“Trump is sharply and rapidly intensifying the U.S. state’s long and bipartisan history of abduction and caging, deploying these powerful, incredibly well-resourced instruments of repression for overtly fascist ends.” — @mskellymhayes.bsky.social and @mayaschenwar.bsky.social

Prison guards are flocking to ICE jobs and frankly this makes sense. Those of us who have been anti-prison organizers for decades have been saying that fascism already existed within prisons/jails. Our best teachers for how to survive fascism are incarcerated people.

Gramsci translated by @alfatau.bsky.social

I helped found @the-work-and-us.bsky.social in 2021. After a little hiatus, we are officially relaunching the project and are expanding our work to include an Incarcerated Research Fellowship. Because we believe that people inside are experts of their own experiences.

I was honored to be interviewed in the recent edition of The Scholar & Feminist Online. You can read the full interview "Collectivizing Care and Making Kin as Abolitionist Practice" here sfonline.barnard.edu/collectivizi...

Incarcerated writer Kwaneta Harris says solitary confinement keeps no one safe. “The answer isn’t throwing them in a concrete box for years; it’s trauma-informed care, therapeutic communities, meditation programs, restorative justice practices.”

As temperatures drop outside, just a reminder that extreme cold is also a problem for people inside. A lot of prisons are old and drafty, and items like winter boots or heavy blankets aren't available. As climate patterns change, this will only get worse. prisonjournalismproject.org/2025/02/25/e...

The Department of Justice plans to dismantle protections for trans and intersex people in federal, state, and local prisons, jails, and youth detention facilities, according to a government memo obtained by Prism.

Guess who's coming home?! After over 15 years inside, I will be released in early February and look forward to being with my family and friends. I accomplished more than I could have dreamed while imprisoned. Imagine what I'll do when I'm free.

For #BannedBooksWeek, we’re highlighting the unjust censorship of political books which impacts countless incarcerated readers each year. For every book purchased from this reading list, we will be sending a book to someone who is incarcerated.

Rest in power Assata.

A friend reposted this by @zellieimani.bsky.social from 2020 and it remains apt: “For the oppressed, peace is the absence of oppression. But for the oppressor, peace is the absence of resistance."

I was grateful to be a part of Critical Resistance’s Cross-wall & Power Building Retreat during Black August. Check out recordings from the retreat, including my remarks on censorship, repression, and accountability to inside organizers criticalresistance.org/prisoner-spe...

Tuesday at noon ET (US), 9 AM PT we'll be live again with @dylanrodriguez.bsky.social to talk about T. Hoxha's hunger strike, Casey Goonan's solidarity hunger strike, defending direct action, Pro-Palestine political prisoners in the imperial core and more! www.youtube.com/live/GYXM0DU...

T. Hoxha enters day 18 of her hunger strike. Calla Walsh has written about it, how fellow captive Casey Goonan joined in solitary, and how we must honor the slogan, "Our prisoners are our compass." Read: calla.substack.com/p/casey-hoxha Demand Hoxha's hospitalization: tinyurl.com/FREETHOXHA

The BPP held an entire anti-fascist conference in Oakland in the late 60s. People are over half a century behind on the realities of what they were saying about fascism in the USA, but it also speaks to how severely their politics were suppressed.

Chicago! Haymarket Presents Ruth Wilson Gilmore in conversation with Barbara Ransby Thursday, September 11th at 6:30 pm Live from @haymarkethouse.bsky.social with @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social RSVP to attend (in-person and virtual) www.tickettailor.com/events/hayma...

I am really proud of the work these young men have been doing through our gun violence roundtable. Thanks to Amsterdam News for writing about this project and lifting up the perspectives of imprisoned people on the drivers of gun violence amsterdamnews.com/news/2025/08...

For people who may not understand the importance of political education and relationship building behind the wall, here is an anecdote about the self activity of imprisoned people during Black August.

"The actual process of organizing" involves getting people to "realize that prisons [are] an obstacle, rather than part of a solution, to the things they [are] trying to accomplish." @craiggilmore.bsky.social‬ on real-life strategy in abolitionist organizing inquest.org/organizi...

This book is a care package for organizers and activists. I wrote the first and last letters in the book and edited letters from beloved friends and co-strugglers like @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social, @mayaschenwar.bsky.social, @shaneburley.bsky.social, @prisonculture.bsky.social, and many more.

Our co-founder @prisonculture.bsky.social is also running a summer book drive to help support Bluestockings in keeping their doors open. 📚 Drop off or mail new or gently used social justice focused books! More details in the flyer.

We are doing groups inside on toxic masculinity and could use suggestions for readings, exercises, or curriculum that can help ground our discussions. Thank you in advance!

Once again, this is a massive public jobs program for fascists. This bill was never just about tax cuts and gutting social services. It's about investing our collective resources in violence and using state power to spread fear and destroy solidarity. We need to resist this with all we've got.

If the GOP reconciliation bill passes, ICE gets through FY2029: - $45 billion for detention, on top of the current annual budget of $3.4 billion - $14.4 billion for transportation and removal, on top of the current annual budget of $750 million - $8 billion for hiring/retention - Billions more.

There's a lot of posts today because of #Juneteenth reducing the comparisons between enslavement and incarceration to the issue of forced prison labor. While coerced labor is a through line, it is certainly not the only or most significant one. From an article I coauthored in @inquest.bsky.social:

We are continuing to raise funds to support political education and mutual aid in PA prisons. Why is it important?

We're living at a moment when ICE is threatening not only to arrest and deport immigrants but arrest and prosecute everyday people and leaders for educating others about their constitutional rights. Helping to defend our immigrant communities is one clear action that we can all take right now. ⤵️

This conversation hosted by @haymarketbooks.org has important insights for how we got to where we are re this current regime and how we need to organize against it. And yes, that includes solidarity with those targeted by the various systems of state violence. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzuy...

It surprises me when people on the outside are shocked by police brutality. They are always performing some version of state violence - through acts of violence or the threat of violence.

The thorough new @prisonpolicy.org report on prison transfers cites Inquest's powerful article from @alwaysstevie.bsky.social about his personal experiences with transfers being used as retribution. Read here: inquest.org/unsettled-pe...

The newest edition of The Abolitionist from Critical Resistance is dropping soon. They previewed my 9971 column about the retaliation I've experienced as an imprisoned organizer - including my recent parole denial. Check it out and become a subscriber! criticalresistance.org/abolitionist...

Thank you for articulating this so well, Kelly Hayes and @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social ! "_You struggle with the people who are there and who are willing to lock arms._ "

reviewed Orisanmi Burton's "Tip of the Spear" for @thenation.com, which is as generative and clarifying as everyone says it is: www.thenation.com/article/cult...

I am still raising funds to support the various activities and participants of our 9971 study groups. We engage in collective study behind the wall and provide mutual aid so people can engage in this work. Donate here www.gofundme.com/f/support-99...

Check out this new resource from Community Justice Exchange! It is designed for any group, campaign, coalition, or organizer who is trying to prevent a new cage from being constructed or stop an old one. www.communityjusticeexchange.org/en/resources...

Pre order this awesome book by @mskellymhayes.bsky.social that I contributed to. It is a bundle of letters written to activists and organizers who are facing the kinds of crises that often occur in our struggles for justice. Out in November! www.akpress.org/read-this-wh...

The National Black Radical Organizing Conference is 1 month away. Program highlights are here. More on the way. It is time to strategize and organize for our liberation like we mean it. Register now at communitymovementbuilders.org

Congratulations @alwaysstevie.bsky.social for winning third place for the Stillwater Award for Best Collaboration. Here's a link to your amazing Inquest article about prison transfers. inquest.org/unsettled-pe...

Resharing something I wrote for The Abolitionist newspaper on how people outside can support the organizing work of people who are currently imprisoned. But we need solidarity, not infantilization or charity. Let's learn together, fight together, and have each other's backs.

Thank you to everyone who is supporting political education behind the wall. We can't continue our work without your support. Please continue to share the fundraiser so we can keep doing this work through my release in Feb www.gofundme.com/f/support-99...

Today is #WorldPressFreedomDay, and incarcerated journalists deserve to be uplifted and celebrated. Prison journalism is essential work. Much of what we know about incarceration comes from people inside who have risked a great deal to tell their stories. www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/06...

"By sharing stories of imprisoned people, we hope to provide local organizers with insights from a diverse group of people in prison and connect them to a network of incarcerated experts and organizers with whom they can co-conspire to address the needs and objectives of imprisoned people."

In recognition of May Day, I wanted to share a piece I coauthored with colleagues from The Work and Us on prison labor in @inquest.bsky.social inquest.org/why-incarcer...

I was honored to be interviewed for this piece in Hammer & Hope about food sovereignty in prisons - "Feeding yourself is protection, but it’s also declaring sovereignty. And in a prison geography, declaring sovereignty is declaring war." hammerandhope.org/article/food...

I was happy to learn that a piece I collaborated on called "Lifeline, Cash-Grab, Tool for Censorship: Three Incarcerated Readers on eBooks in Prison" was nominated for the Stillwater Awards! www.spj.org/stillwater-a...