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Title: Storming the Gates Author: CrimethInc. Date: May 23, 2019 Language: en Topics: analysis, Atlanta, Jail, prison, solidarity Source: Retrieved on 17th June 2021 from https://crimethinc.com/2019/05/23/storming-the-gates-the-new-wave-of-frontal-attacks-on-prisons-jails-and-detention-centers
In response to a viral video prisoners released detailing moldy
conditions inside of the Dekalb County Jail, fifty people flooded the
jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 12, 2019, clashing with correctional
officers and setting off smoke bombs inside the jail and fireworks
outside it. The following month, a group twice as large marched to the
jail, facing down over 100 police officers. Prisoners smashed the
windows in their cells in order to communicate directly with the
protesters outside. Smaller actions at the jail and outreach to the
families and friends of inmates are ongoing, exerting pressure on the
administrators, who have stopped commenting to the news, and
contributing to a growing tide of anger against the facility. This is
just the latest flare-up in a nationwide wave of struggles against
jails, prisons, and other detention facilities from outside as well as
within. In the following text, we review some of the highlights of these
struggles, address why they are so pressing today, and discuss the
necessity of an emancipatory politics that opposes both traditional
means of incarceration and the alternative forms of control that are
emerging from the restructuring of prisons, jails, and borders.
Let’s start by reviewing recent rebellions against carceral
infrastructure from outside the walls. When we understand the following
events as a constellation, it appears that a new strategic perception is
developing across the United States. This list leaves out the countless
beautiful and dignified acts of rebellion taken by prisoners or
detainees directly—from individual subversion to coordinated nationwide
strikes—in jails, migrant detention centers, prisons, juvenile holding
facilities, and involuntary in-patient medical institutions; it also
does not include individual acts of sabotage.
July 21, 2017 — St. Louis: When the air conditioning was cut off in the
St. Louis County Workhouse, temperatures rose to 108 degrees. Prisoners
reached out for help; some could be heard desperately shouting from
their windows. When protesters arrived, including anarchists and others
close to those who were incarcerated inside the facility, some people in
the crowd attempted to tear down the outside fencing of the jail,
pulling one section entirely out of the ground.
June 17, 2018 — Portland: When Stephen Miller’s family-separation policy
for undocumented migrants became a public scandal, a small number of
anarchists initiated an encampment in the doorway of the Oregon
headquarters of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in
Portland. Later, more people arrived and blocked ICE employees from
exiting for a full night. Eventually, hundreds joined the encampment,
facing down repeated police attacks despite promises from the Mayor that
they would be permitted to protest there.
July 2018 — Nationwide: Occupy ICE blockades, encampments, and protests
spread to facilities in Tacoma, Olympia, San Antonio, San Francisco,
Charlotte, Los Angeles, Louisville, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Tampa,
Sacramento, New York, and elsewhere nationwide. In Lincoln, Nebraska,
courageous individuals smashed windows out of the Republican Party
headquarters and painted “Abolish ICE” outside of it. At some
encampments, clashes broke out between protesters and police; elsewhere,
fascists attacked the demonstrators. The encampments in Los Angeles and
Philadelphia drew massive support, including widespread participation by
the homeless. In multiple cities, liberal mayors paid lip service to the
demands of the movement. Even celebrity politician Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortes adopted its slogans, albeit watering them down. In some
cases, city contracts with ICE were nullified completely.
February 3, 2019 — Brooklyn: The electricity at Metropolitan Detention
Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York was partially shut off, disabling the
heat. Inside the facility, temperatures plunged to 49 degrees. In
response, a determined crowd forced its way into the atrium of the
facility and clashed with police. The following day, lines of anti-riot
police surrounded the MDC to keep protesters and journalists out.
Electricity and heat were soon returned to the entire facility.
April 12, 2019 — Atlanta: After inmates released a viral video decrying
moldy food at the Dekalb County Jail, inside the perimeter of Atlanta,
50 protesters forced their way into the atrium of the jail, many of them
masked, and clashed with police outside, throwing firecrackers, smoke
bombs, and traffic cones while spray-painting the outer veneer. Police
made multiple arrests, but demonstrators surrounded their vehicles,
temporarily preventing them from conveying arrestees through the hostile
crowd.
May 15, 2019 — Atlanta: Following the melee in April, a larger crowd
blocked Memorial Drive, a major east-west artery outside the Dekalb
County Jail. Inmates smashed over a dozen windows in three different
buildings and shouted out of their windows to protesters below, who were
able to communicate with them via megaphone. Around 100 police officers
from multiple jurisdictions formed cordons, also blocking on-ramps to
the highway next to the jail. Police attacked protesters, who defended
themselves, resulting in only three arrests.
May 16, 2019 — Atlanta: A 40-person march with an armed escort marched
to the jail again, forcing the police to mobilize 100 officers once
more. Inmates banged loudly on the windows. Because of the previous
day’s actions, inmates were able to call local prison abolitionist
groups who had left their information on the sidewalks in chalk. The
facility later blocked the phone number, but a new one was circulated
among prisoners via word of mouth. A week later, the jail administration
blocked all of the exterior windows of the facility, while prisoners
continued to report abuses to local abolitionists outside. During the
May 16 protest, the mother of Damien Christopher Boyd spoke on the news
about the death of her son in Dekalb County Jail in 2018. Via telephone,
prisoners detailed other unreported deaths in the facility.
Culling the laboring classes in ritualized cycles of warfare and
internal violence is one of the original mainstays of statecraft. Prison
and deportation also serve as ways to control the population of those
the market deems expendable—what some economists call the “surplus
population.” Historically, the incarceration and deportation of a
particular demographic have died down whenever a role opened up for it
in the market—for example, the Chinese immigrants who built railroads
across the US in the 19^(th) century—and escalated as soon as that
market niche contracted.
In the period of urban de-industrialization that started in the 1970s,
black workers were laid off from factories and firms across the
rust-belt via “last hired, first fired” policies. Automation and global
outsourcing emptied urban centers and rural resource extraction zones of
their working populace. At the same time, the “War on Drugs” served as
an excuse to imprison millions just as they were losing their jobs and,
in some cases, resorting to illegal forms of commerce to make ends meet.
Since the 1970s, workers have poured into clerical and service-sector
industries as manufacturing, logistics, and other heavy industries have
automated, replacing large segments of the workforce with machines. Now,
those service and clerical jobs are being restructured, as firms such as
Amazon and Uber develop cost-cutting logistics and artificial
intelligence to reduce their reliance on human labor. If the role of
prisons is to facilitate the management of unemployed and “undesirable”
populations—including the racialized, neurologically atypical, and
otherwise criminalized—then we can be sure that mass automation,
austerity measures, and layoffs will dramatically increase the number of
prisoners.
At the same time, thanks to the introduction of various “smart” devices,
more and more of our activities are becoming unwaged work, yielding
considerable profits for the techno-capitalists while enabling
unprecedented surveillance. Just as unwaged labor has profilerated, the
disciplinary logic of the factory is penetrating our “leisure time” as
well. In the future, it will be less and less necessary to pay us for
the labor that keeps the system running, and each of us will be more and
more expendable in the eyes of the market.
This is why everyone has a stake in opposing the development of carceral
technologies and infrastructure. A system of government dedicated to
securing wealth and power for a few, regardless of the consequences for
the vast majority of human beings and other life forms, requires the
constant pre-emptive militarization of space, the suppression of all
forms of participatory resistance, and the balkanization of the
population into rival groups in segregated zones, each with its own
localized system of control. If we wish to be free—or simply to
survive—we need to normalize resistance to this on every level. We have
to fight the logic, the technology, and the physical infrastructure and
facilities of incarceration.
Today, Trump’s racist call to “build the wall” is the latest discourse
to legitimize the continued militarization of police around the country
and expanded coordination with foreign law enforcement. In cities and
along the borders, the military technologies first deployed throughout
the Middle East and North Africa are appearing in “peacekeeping
operations” against the poor and desperate. Technology firms are
developing facial recognition infrastructures, predictive analytics,
tracking service, and drone surveillance tools that will be used—not
coincidentally—to facilitate both commerce and repression. In the same
way that weapons designed for warfare are being used in a time of
“peace,” technologies designed for trade are proving useful to carceral
contractors.
“Just as it has been necessary to deploy troops around the world to
secure the raw materials that keep the economy afloat, it is becoming
necessary to deploy troops in the US to preserve the unequal
distribution of resources at home. Just as the austerity measures
pioneered by the IMF in Africa, Asia, and South America are appearing in
the wealthiest nations of the first world, the techniques of threat
management and counter-insurgency that were debuted against
Palestinians, Afghanis, and Iraqis are now being turned against the
populations of the countries that invaded them. Private military
contactors who operated in Peshawar are now working in Ferguson,
alongside tanks that rolled through Baghdad. For the time being, this is
limited to the poorest, blackest neighborhoods; but what seems
exceptional in Ferguson today will be commonplace around the country
tomorrow.”
-The Thin Blue Line is a Burning Fuse
From the burning hills of Los Angeles and the hurricane-ravaged cities
of the Gulf to the flooded neighborhoods of Jakarta, the disasters
wrought by climate change will continue to trigger mass human migration
at an unprecedented scale. In the decades to come, some nations may
collapse as a consequence of mass migratory flight and nativist
violence. Elsewhere, technology firms, xenophobic militias, and police
forces will work together in hopes of facilitating the swift transfer of
refugees through the country, containing them in sophisticated carceral
environments, and transforming all urban space into a highly repressive
terrain—and sometimes slaughtering them en masse. New markets will
emerge in weapons and remediation as corporations cash in on disasters.
The overwhelming majority of those industries will require very few
workers; they will rely largely on robotics, forced prison labor,
information gathering, and artificial intelligence.
We can already see signs of this future today. As the overall population
of federal prisoners begins to wane, the number of people locked in
county jails and migrant detention facilities is increasing, as is the
number of people subject to punitive forms of supervision such as
probation, pre-trial diversion, house arrest, and drug court. Technology
firms such as Securus and Global TelLink are already making profiles and
permanent accounts not only for inmates who use their services to call
family and lawyers, but also for those on the outside who receive the
calls—logging and storing audio files, card information, and phone
numbers.
Soon, we will have to expand bail funds to cover arrest and probation
fees. Noise demonstrations outside of jails and prisons may be replaced
by vigils outside of the homes of those who are trapped inside them as a
cost-cutting practice by the state, so the government will no longer be
responsible for housing, feeding, or providing healthcare to those
caught in the system.
When I saw the video from inside the Dekalb jail, I knew we would have
to respond. I myself have been imprisoned in this jail, with its wet
walls and moldy food, and so had many of my friends. In my case, I was
in a car stopped on account of an automated license plate scanner
affixed to the back of a police cruiser; they took me in for a “failure
to appear” for a traffic citation. I wasn’t even the driver of the car.
Around me, our small crowd had donned masks and were preparing to storm
into the facility by any means necessary. This time, the Correctional
Officers were the ones backing up in confusion, taken by surprise by the
growing rage against them and the suffering they administer. We entered
the building. A trash can crashed through the metal detector; drums
reverberated off of the walls around me. The element of surprise is
exactly what all of their tools and technologies are designed to
prevent. There weren’t many of us, only a few dozen, but we were
determined. At that moment, we had gained the upper hand. We knew we
could not keep it for long, but we were going to make the most of the
time we had.
Since 2010, a prisoner-led movement has spread throughout the United
States. In December 2010, thousands of prisoners throughout Georgia used
smuggled cell phones to coordinate work stoppages and hunger strikes
with almost no outside support. The Pelican Bay hunger strike of 2011
drew the support of anti-prison groups throughout the Bay, especially
anarchists. Over the following years, smaller strikes and protests
occurred in North Carolina, in Florida, in Indiana, and elsewhere.
After the uprising in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, prisoner struggles
became more militant around the country. In Alabama, at the Holman
Correctional Facility, C-block prisoners have repeatedly ambushed and
overpowered guards and engaged in mass actions and strikes. In 2016, a
nationwide prison strike grabbed national headlines as prisoners across
the country refused forced labor. During the strike, rebellion, rioting,
and arson broke out in multiple facilities around the South. Strikes and
other acts of resistance have become normal at facilities across the US;
another nationwide strike took place in 2018.
The determination to resist debasing conditions in jails, prisons,
juvenile detention centers, and migrant holding facilities is growing
across the country, as is outside support for those activities. It is
especially inspiring to see combative outside actions accompanying
prisoner rebellions. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the cartographer of the
gulags, wrote in the third volume of The Gulag Archipelago that such
outside actions would have made all the difference for prisoners
struggling against the total repression that prevailed under Stalin’s
regime.
At the dawn of a new carceral century, this couldn’t come too soon.
If we don’t succeed in changing the course of history, tomorrow’s
freedom will look like the probation of today. From the ways that our
smartphones track our movements to the new round of anti-abortion laws
threatening reproductive autonomy in the Southern US, the matrix of
repression is penetrating ever deeper into our lives.
Some well-meaning prison reformers will unwittingly play into carceral
discourse by demanding early-release programs and the like. If these are
granted, it will be on the condition of increased surveillance at home,
the suspension of the Fourth Amendment rights, reduced freedom of
movement, exile, anti-association clauses, ankle monitor tracking, fees
and fines. Our opponents will not hesitate to import repressive tools
and techniques from loss-prevention firms, from fraud-detection alert
systems, from anti-graffiti legislature, from any area, army, country,
government, or firm they can find—nor will arms manufacturers or firms
that produce censorship technology turn down new markets.
The weapons that are used against those who are lower on the social
hierarchy today will eventually be turned against nearly everyone. This
is why we must not prioritize the freedom of some over the freedom of
others, by defining some as “innocent” or “nonviolent offenders.”
Alongside the immediate physical destruction of all carceral facilities,
we should advocate and fight only for unconditional early release, the
reduction of sentences, earlier termination of probation, and guaranteed
access to parole. We must oppose the proliferation of tracking devices
and coercive technological identification on every front, while
normalizing and defending practices that preserve anonymity.
Above all, we have to completely discredit the discourse that
legitimizes punishment and control of any form, so that struggles
against existing jails and prisons do not simply provide cover for the
authorities to extend new oppressive measures into the so-called free
world in the guise of humanitarian and economical pragmatism. To this
end, we should also be experimenting with transformative methods of
conflict resolution that leave no space for coercive institutions of any
kind.
As we were marching up, a traffic jam piling up behind our banners,
police already forming lines to confront us, inmates in the jail began
to smash their windows up above us. We could see the glass crack and
shatter—first in one building, then another, then another. We held our
position, blocking the street below as police grabbed and shoved the
people in our front line, slamming them to the ground. A few bottles
flew over my head, but mostly we just held on to one another tightly. I
knew they could not arrest all of us, however hard they tried. The
solidarity of our crowd was too great; I was being embraced by people on
every side, just as I held them in turn. In refusing to unblock the
streets, we had preserved the publicity of our action: a line of
commuters was watching from their cars, filming the police, and
occasionally expressing solidarity with us.
Inmates were yelling down to us for help, shouting that they were being
pepper-sprayed. Rarely have our struggles intersected so viscerally.
Imagine if the walls themselves were smashed, instead of simply the
windows?
The time is ripe for mass struggles against confinement. Already,
protests against ICE have drawn popular support. Even Republican
Senators acknowledge that prisons are overcrowded, if only to justify
increased funding. In terms of both carrying capacity and perceived
legitimacy, the carceral system is nearing a breaking point. Carceral
reformists hope to use this opportunity to introduce adjustments that
will stabilize the regimes of confinement and control for another
century. But at this juncture, inspiring actions could catalyze a
confrontational movement that pushes for abolition rather than reform.
Many contemporary struggles take on ideological opponents, such as
fascists and other white supremacists, or political leaders and
legislation. These limited points of intervention rarely facilitate the
emergence of long-lasting and uncompromising movements. But the struggle
against incarceration is no single-issue campaign. It offers a point of
departure for a movement that could span from resisting borders and
migrant detention facilities to opposing juvenile holding facilities,
police weaponry manufacturers, city jails, forced work arrangements,
companies that profit on incarceration, and the police and courts
themselves.
In a world that is continuously rearranged to foreclose the possibility
of unforeseen developments and unanticipated encounters, the struggle
against incarceration is also a struggle against the contemporary
organization of our lives. This particular element of governance is
absolutely necessary to the functioning of the system, yet large
sections of the populace hate it.
It remains only to demonstrate that together, we can do something about
it.
Chants could be heard from inside the prison: “Help, help!”—“Unclean
Water!”—“Let us out!”—“Shut It Down!” Inmates put their arms through the
grates and twirled towels, spreading a banner between two windows
reading “HELP!” At one point, we could hear the inmates singing. The
words were indecipherable; we could only make out a beautiful, low,
melancholy harmony.
Three hundred hundred strong, we advanced, creating a cacophony with
pots, pans, air horns, and bells, the front line of the march attacking
the fence itself, shaking the outer ring and removing the clasps that
adhered it to the poles. Several people took advantage of the gap under
the fence to crawl underneath it, scale the second fence, and shout to
inmates, before climbing down and scurrying back under to avoid arrest.
The police begin to form lines between the workhouse and us. They know
that we won’t stop at ripping down the fence, that when we get the
opportunity, we’ll rip the whole place apart, brick by brick.
Sooner or later, all walls fall.
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