On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, Critical Resistance (CR) printed the newest issue of The Abolitionist Newspaper to date, a bi-lingual, cross-wall political education and organizing project free to imprisoned people in jails, detention centers, and prisons. Issue 41 features articles on ecological justice and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition.
This June, The Abolitionist Issue 41 is being mailed to over 4,700 prisoners and about 300 paid subscribers outside of cages who support the project by sponsoring free subscriptions for imprisoned people. CR also printed an additional 1,000 copies to distribute and circulate the issue among movement partners and communities near and far internationally through the coming months.
Subscribe today to ensure you receive your very own copy of the limited print edition!
See what’s inside the issue by reading the Letter from the Editors for Issue 41 below, and check out two free early-release articles online: a feature article by Rawan Masri of Decolonizing Palestine on ecocide in Palestine, and a feature interview by Ruth and Craig Gilmore with Yvonne Busisiwe Phyllis of The Forge in Johannesburg on land, freedom, and struggle in South Africa.
Episode 3 of CR’s accompanying podcast show “Over the Wall: The Abolitionist Hour” will also air soon, featuring interviews with contributing authors Judah Schept (who wrote the feature analysis article drawing on traditions of environmentalism to fight prison expansion and sharing assessment and emerging strategy to resist aggressive federal prison expansion in Central Appalachia), and Rehana Lerandeau and Eva Dickerson (co-authors of a piece in Issue 41 on the fight to stop Cop City). Check out past episodes and stay tuned for our next episode!
Issue 41 Letter from the Editors
Dearest Readers,
Welcome to the first issue of 2024! In these harrowing times, we hope Issue 41 of The Abolitionist, focused on ecological justice, sheds light on how abolishing the prison industrial complex (PIC) is a necessary steppingstone in saving the planet.
As every single month from June 2023 to May 2024 has been the world’s hottest on record, making 2024 likely even hotter than its preceding year as the top runner historically, climate crisis is one of the most pressing causes for urgent strategy, mobilization, and concern. As various crises have hit us with increasing frequency for the past few decades, we know that today’s climate disasters and tipping points aggravate the economic damage done by the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining how crises are compounded, we see more and more that the climate crisis has more to do with institutions, economic priorities, and political systems than weather.
It is important now more than ever for imprisoned people, anti-prison advocates, and abolitionists to join forces with environmentalists and ecologists. Because the PIC has gravely altered the economic and infrastructural landscape of the US, the PIC also poses numerous implications for the sole contributing factor to climate change— the use of fossil fuels. While 20 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are due to deforestation— exceeding the emissions from all passenger vehicles on the planet (according to Conservation International)–it is the PIC that incentivizes further industrial development through the maintenance and construction of existing and new cages.
More so, corporations and police are especially salient in the fossil fuel industry, as Associate Professor of Philosophy and African Studies at Georgetown University, Olúfémi O Táíwò argues in his 2020 Dissent Magazine article “Climate Apartheid Is the Coming Police Violence Crisis”: As executives and leading capitalists profit from polluting and destroying Black, Brown and poor communities, they evade regulation and accountability by commandeering political systems and processes. Then, police continue to use military weapons and tactics to protect profiteers from the oppressed and activists who seek to forestall apocalypse once crises accelerate. Similarly, we see this dynamic in what has become a “Great Climate Migration” from the Global South to the Global North. Consequently, concentration camps on the US-Mexico border detain climate refugees–the many who flee homelands struck by climate disaster due to imperialist practices and extractive economies. Rather than mitigate climate change, imperialist countries like the US expand walls and fortify border militarism. It is no coincidence, then, that with the hastening of ecological collapse, we see the rise of fascism globally.
Given the interconnectedness between the PIC, ecological destruction, and crises, those concerned with saving our ecosystems must consider strategies that address how the PIC drives ecological collapse, while anti-prison advocates and abolitionists must remember that we cannot build a world without cops or prisons if we destroy the planet. And the clock is ticking. Táíwò, many ecological and climate justice leaders, as well as the United Nations have warned already about the possibility of “climate apartheid”—a world in which only elites are able to access basic forms of protection and ecological security while everyone else faces the devastating effects of climate crisis and ecological destruction. Not only has the PIC played a major role in exacerbating climate chaos, but again, since the PIC congealed institutions of policing, imprisonment, and surveillance to manage perceived crises of social control, the PIC will remain the enforcer of climate apartheid, protecting the elites from ecological demise.
This issue’s features of The Abolitionist Newspaper span four different continents, covering grassroots examples of resistance and strategy that bind PIC abolition together with ecological justice in a range of fights from resisting displacement and houselessness in South Africa, to fracking in Argentina, ecocide and genocide in Palestine, the aggressive expansion of policing through Cop City in Atlanta, the brave work against pipelines in Appalachia, Indigenous wildfire management in California to sovereignty amidst “mega-projects” in México, and more. These feature action articles are anchored by a central feature analysis from Judah Schept, who’s currently organizing as part of a national campaign to stop the aggressive expansion of the federal prison system in Letcher County, Kentucky, coupled with reflections from imprisoned environmentalist lawyer Bryant Arroyo. Exploring the connections between the PIC and ecological disaster, harm & collapse, and amplifying the intersection between PIC abolition and ecological justice, as well as specific cross-sector strategies within these two movements, this issue’s features flower from decades of work by abolitionists and environmentalists joining forces to fight for the world that all our communities, ecosystems, and the planet at large need to live.
Because the features section is packed full of more articles than usual (including a centerfold photo essay on the tactic of blocking boats!), we kept the return of our columns brief. Be sure to check out Stevie Wilson’s compelling 9971 column— this time engaging fellow prisoners in conversations around guns and safety— as well as the Inside-Outside Fishing Line featuring a cross-wall conversation with CA prison closure campaign organizers on the Just Transition the statewide fight demands. Also be sure to see the heartbreaking news of CR co-founding member Masai Ehehosi’s sudden passing this spring in the political prisoner news column— “Until All Are Free”— along with some other important announcements from us in the CR Bulletin, which is substituting the more full CR Updates news column we usually do (Unfortunately we had to cut Movement Highlights this issue to make page count).
Also note the Call for Content on page 25 — we will be dedicating our final issue of 2024 to Masai, his legacy of revolutionary sacrifice and undying commitment to abolition while Issue 42 feature articles focus on and complicate conceptions of anti-war organizing. Review our submission guidelines and send us a submission (artwork or writing) for one of our columns, or convey an abolitionist message surrounding anti-war organizing (past or present) for us to consider publishing as a feature next issue. You can also reflect on how your resistance moves in rhythm with our dear Masai, his legacy, and all he taught us; then share those reflections honoring Masai with us to publish.
Onward toward a world worth living in for us all,
-Critical Resistance & The Abolitionist Editorial Collective
List of Issue 41 Contributors:
CONTRIBUTORING AUTHORS
- A
- Andre Johnson
- Antwann Johnson
- Billy Ray Boyer
- Brian Kaneda
- Craig Gilmore
- Dylan Brown
- Duane Palm
- Eva Dickerson
- Fernando Cabrera Christiansen
- Judah Schept Kenneth L Zamarron Max Reynard Menlo
- Mr Charley
- Nutmeg
- Pedro Uc Be
- Rawan Masri
- Rehana Lerandeau
- Robert Patterson
- Rose Braz
- Ruthie Wilson Gilmore
- Stevie Wilson
- Timothy Peoples
- Tony Marks-Block
- Yvonne Busisiwe Phillys
ARTISTS
- Bec Young
- Brian Fuller
- Brooke Anderson
- Climate Justice Alliance
- Francisco de Parres Gómez
- Greenpeace
- Hendrick Voss
- Jess X Snow
- Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative
- Meredith Stern
- Niko Purata
- Noel Celis
- Pete Railand
- Rex Whelyer
- Roger Peet
- Sarah Farahat
- Steve Dipaola
- The Dispatcher
- Zola
THE ABOLITIONIST EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE (CRITICAL RESISTANCE EDITORS)
- Billy Ray Boyer
- Dylan Brown
- Jess Ho
- Liz Atkins-Pattenson
- Luigi Celentano
- Mar Golub
- Molly Porzig
- Rehana Lerandeau
- Susana Draper
TRANSLATOR
- Luigi Celentano
DESIGNER
- William Ramirez
COPY EDITORS
- Alicia Abbaspour
- Anna Stratton
- Bonnie Feldberg
- Conrad Wolfe
- Julia Duray
- Julia Sweeney
- Katherine Downs
- Kristen Haven
- Letecia Garcia
- Madelyn Pawlowski
- Miles Toth
- Ramsey McGlazer
- Sharone Carmona
- Tess Rankin