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Prisons are a central pillar of state power.

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In addition to being veritable warehouses
of human misery, they serve as a threat that

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reverberates well beyond their walls, programming
us from an early age into accepting a life

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of economic, social and political subordination.

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They’re an eternal warning to do what you’re
told.

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Or else.

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This is an abnormal environment for a human
being, certainly.

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Y’know... these are essentially cages.

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And to think that we stay in them 23 hours
a day, come out for an hour a day...

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it's taxing.

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Prisons have existed in some form or another
since the development of early states.

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Yet for most of this time, they were primarily
used to detain criminals as they awaited their

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real punishment – usually some form of public
torture, execution or indentured servitude.

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This started to change in the mid-18th century,
as the modern prison system began to take

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shape amidst the rise of industrial capitalism.

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Back then, major cities in Europe and North
America were teeming sites of concentrated

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squalor, desperation and inequality – which
in turn, made them hot-beds of criminality.

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Fuelled by ruling-class hysteria about the
so-called “dangerous classes”, strict

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laws were passed that turned relatively minor
transgressions, such as stealing a pocket-watch,

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into crimes punishable by public hanging.

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Within this context, prison reform was proposed
by progressive Christian groups, such as the

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Quakers, as a more humane alternative to mass
executions.

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These early prison advocates argued that extended
periods of isolation would provide ample opportunity

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for sinners to reflect on their misdeeds and
demonstrate their penitence to God.

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Accordingly, they dubbed these new facilities
penitentiaries.

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It wasn’t long before those in power saw
prison’s potential as a means for maintaining

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social hierarchies under the rubric of public
safety.

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In the United States, prison construction
experienced an early boom in the years following

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the Civil War, as the state scrambled to reconstruct
America’s white supremacist scaffolding,

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which had been damaged by the formal abolition
of slavery.

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This racist system of mass incarceration was
expanded again in the decades following the

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defeat of the Black Power movement, and other
liberation movements of the 1970s,

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helping to give rise to its sprawling modern incarnation,
the Prison-Industrial-Complex.

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Over the next thirty minutes, we’ll talk
to a number of individuals as they share their

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own experience of dealing with this beast,
and the intense challenges involved.

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Along the way, we’ll discuss some of the
organizing being carried out by prisoners

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and abolitionists seeking to break down barriers
of state-imposed isolation, rattle the cage...

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and make 
a whole lotta trouble.

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The panopticon was a prison design, designed
by Jeremy Bentham in the late 1700s.

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In the center of the building, there’s a
watch tower.

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And the prisoners are arranged in cells so
the guard in the center can be watching any

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of the cells at any given moment.

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In disciplinary societies, the subject internalizes
the feeling of being watched at all moments,

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and engages in a practice of self-disciplining.

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Because even the potential of being watched
makes the subject begin to adapt their behaviours

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to what they think are the expectations of
the person who could be watching.

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Prison is the state weaponizing the flow of
time.

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It’s a factory for the production of sadness
and submission.

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It’s a deeply hierarchical internal culture
built on boredom and scrutiny.

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It’s the deeply felt sense that no matter
how bullshit our lives are, there’s still

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something the state can take away from us.

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Prison is like the permanent threat that holds
up all relationships of exchange and domination.

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So prison deeply affects all of us in every
kind of routine interaction under capitalism.

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Even if we never set foot inside of one.

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I would talk about the Prison-Industrial-Complex
as being something that has developed apart

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from the idea of criminal justice.

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It’s become a machine of its own.

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For corporate profit.

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For other motives that the complex serves,
like demographic motives.

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Politically, those who have the greatest motive
for changing the way things are, are the people

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people who get caught up in the system.

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So it serves that kind of political motive.

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It serves a demographic motive.

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And it serves as a kind of tool for control.

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The political economy of prisons is also tied
to the history of de-industrialization.

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In the United States, there have been waves
of migration of predominantly African Americans

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to urban centres like Chicago, Oakland, Philadelphia,
Detroit.

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And as jobs began moving to the suburbs, and
moving abroad under globalization, this created

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concentrated zones of urban poverty.

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And so what happened is, basically prisons
absorbed people who were shunted from the

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labour market.

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So, y’know... in places like Detroit or
Chicago, people who are considered redundant

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to the needs of capital are then round up
in prisons.

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It’s really about removing particular people
from society.

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Your race, your poverty, your history of colonization,
mental illness, disability – these are all

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things that intersect with the prison system.

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And it becomes the place where we put those
people that we don’t think of as hearty,

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equal, useful citizens.

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And so we dump them in a prison.

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Immigration enforcement and detention involves
a constellation of different agencies, including

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the Canadian Border Services Agency, which
has been compared to ICE.

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People have been getting deported from Canada
for a very long time.

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For many decades that looked like people being
held in a regular jail cell and then getting

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shipped out of Canada.

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But right now it looks like people being incarcerated
either in provincial jails, or in what are

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called Immigration Detention Centres, or Immigration
Prevention Centres – but are really just

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jails that are specifically for migrants.

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In Canada we have indefinite incarceration
for immigration, meaning that you can be held

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forever.

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So we have people being held over eight years.

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We have multiple deaths in immigration custody
— many of which we don’t even know the

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names or the numbers, because it’s not tracked.

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So when people are looking across the border
saying “oh Trump is incarcerating children,

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and putting kids in cages”... we actually
do the same thing.

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We have children in immigration detention
as well.

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A lot of people obviously are aware that in
Canada we have over-incarceration of Indigenous people

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Close to 40% now, of federally incarcerated
women are Indigenous women in Canada.

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In Saskatchewan, 99% of incarcerated girls
are Indigenous girls.

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Over 50% of incarcerated youth in Canada are
Indigenous.

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And while it’s true that America by far
outstrips everybody in the world in incarcerating

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people and in Black incarceration, Canada
also has a Black incarceration problem and

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a mass incarceration problem.

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It’s pretty clear that prison is invested,
and the justice system is invested in maintaining

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a kind of permanent class of people who do
crimes, who can then get managed by the police

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and by the prisons.

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And one of the ways that they do that is by
reproducing these kind of cycles of trauma

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on people.

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Almost everybody I meet inside of prison has
just, like... horrible stories of fucked up

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things that have happened to them, going back
to the time they were a kid.

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And then those kinds of trauma lead people
into situations where those traumas get re-compounded.

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And the prison pretty consciously plays on
those things, right?

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Like almost everybody has these kinds of histories
of sexual violence.

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And then prison goes ahead and then gives
any guard the power to strip search you at

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any time.

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People get used to these things.

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But the process of getting used to them, getting
to the point where it actually doesn’t matter

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how many times you get strip searched in a
week involves a form of loss, and internalization

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of hurt.

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And like a letting go of control over yourself
that ultimately makes people more vulnerable.

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Life inside prison is a highly structured,
daily routine.

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This is true whether you find yourself in
a low-security federal penitentiary, or in

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the administrative segregation wing of a super
max.

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Prisons are ongoing social experiments in
totalitarianism.

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Get your hands behind your back!

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We’ve sent inmates to the hospital.

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Broken/fractured skulls, broken arms, broken
ribs.

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Torn ears.

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Broken eye socket.

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It happens.

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They use intense regimentation, internal hierarchies,
sensory deprivation and boredom as tools of

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psychological conditioning.

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This practice is aimed at wearing people down,
limiting the need for direct corrective violence,

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and ultimately convincing inmates to accept
the authority of the institution.

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My mental health diminished.

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Slowly but surely.

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It’ll do it to anybody.

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I lasted a while... now I just say ‘fuck
it.’

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But there is nothing natural about being locked
up in cages and held against your will.

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And all the routine in the world can’t change
that.

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The days are all more or less the same.

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Overhead florescent lights flick on as a substitute
for dawn.

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You leave your cell in the morning, and go
into kinda like the big room.

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You wait around for the meal cart to come
on.

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There’s kind of a brief flurry of people
trading, like, juice crystals for coffee whitener

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or something like that.

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You’ve got about fifteen minutes to eat,
typically, before the guards want to bring

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the trays back in, because their breaks are
timed around meal time.

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Then you’re just out in the day room for
the day.

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There’s very little to do there... sometimes
the TV will be turned on.

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After three hours a lunch tray comes on.

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Again it comes on in a cart, in little plastic
trays.

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Everybody does their trades.

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And then after lunch you get locked down so
that the guards can take their break.

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If you’re lucky, you’re in a situation
where there’s two to a cell.

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For many provincial jails, you’re three.

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So there’s one person whose bed is on the
floor.

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So there’s actually no space to walk around
or move, apart from maybe just, like, a narrow

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space to get to the toilet.

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And then after maybe two or three hours you
get let back out.

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You’re back in the big room... still nothing
happens.

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Maybe you catch up with your buddies who you
haven’t talked to since yesterday at this

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time, and tell stories about all the nothing
that happened to you.

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You don’t really have a sense of what time
it is, so you just kinda go by what TV shows

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are on, you know?

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So you get, like...

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Maury-o’clock.

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And then you have Dr. Phil-o’clock.

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And then Ellen-o’clock means its dinner
time, because you eat at four, in order to

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line up with how long the guards’ shifts
are.

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After dinner you get locked back up again
for another couple hours.

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You and your cellies.

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Maybe you’ve brought some books in with
you this time... all the beat to shit paperbacks

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that have been kicking around the jail forever,
and just like, covered with blood and snot

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and don’t really get replaced.

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Then you get out for a couple of hours in
the evening.

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The evening shows vary a lot more than the
daytime shows, y’know, so like maybe its

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like the show where celebrities lip sync.

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And then you get locked back up for the night,
starting at probably about 8 o’clock.

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Lights are on for another two hours.

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Again, you just kind of kill time.

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After lights out, you’ve gotta try to be
quiet.

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No more flushing the toilet until morning,
because they’re these like ultra-powerful

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industrial vacuum toilets that make huge amounts
of noise.

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And then you wake up when the florescent light
turns on, and the whole thing starts over

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again.

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When you go in, these people are going to
be very caring to you and they’re going

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to ask to see your paperwork just to make
sure you have it with you.

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And you’re going to go through a metal detector.

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It’s not scary... you’re going to be fine.

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I was sixteen when my brother was incarcerated.

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My brother was seventeen and he was given
a juvenile life without parole sentence — a

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sentence that only exists in the United States.

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Living with an incarcerated sibling, you become
aware of how expensive it is to even just

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exist in prison.

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I’m continually having to upload money in
my brother’s account so he can buy commissary

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items.

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All communication between prisoners and their
loved ones and family members is mediated

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by a company that price gouges for prisoners
to use...

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phones, for example.

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There’s this move towards phasing out in-person
visitations and replacing them with digital

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visitations.

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So there are, in the United States, two prison
telecom companies that dominate the industry:

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Global Tel Link and Securus Technologies.

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What these companies will sometimes do is
require, in their contracts, that the prison

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they’re servicing phase out in-person visits
and replace them with these digital visits.

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And they’re basically exploiting prisoners’
need to stay socially connected to their families

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and loved ones.

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Burnside, or Central Nova Scotia Correctional
Facility, is the jail for the Halifax region.

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There’s like, about 400 men maybe, and about
40 women... it depends on the day.

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You can never really figure out capacity for
these jails.

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Because what they do is when they hit capacity,
they just say that there can be more people.

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Burnside is now at any one time between two-thirds
and 80% remand, meaning people who haven’t

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been convicted of any crimes at all.

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They’re awaiting trial, or they’re on
breach, or they haven’t got bail.

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They’ve been struggling with lock-down.

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So essentially since August, they have not
really been out properly.

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What we’re seeing, not only in Burnside,
but really across the country is that these

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things are becoming the new normal.

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So lock-downs, they used to be quite rare.

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Only when there was a search, only when there
was an extremely violent incident.

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And now it’s essentially become the new
normal.

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And so when I say on lock-down, I want to
be clear here that what we’re talking about

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is conditions of solitary confinement being
extended to be the normal for the entire jail.

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The old so-called ‘gangs’ that used to
run everything—the Bloods, the Crips, Gangster

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00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:07,840
Disciples, Aryan Brotherhood—those are kind
of like dinosaurs these days.

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You have some younger groups that are organized
a bit differently.

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00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:15,760
It’s less based on race than the old gangs
used to be.

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00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:18,000
The lines are a little bit more blurred.

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00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:22,400
And if you come into prison and you’re not
a gang member, they’re going to find some

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affiliation to tag you anyway, because it
increases the amount of money that they get.

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So it’s... yeah, it’s definitely a cash
cow.

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I’ve done time in both men’s and women’s
provincial prisons at this point.

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It’s kind of a new phenomenon...

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00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:37,480
I wasn’t really expecting it.

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The gender segregation aspect of prison is
one of its most kind of poignant features,

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00:15:41,300 --> 00:15:46,519
in that it’s one of the sites where society
most brutally segregates people and tells

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00:15:46,519 --> 00:15:50,129
them what their gender is, what that means.

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00:15:50,129 --> 00:15:53,509
These forms of gender segregation and differentiated
control shape people’s behaviour pretty

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00:15:53,509 --> 00:15:54,509
profoundly.

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00:15:54,509 --> 00:15:58,069
Since people are spending, kind of months
and years in these, like, extremely restrictive

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00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:02,600
conditions where people are very closely scrutinizing
each other, and enforcing behaviours on each

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00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:03,480
each other.

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00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:06,400
This then spreads back out into the community,
and it sort of becomes one of those ways that

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00:16:06,410 --> 00:16:07,410
prison is diffuse.

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00:16:07,410 --> 00:16:10,160
It’s not just the walls that, like, physically
contain people.

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00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:13,439
It’s a whole set of institutions and forms
of social control that, like, profoundly shape

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00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:14,120
behaviour.

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00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:16,920
It means the culture among prisoners—which
is toxic and disgusting, and I don’t think

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00:16:16,929 --> 00:16:19,790
we should valorize it—then gets exported
into these spaces as well.

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00:16:19,790 --> 00:16:24,730
And so those dynamics around violence and
scrutiny get reproduced and favour people

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00:16:24,730 --> 00:16:26,209
returning to prison.

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00:16:26,209 --> 00:16:30,390
So over time, you do get these forms of, like
a reproduction of a class of criminals.

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00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:33,840
Of, like, people whose role is to be permanently
managed by the system.

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00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:57,470
The Attica Prison Uprising began on September
9, 1971, two weeks after imprisoned Black

255
00:16:57,470 --> 00:17:02,070
revolutionary George Jackson was assassinated
while attempting to escape San Quentin.

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00:17:02,070 --> 00:17:06,959
During the four-day uprising, nearly 1300
prisoners took over control of the prison

257
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:08,880
and held 43 guards hostage.

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00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:13,599
They issued a series of demands aimed at improving
the inmate’s living conditions.

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00:17:13,599 --> 00:17:18,599
But rather than negotiate with the insurgent
prisoners, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller

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00:17:18,630 --> 00:17:24,430
sent in an army of 550 state troopers and
74 Correctional Officers to storm the facility

261
00:17:24,430 --> 00:17:26,490
and retake it by force.

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00:17:26,490 --> 00:17:32,240
43 people were killed during the resulting
bloodbath, including 10 guards and 33 prisoners.

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00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:36,280
In the ensuing outcry, a number of reforms
were passed to improve conditions in the

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00:17:36,280 --> 00:17:38,070
New York state prison system.

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00:17:38,070 --> 00:17:44,550
45 years later, on September 9, 2016, prisoners
in twelve US states launched what has been

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00:17:44,550 --> 00:17:47,670
referred to as ‘the largest prison strike
in history.’

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00:17:47,670 --> 00:17:53,040
Chief among their demands was the end of prison
slavery – a reference to inmate’s hyper-exploitative

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00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:58,740
labour conditions, and a loophole in the 13th
amendment to the US constitution, which formally

269
00:17:58,740 --> 00:18:02,640
outlawed slavery ‘except as a punishment
for crime’.

270
00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:08,080
The US prisoner workforce consists of 800,000
inmates across the country.

271
00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:13,800
The average minimum wage they’re paid for
non-industry prison jobs is now 86 cents per

272
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:14,760
hour.

273
00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:17,960
In Louisiana, prisoners earn four cents per
hour.

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00:18:17,960 --> 00:18:23,760
And in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
and Texas, prisoners are not paid at all.

275
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:30,360
A second coordinated prison strike, held over
three weeks in 2018, saw protests, hunger

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00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:35,550
strikes and work stoppages by prisoners across
seventeen US states, as well as inmates in

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00:18:35,550 --> 00:18:39,230
Burnside Prison, located in the Canadian province
of Nova Scotia.

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00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:44,080
Both the 2016 and 2018 strikes were
coordinated with the assistance of outside

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00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:45,040
supporters.

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00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:49,080
And while they have not yet achieved their
demands, they have helped to galvanize a broader

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00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:53,400
discussion about the conditions of mass incarceration
in the United States.

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00:18:56,840 --> 00:19:04,160
Inmates are using cellphones to get behind
a common cause, pushing back against the system.

283
00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:11,840
At Hayes, where inmates outnumber officers
five to one, that's a serious threat.

284
00:19:12,360 --> 00:19:16,110
If seventeen hundred inmates said 'I don't
wanna be here no more' and just started walking

285
00:19:16,120 --> 00:19:19,680
towards the fence, you think forty, fifty
police is gonna be able to do something...

286
00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:21,240
What the fuck are they gonna do about it?

287
00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:26,280
The Burnside prison strike arose in tandem
with the prison strike in the United States

288
00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:30,840
so August 21st to September 9th, those dates
were chosen because of very significant prison

289
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:32,640
uprisings that had taken place.

290
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:37,560
In the United States the prison strike really
was a strike, it was based on withdrawing

291
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:38,060
prison labour.

292
00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:41,960
We wanna get paid for working in these chain
gangs for free!

293
00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:45,080
Just know, we're tired of this shit, we're
laying down man!

294
00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:48,120
Y'all gonna have to earn your own check we're
through with this shit!

295
00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:52,840
Obviously in a provincial context, in a provincial
jail there isn't as much labour but Burnside

296
00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:54,680
wanted to join to address their conditions.

297
00:19:54,680 --> 00:19:59,000
We were connected with the Incarcerated Worker's
Organizing Committee and working with the

298
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:01,920
people that were working with the strikers
in the states so there was that communication

299
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:02,640
back and forth.

300
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:06,160
We don't know kind of what the ripple effects
of people being able to stand up for those

301
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:10,840
rights and take that lead in organizing is,
but as time unfurls I think we're going to

302
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:12,000
see more and more on that.

303
00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:19,520
I think there's a lot of hope in people on
the outside organizing directly with prisoners

304
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:28,360
because what happens is when someone on the
inside is caught engaging in organizing activity,

305
00:20:28,370 --> 00:20:33,400
they'll often be subjected to really severe
forms of repression.

306
00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:38,840
When they accused us of being the leaders
of the army of the twelve monkey rebellion

307
00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:42,640
they engaged in full scale torture,.

308
00:20:42,640 --> 00:20:46,860
You know, we were in freezing cold all winter
long.

309
00:20:46,860 --> 00:20:51,240
They would come by every fifteen minutes and
rattle the doors in order to keep us awake

310
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:52,840
so that we wouldn't get any sleep.

311
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:58,000
When we left there after a year, we had both
lost about thirty-five percent of our body

312
00:20:58,000 --> 00:20:58,840
weight.

313
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:05,440
One of the ways that people do try to carve
out space to have some kind of autonomy within

314
00:21:05,460 --> 00:21:11,050
prison is to continue to find the ways in
which they can't be quite as neatly surveilled.

315
00:21:11,050 --> 00:21:15,310
So that just means that certain things only
happen in the showers because, although any

316
00:21:15,310 --> 00:21:19,510
guard can force you to rip your clothes off
at any time, they don't film you in the showers

317
00:21:19,510 --> 00:21:22,780
and they mostly don't film you in the cells
unless you're on some sort of special regiment

318
00:21:22,780 --> 00:21:24,690
like suicide watch or something like that.

319
00:21:24,690 --> 00:21:28,960
So during the periods of time in the day when
the cell doors aren't locked, that becomes

320
00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:33,270
a place to have private conversations or to
exchange things or to settle scores or whatever.

321
00:21:33,270 --> 00:21:38,610
So understanding those spaces as a way that
people take back some power over their ability

322
00:21:38,610 --> 00:21:41,120
to do things on their own terms.

323
00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:45,720
This building serves as a constant reminder
of the eighteen hour siege in which inmates

324
00:21:45,740 --> 00:21:50,710
overpowered corrections officers, taking three
of them hostage, along with a councillor and

325
00:21:50,710 --> 00:21:52,180
potentially other prisoners.

326
00:21:52,180 --> 00:21:55,800
It was this incident which led to the death
of lieutenant Steven Floyd.

327
00:21:57,160 --> 00:22:01,720
So there's already a migrant prison in Laval,
and it's falling apart and the building is

328
00:22:01,740 --> 00:22:06,890
apparently full of asbestos, and the government
should definitely close it but we shouldn't

329
00:22:06,890 --> 00:22:08,980
let them open another one in its place.

330
00:22:08,980 --> 00:22:14,180
There's two architectural firms that have
been awarded the design contract, one is called

331
00:22:14,180 --> 00:22:15,200
Lemay, which is in Montreal.

332
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,720
And one is called Group A, which is in Quebec
City.

333
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:23,310
About a year ago there was a communique claiming
an action that involved releasing crickets

334
00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:25,120
into LeMay's headquarters.

335
00:22:25,120 --> 00:22:30,320
In the fall of 2018 there were workshops that
got started, info sessions and discussions

336
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:34,050
in and around Montreal about the prison and
why people should stop it.

337
00:22:34,050 --> 00:22:35,460
There was a poster campaign.

338
00:22:35,460 --> 00:22:39,140
There's been a few zines released about the
project.

339
00:22:39,140 --> 00:22:43,710
Loiselle, one of the companies involved in
the soil remediation, had their offices spray

340
00:22:43,710 --> 00:22:47,590
painted and someone painted a slogan against
the prison on their wall.

341
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:52,480
In February there was a demonstration in St-Henri
where people went to Lemay's headquarters.

342
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:57,000
Also in February people went out to Laval
to block a site visit for the prospective

343
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,960
general contractors, which was pretty successful.

344
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,040
None of the bidders who showed up that day
were able to reach the spot where they were

345
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:07,800
supposed to do the site visit and a lot of
them turned around and went home.

346
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:12,920
All through March there was a call-in campaign
against the potential contractors where people

347
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:16,640
were asked to call the companies and tell
them not to bid on building the prison.

348
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:20,960
One rumour said that someone got a company
on the phone who was like "why is our phone

349
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:21,960
number on the Internet?

350
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,160
Why do people keep calling us?

351
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:25,480
Stop calling us.

352
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:26,640
We're not going to bid on this prison".

353
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:31,760
There was a communique that came out that
said people smashed the windows at the office

354
00:23:31,770 --> 00:23:36,540
for a Lemay condo project and that they had
sprayed paint all over two condo tower projects

355
00:23:36,540 --> 00:23:40,340
that were also being overseen by Lemay.

356
00:23:40,340 --> 00:23:46,320
If you have access to a community radio station,
I highly advice setting up a kind of prison

357
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,760
radio show something that's just explicitly
directed, where they can choose the music,

358
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:51,360
make sure they know it's happening.

359
00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:52,080
Jail lines.

360
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,840
They advertise within the jail that they have
a line and that it's open in the afternoons

361
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,280
and people can call them and that way you
start building a relationship.

362
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,920
Just being able to talk with people, to connect,
to have empathy and to understand each other.

363
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:07,200
To provide practical support around how to
deal with legal shit, hooking each other up

364
00:24:07,210 --> 00:24:10,220
with lawyers, helping relay calls through
to people.

365
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:15,680
All of this becomes useful ways of subverting
some of the alienation of prison.

366
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:32,160
In the months immediately following Donald
Trump’s presidential election, the stocks

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00:24:32,170 --> 00:24:37,470
of the world’s two biggest private prison
companies, CoreCivic and Geo Group both doubled

368
00:24:37,470 --> 00:24:38,200
in price.

369
00:24:38,900 --> 00:24:43,720
Investors had wagered that Trump’s strident
anti-migrant, tough-on-crime campaign rhetoric

370
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,990
would translate into more profitable government
contracts and the construction of new private

371
00:24:47,990 --> 00:24:49,520
detention facilities.

372
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:53,540
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not
sending their best.

373
00:24:53,780 --> 00:24:55,340
They’re bringing drugs.

374
00:24:55,660 --> 00:24:57,060
They’re bringing crime.

375
00:24:57,060 --> 00:24:58,460
They’re rapists.

376
00:24:58,460 --> 00:25:01,820
And once in office, Trump didn’t disappoint.

377
00:25:01,820 --> 00:25:07,580
What we are going to do is get the people
that are criminal and have criminal records..

378
00:25:07,580 --> 00:25:11,000
we’re getting them out of our country or
we’re going to incarcerate.

379
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:15,700
Millions of Americans have recoiled in horror
from the barbarism of Trump’s policies.

380
00:25:15,700 --> 00:25:20,180
This was particularly true in the wake of
the widely-broadcast images of children being

381
00:25:20,190 --> 00:25:24,430
ripped from their parents’ arms and thrown
into specially-constructed detention facilities

382
00:25:24,430 --> 00:25:27,060
grotesquely referred to as ‘baby jails’.

383
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,580
But while the images and details surrounding
the so-called ‘zero tolerance policy’

384
00:25:31,590 --> 00:25:37,100
were particularly rage-inducing, the phenomenon
of forced family separation is certainly nothing

385
00:25:37,100 --> 00:25:38,100
new.

386
00:25:38,100 --> 00:25:43,770
It forms an integral, if often invisible component
of the practice of mass incarceration.

387
00:25:43,770 --> 00:25:47,270
Nonetheless, resistance to these images was
swift.

388
00:25:47,270 --> 00:25:51,970
ICE offices and detention facilities were
targeted by occupations across the United

389
00:25:51,970 --> 00:25:56,440
States, forcing several facilities to temporarily
shut down.

390
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,920
And while the occupations were eventually
cleared, and the outrage died down, it gave

391
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:05,380
us a small taste of what a more sustained
and widespread movement against prisons might

392
00:26:05,380 --> 00:26:06,000
look like.

393
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,960
Building a practice that opposes prison is
one of the most important things that we can

394
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:19,720
do as anarchists.

395
00:26:20,140 --> 00:26:24,300
I think in order to do that, we have to start
by changing the way that we look at society,

396
00:26:24,310 --> 00:26:25,530
in order to learn to see prison.

397
00:26:25,530 --> 00:26:30,010
Because I think oftentimes prison, it produces
silence, it produces invisibility by literally

398
00:26:30,010 --> 00:26:33,180
locking people’s voices and bodies where
you can’t see them.

399
00:26:33,180 --> 00:26:35,940
So beginning by looking and just being like,
“where are prisons in this area?”

400
00:26:36,060 --> 00:26:40,320
Physically go to them, watch them, walk around
them, do protests at them, set off fireworks.

401
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:44,070
And then after that, just look at the ways
that prison affects your life, even if you’ve

402
00:26:44,070 --> 00:26:47,080
never been there, and just ask yourself “in
what ways am I afraid?

403
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:48,000
When am I afraid?

404
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,780
What kinds of interactions are relying on
the authority and the violence of prisons

405
00:26:51,780 --> 00:26:52,780
in order to carry them out?”

406
00:26:52,780 --> 00:26:56,260
Talk about this with your friends, figure
out if you can cultivate practices that allow

407
00:26:56,260 --> 00:26:58,960
you to break some of that fear or recognize
that you have more choices that you weren’t

408
00:26:58,960 --> 00:26:59,580
aware of.

409
00:26:59,580 --> 00:27:01,740
For instance, like, why do you pay rent?

410
00:27:01,740 --> 00:27:03,400
Why do you listen to your boss?

411
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:05,460
Why do you pay for food when you need food?

412
00:27:05,460 --> 00:27:06,140
Break this down.

413
00:27:06,140 --> 00:27:10,600
Because standing behind all of those authority
figures are walls and barbed wire and locked

414
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:11,340
doors.

415
00:27:11,340 --> 00:27:13,980
I think learning to see can actually give
us more power to resist it.

416
00:27:15,460 --> 00:27:18,640
Almost worse than prison itself is the fear
of prison, and that’s one of the main ways

417
00:27:18,650 --> 00:27:22,380
that prison projects itself into society and
controls our behaviour even if you’ve never

418
00:27:22,380 --> 00:27:24,130
heard the kind of a clank of a door closing.

419
00:27:24,130 --> 00:27:26,960
So I’d say that, as anarchists, as people
who, like, love freedom and are prepared to

420
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,800
act on it, that we also need to be somewhat
prepared to do some time.

421
00:27:31,120 --> 00:27:36,600
Keep in mind, that what we imagine things
to be, are probably worse than they really

422
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:37,600
are.

423
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,180
You’re gonna feel anxiety and you’re gonna
feel scared.

424
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,520
It always helps to have people from the outside
because, I've spent about 27 years locked

425
00:27:45,540 --> 00:27:50,180
up now, and I've spent most of that with my
head on the other side of the fence.

426
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,760
It’s good not to get pulled into a place
like this.

427
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,920
Once your head is on the inside of this and
you’re thinking about the internal politics

428
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:03,460
of what’s going on in here, that can really
wear you down.

429
00:28:03,460 --> 00:28:07,720
So if you can keep your head, to the extent
possible, on the other side of the fence that’s

430
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:08,440
always good.

431
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,600
And also, something that I’ve lived by in
terms of a principle...

432
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:16,480
I like to continue being who I am in the here
and now.

433
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,240
Because the here and now is really all that
we have.

434
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:25,160
You can find ways... if you have some imagination,
you can find ways to make the time you’re

435
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,080
doing now count.

436
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:29,440
You can come up with projects that matter.

437
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:33,160
And you can continue changing the world right
from wherever you are.

438
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:36,920
What would you do
if you was in my shoes?

439
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,920
Thoughts of suicide,
but for my kids I choose

440
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:43,040
to survive hell on earth,
cuz this is hell, I curse

441
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:44,520
whoever created it.

442
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:46,480
They shoulda laid in it first!

443
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,160
So they can feel
how they own shit work.

444
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:50,720
Spitefulness is bad.

445
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:52,240
Ignorance is worse.

446
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:57,560
There’s no barbed wire, lots of greenery
and striking contemporary art.

447
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,560
Inmates even have pretty great views out of
their cell windows.

448
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,560
It’s all part of a plan to make prisons
more humane.

449
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,150
Ask yourself in what way in your area, prison
is changing.

450
00:29:07,150 --> 00:29:08,470
How are these things developing?

451
00:29:08,470 --> 00:29:12,940
So, like in the area that we’re in, here,
there is this push away from using segregation

452
00:29:12,940 --> 00:29:15,760
towards various forms of kind of sentence
in the community.

453
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:22,850
Studying the history of prisons, you see that
reformers are actually the ones who are kind

454
00:29:22,850 --> 00:29:27,550
of planting the seeds for the next regime
of social control.

455
00:29:27,550 --> 00:29:31,020
And I think that no matter what those changes
are you should always oppose them.

456
00:29:31,020 --> 00:29:34,230
Whether it’s as obvious as building a new
institution, or whether it looks like changing

457
00:29:34,230 --> 00:29:39,420
laws to allow for more supervised sentences,
rather than periods of incarceration.

458
00:29:39,420 --> 00:29:45,280
The more that you can get involved with prisoners
in here, and the more disruptive that your

459
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:52,360
activity with those prisoners can become to
the larger complex, the more you liberate

460
00:29:52,370 --> 00:29:58,700
not just prisoners from the prison complex,
but the more liberation you’re spreading

461
00:29:58,700 --> 00:30:00,680
in free space out there.

462
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:06,600
With as many people as you have locked up,
you have a variety of people that want to

463
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:08,560
do a variety of things.

464
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,800
You have to begin with a relationship of trust,
and you have to build that over time.

465
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:15,920
I find that most of the things that we’ve
worked on have come because of that relationship.

466
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,920
We’re just, on a daily basis, communicating
with people inside, and filling basic needs.

467
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,800
So that may be putting money on the phone,
putting money on cantine, driving up someone’s

468
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:24,600
mom to visit.

469
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:32,360
A very important thing to organize and rally
around is the right for prisoners to stay

470
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:40,520
in touch with their loved ones through physical
contact and also through free modes of communication.

471
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:43,040
Out of that you’re going to hear a lot of
the issues.

472
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:47,400
So as I said, the prison strike arose kind
of spontaneously from us speaking on the radio,

473
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,160
and then getting a phone call about the conditions.

474
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:54,150
Everywhere they try to build a prison of any
kind, we should try to stop it.

475
00:30:54,150 --> 00:30:58,250
Let’s not let the state provide itself with
more infrastructure to enforce the repression

476
00:30:58,250 --> 00:30:59,880
of us and our communities.

477
00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:02,960
I would recommend that people check out things
written by other folks who’ve been through

478
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:04,240
this already.

479
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:09,720
That includes groups like Critical Resistance
in California, anarchists in Brussels, there

480
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:14,880
was also a group called End he Prison Industrial
Complex in Kingston, Ontario that was fighting

481
00:31:14,890 --> 00:31:17,160
against the expansion of a prison in their
city.

482
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,640
And those groups have all written reflections
about their struggles on the Internet that

483
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:21,850
people could find.

484
00:31:21,850 --> 00:31:25,480
There’s lots of people who’ve been fighting
prison construction over the years, and I

485
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:28,070
would go check out all of their reflections.

486
00:31:28,070 --> 00:31:29,990
Prison affects all of us even if we’ve never
been there.

487
00:31:29,990 --> 00:31:31,300
This is everyone’s fight.

488
00:31:31,300 --> 00:31:34,000
So find your stake in it and be prepared to
pick sides.

489
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:36,360
Prison fixes no problems.

490
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:39,320
It doesn’t make anything better... it only
makes situations worse.

491
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:43,080
When people stick up for prisons in my life,
I can say without any exaggeration that if

492
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,680
prison was gotten rid of tomorrow, that if
all the guards were fired, all the P.O’s

493
00:31:46,690 --> 00:31:49,810
were fired, the buildings were turned over
to the pigeons and rain, that it would actually

494
00:31:49,810 --> 00:31:51,520
just immediately make the world a better place.

495
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:08,760
There are more people incarcerated today than
at any other period in human history.

496
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,910
One recent estimate put the number at over
11 million worldwide.

497
00:32:12,910 --> 00:32:17,860
And given current trends towards accelerating
rates of female incarceration, massive spikes

498
00:32:17,860 --> 00:32:23,330
in Central and South America prison populations,
surging levels of global migration and a worldwide

499
00:32:23,330 --> 00:32:28,070
shift towards more authoritarian and nationalist
governments... unfortunately, this pattern

500
00:32:28,070 --> 00:32:29,860
looks poised to continue.

501
00:32:29,860 --> 00:32:35,080
As we continue to slide towards more entrenched
levels of social conflict and state repression,

502
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:39,500
it is vitally important that our movements
develop stronger ties with those comrades

503
00:32:39,500 --> 00:32:42,410
who’ve been captured and kidnapped by the
state.

504
00:32:42,410 --> 00:32:46,852
Not just for the benefit of those trapped
behind bars, as important as that is, but

505
00:32:46,852 --> 00:32:51,240
also as a way of demystifying prisons for
those of us on the outside, in order to hone

506
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:53,560
our capacity to resist.

507
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,760
So at this point, we’d like to remind you
that Trouble is intended to be watched in

508
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:06,030
groups, and to be used as a resource to promote
discussion and collective organizing.

509
00:33:06,030 --> 00:33:11,210
Are you interested in starting a regular letter-writing
night for political prisoners, providing material

510
00:33:11,210 --> 00:33:14,771
support to those organizing on the inside
or fighting against the construction of a

511
00:33:14,771 --> 00:33:17,120
new detention facility in your town?

512
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:21,600
Consider getting together with some comrades,
organizing a screening of this film, and discussing

513
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:22,960
where to get started.

514
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,140
Interested in running regular screenings of
Trouble at your campus, infoshop, community

515
00:33:27,140 --> 00:33:28,970
center, or even just at home with friends?

516
00:33:28,970 --> 00:33:30,350
Become a Trouble-Maker!

517
00:33:30,350 --> 00:33:34,360
For ten bucks a month, we’ll hook you up
with an advanced copy of the show, and a screening

518
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:38,650
kit featuring additional resources and some
questions you can use to get a discussion

519
00:33:38,650 --> 00:33:39,320
going.

520
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,040
If you can’t afford to support us financially,
no worries!

521
00:33:42,380 --> 00:33:49,080
You can stream and/or download all our content
for free off our website: sub.media/trouble.

522
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:53,600
If you’ve got any suggestions for show topics,
or just want to get in touch, drop us a line

523
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,870
at trouble@sub.media.

524
00:33:56,870 --> 00:34:00,990
Just a note that shortly after being interviewed
for this film, Sean Swain was transferred

525
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:06,440
across state lines from Ohio State Penitentiary
to the Nottoway Correctional Center, in Virginia.

526
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,040
You can write him at his new address:

527
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:16,800
For additional resources on writing to political
prisoners, check out the screening kit for

528
00:34:16,819 --> 00:34:18,869
this episode, available on our website.

529
00:34:18,869 --> 00:34:23,230
This episode would not have been possible
without the generous support of Bursts and

530
00:34:23,230 --> 00:34:24,498
iZrEAL Media Arts.

531
00:34:24,498 --> 00:34:28,980
We’re going to be taking a month off to
work on another project... but after that

532
00:34:28,980 --> 00:34:34,049
be sure stay tuned for Trouble #21, where
we’ll take a closer look at anarchist approaches

533
00:34:34,049 --> 00:34:37,089
to anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles.

534
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,199
Now get out there…. and make some trouble!