The prisoners want:

A LIVING WAGE FOR WORK: In violation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, the DOC demands prisoners work for free. EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: For the great majority of prisoners, the DOC denies all opportunities for education beyond the GED, despite the benefit to both prisoners and society. DECENT HEALTH CARE: In violation of the 8th Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, the DOC denies adequate medical care to prisoners, charges excessive fees for the most minimal care and is responsible for extraordinary pain and suffering. AN END TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS: In further violation of the 8th Amendment, the DOC is responsible for cruel prisoner punishments for minor infractions of rules. DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Georgia prisoners are confined in over-crowded, substandard conditions, with little heat in winter and oppressive heat in summer. NUTRITIONAL MEALS: Vegetables and fruit are in short supply in DOC facilities while starches and fatty foods are plentiful. VOCATIONAL AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES: The DOC has stripped its facilities of all opportunities for skills training, self-improvement and proper exercise. ACCESS TO FAMILIES: The DOC has disconnected thousands of prisoners from their families by imposing

excessive telephone charges and innumerable barriers to visitation. JUST PAROLE DECISIONS: The Parole Board capriciously and regularly denies parole to the majority of prisoners despite evidence of eligibility.

Georgia Greens

This is truly amazing stuff. The prisoners come in with an ambitious list of reasonable demands for any decent society. It's crazy that we don't give them these basic human rights. It's awful that they are treated like slaves and often used in forced labor for the benefit of private corporations even if they are criminals. Especially since millions are in prison on non-violent drug crimes.

Despite the single biggest predictor of successful reintegration into society being sustained contact with family and community, Georgia's prison authorities make visits and family contact needlessly difficult and expensive. Georgia no longer allows families to send funds via U.S. postal money orders to inmates. It requires families to send money through J-Pay, a private company that rakes off nearly 10 percent of all transfers. Telephone conversations between Georgia prisoners and their families are also a profit centers for another prison contractor, Global Tel-Link, which extracts about $55 a month for a weekly 15-minute phone call from cash-strapped families. It's hard to imagine why the state cannot operate reliable payment and phone systems for inmates and their families with public employees at a lower cost, except that this would put contractors, who probably make hefty contributions to local politicians, out of business.

Socialist Worker

Easy Stuff You Can Do

Prisoners are asking the public to call the Georgia Department of Corrections and the individual prisons to express concern for the welfare of the prisoners: Macon State Prison at 478-472-3900; Hays State Prison is at 706-857-0400; Telfair State Prison at 229-868-7721; Baldwin State Prison at 478-445-5218; Valdosta State Prison at 229-333-7900; and Smith State Prison is at 912-654-5000. The Georgia Department of Corrections can be contacted at 478-992-5246.

But Don't Stop There

This should serve to inspire those beyond prison walls to fight against injustice using similar kinds of demands and tactics. If rapists, racists, and murderers can unite to fight for their common interests shouldn't we?

*Maybe the 99ers could organize and occupy unemployment offices until they get benefits or better yet a New Deal style jobs program

*Maybe we could organize sit down strikes and shut down production nationwide until businesses decides to use record of their 1.65 Trillion in Quarterly profits to raise wages and hire the unemployed.

*Maybe we create human chains and block the construction of new coal plants like Al Gore said and like many are already doing in Appalachia.

*Maybe we could use this website and others to help organize these movements.

*Maybe this solidarity could build across struggles.

*Maybe we could shut down the whole country, or the whole world until the powerful are forced to give every human being basic rights and we end the destruction of our ecosystem.

The corporate and government elites rule at our consent. Without the labor, consumerism, and obedience of the people they would be powerless.

I'll leave you with the immortal words of Free Speech and Anti War activist Mario Savio from 1964



Please share some of your ideas for direct action in the comments.

Update

Wow first time on the rec list. Thanks y'all.

Also, to any Massholes in the house I wanted to promote some positive action going on today in Boston.

This holiday season, all the Hyatt 100 wants are their jobs back! More than a year since the three Boston-area Hyatts fired all their housekeepers and replaced them with temporary agency workers, the fired workers are still going strong and are still leading a city-wide boycott of the Hyatts. Join them Dec 13 for a leaflet of the annual meeting planners gala to help the housekeepers remind them: Don't stay at Hyatt!

It's 5-7 at Boston Public library. Click here for more info. I know it's not directly related to prison reform, but all struggles against injustice are the same struggle in my book.