abolition of the family policing system, and more. Issue #40 on control units is printing now and will be mailed out this month to all subscribers (Read a sneak peek here). Subscribe to The Abolitionist today and support radical political education and abolitionist organizing tools across prison walls! Your subscriptions allow us to send copies to thousands of imprisoned readers for free. And we invite you to sign up a loved one inside to receive a free copy.
With your support, we have also strengthened our prisoner correspondence processes and infrastructure, including the creation of a new online tool and database that has helped streamline and centralize our mail programs and phone lines across the organization. Our improved infrastructure has allowed us to build deeper political relationships with folks inside, strengthen the inside-outside organizing of our campaigns and projects, and uplift calls for solidarity coming from inside. These correspondence programs allow us to uplift testimonies like these, shared by one of our imprisoned comrades in the Close California Prisons campaign.
Along with these infrastructural additions, intentional volunteer recruitment and onboarding have increased the capacity of these programs. We now have dozens of volunteers skilled up in all aspects of our mail and phone line programs. CR chapters continue to host regular mail nights, virtually and in-person. Our prisoner correspondence programs are impactful ways to get plugged into CR’s abolitionist organizing – sign up for your nearest mail program or our phone line solidarity program today!
Your contributions of time and funds are crucial to supporting these vital programs and resources, and uplifting the voices, demands, and possibilities of our comrades inside.
Lastly, if you’re looking for other ways to support prisoner solidarity organizing this month, look no further! CR is ready to send out our annual holiday postcard with a heartfelt message of solidarity to all our contacts inside prisons, jails, and detention centers. You can support this mailing by signing and mailing some of these postcards yourself. Join us at one of our December postcard events to join the effort! And thank you if you already signed up to receive postcards to send out from home. Your people power and donations sustain CR’s strong prisoner solidarity organizing.
Thank you for continuing to support inside-outside organizing!
Toward liberation,
– Critical Resistance