Virginia Prison Analysis

By Anarchist Black Cross (D.C.)

(The following was written by abc-dc, and is kind of a background
on the proposal which is about to pass in Virginia which will build
27 new prisons & abolish parole. The Virginia State Legislature
started debating the Governor's proposal on Monday, and two
uprisings broke out in Virginia prisons in Greensville and Norfolk
that day. At least 5 other prisons in Virginia were put on lockdown
on Monday too. Anyone who might have any contacts in Virginia
prisons, please contact me. We want to monitor what's going on in
the Va prisons, and we want to get in touch with prisoners here to
get the full story on the rebellions, and to support the prisoners
who have already risen up. - Brad [ms272c@gwuvm.gwu.edu])

Gov. Allen's Proposal Is A Crime!

     The Virginia legislature is voting now on a proposal to cement
shut all the cracks in its current program of repression on the
poor and minority underclass. The governor's proposal eliminates
parole for all but a few crimes and requires the construction of 27
new prisons to contain the consequent multiplying of inmates.The
result of this billion dollar state enterprise is to keep a mostly
Black and Latino, mostly poor or working-class population defined
by birthmark as "criminal" locked behind bars for an average of
three to seven times as long. In essence, this plan would give the
go-ahead to target a class of people already branded as disposable
and undesirable for genocidal removal.

Class Politics Of Prison

     We believe that this proposal, the politically attractive but
humanly devastating "lock-em-up" mentality (as seen on television
commercials nationwide under the buzzword of "tough on crime") must
be seen in the perspective of a capitalist imperialism in order to
be resisted effectively. First of all, prisons are not, and have
never been, a means of "reducing crime". Even a recent NRA study
showed that, although the U.S. prison population more than doubled
from 1980 to 1990, the number of violent crimes (murder, rape,
robbery, and assault) stayed relatively constant. The very
popularity of the concept of abolishing parole is due to the
realization the the United States prison system is a failure at its
stated purpose of "rehabilitating" errants. The truth is that
prison inmates are simply not given opportunities for education or
job training, or any means of making a healthy transition back into
the outside world. Instead, they are warehoused in overcrowded
cells, facing boredom, resentment, and an atmosphere of violence
and abuse that guards both create and encourage among inmates. Is
it any wonder that some convicts go back and commit crimes again
after being released?
     Prisons do not prevent crime in any way. Neither by
rehabilitation or by deterrent factor. The U.S. presently has the
highest imprisonment rate of all nations in the first world, as
well as the highest crime rate. In order to justify his plan, Gov.
Allen is resorting to the weak argument, "well, if you keep
criminals locked up, then they're not out on the streets committing
more crimes." But prisons do not prevent crime even in this
inefficient and illogical way. Most behavior that is branded as
"criminal" takes place in poor inner-city neighborhoods and is a
direct response to the situations and conditions that these
neighborhoods produce. The majority of crimes that are punished
with prison terms are non-violent property offenses - theft,
vandalism, burglary, and use or sale of drugs - crimes that are
obviously motivated by the class situation of the perpetrators. And
even the majority of violent crimes are motivated by class
conflict, frustration at poverty, inequality, and racism. The
violence doesn't come from the poor; what is punished as "crime"
is, for the most part, the oppressed people reacting (in one of the
only ways available to them) to a systematic program of class
warfare by the middle and upper classes. In these neighborhoods,
more than one out of four males is in prison; a difficult situation
for any community to sustain itself. And under the no-parole
program, those numbers will be even higher, further destabilizing
communities and lighting the fuses that explode into crimes. The
state has a monopoly on legal violence to such a degree that even
attempts at self-defence by oppressed peoples are criminalized.
     One argument that must be refuted in order to get to the roots
of injustices in the prison system is that usually invoked by
liberal critiques, that the criminal justice system is merely an
emotional release, a way for society to enact vengeance on a person
who breaks its rules. While it is true that emotional "sob stories"
of victims are certainly exploited by the ruling class as an
effective way of gaining consent for a tougher-on-crime approach,
this viewpoint hides the most repressive functions of prisons.
While the governor and attorney general are relying on isolated
stories of individual victims to give their genocidal plan a more
"human" face and convince people despite all the evidence that
prisons are in the best interest of minorities and poor people, the
judicial and penal systems are fine-tuning their structural program
of racist and classist repression.

Race Politics Of Prison

     In "A Brief History of the New Afrikan Prison Struggle",
political prisoner Sundiata Acoli begins, "The Afrikan prison
struggle began on the shores of Afrika behind the walls of medieval
pens that held captives for ships bound west into slavery. It
continues today behind the walls of modern U.S. penitentiaries
where all prisoners are held as legal slaves". To understand the
present functioning of prisons in America we must understand their
historic role in the suppression of post-slavery New Afrikan
autonomy.
     The first prison in the U.S. was established in Philadelphia
in 1790, but as long as Afrikans were held as outright chatel, the
prison populations remained white. However, within five years after
the end of the civil war the percentage of Black prison inmates
went from 0 to 33. Once imprisoned these black men were held in
segregation and hired out by the State. In the factories ,
plantations, chain gangs and workhouses, the role of Afrikan as
slave was maintained despite the Civil War and the Emancipation
Proclamation. How did this occur? Through the imposition of white
law, created and applied in an outrightly racist manner by the
architects and engineers of slavery. Acoli writes,
     "Immediately after the Civil War and at the end of slavery,
vast numbers of Black males were  imprisoned for everything from
not signing slave-like labor contracts with plantation owners to 
looking the "wrong" way at some White person or for some similar
"petty crime". Any "transgression" perceived by Whites to be of a
more serious nature was normally dealt with on the spot with a gun
or a rope...provided the Black was outnumbered and outarmed".
     Thus "law and order" and its prisons were used in post-Civil
War America to reinstate the social order of slavery and defend
that order through a reign of terror. These conditions continue
today when 2/3 of Virginia's prisoners are black thouugh only 20%
of Virginia is black. Governor Allen pretends that his law will
protect "minorities" by locking-up more "minorities" in a state
that already exceeds the national average for disproportionate
imprisonment of Black people.
     The cops in their cruisers and helicopters, the racist courts,
and the brutal, dehumanizing prisons are part of a centuries old
struggle by the white supremacist USA to repress Afrikan autonomy
in this land. We must question the authority of white law to
lock-up Black people who were never given franchise in this
country, whose every struggle toward self-determination has been
met with brutal repression. Governor Allen's attempt to end parole
must be understood as an intensification of the marginalization and
suppression of Black people.

The Industry Of Prison And The Prison Industries

     Following the logic of all activities in capitalist society,
the imprisonment of a socially inscribed criminal class is made a
profitable enterprise. With prisons numerous jobs are created in
construction the service sector, and management. Thus in the
context of "post-industrial" America and its economically decaying
settlements. prisons are a perfect growth industry. Prisons provide
solutions to two problems facing capitalist organization of
society: what to do with the growing and threatening urban
underclass and what to do with the towns suffering a lack of
industrial employment. Their answer has been to put the underclass
in prison and hire the working class to build the new prisons,
guard the prisoners and along with middle class professionals,
provide various "services" from food to psychiatric therapy. On top
of all of this, the ruling class can turn a profit.
     Thus in rural Florence, Colorado, there is the recent case of
citizens lobbying for the placement of a new $200 billion prison
complex holding 2,500 people in four different prisons, including
a control unit ("Administrative Maximum"). All over the country,
with law and order on the march, prisons mean economic opportunity.
     Of course, this situation also reinforces class and racial
stratifications and antagonisms necessary to maintain capitalism.
With the increased imprisonment of an urban, Black underclass
having been signified as criminal. and the day to day repressive
operations of these prisons being carried out typically by white
members of a privileged working class, American capitalism
reinscribes white solidarity across class lines while fragmenting
possibilities for class solidarity.
     The engine that drives this particular economy is the need on
the part of ruling elites to suppress revolt and movements of
self-determination. The fuel is a hysteria and irrational fear of
a criminal tidal wave about to obliterate American civilization.
This madness for law and order is spread like advertising. With the
general public having succumbed, billions of dollars are now free
to flow from government coffers into the hands of those in the
business of repression. Beneath the wheel, more peoples' lives are
destroyed everyday.

Anti-Authoritarian Community-Based Solutions To Crime

     As anarchists, we believe the largest part of the answer to
crime and its origins is the strenghtening of community. When
people live together not denied food, shelter, clothing, creative
opportunity, love, freedom, etc., independent of the violence and
oppression of a coercive force, then we can envision societies
without crime.
     But do prisons help develop these conditions? Do prisons
foster community or tear apart the fabric of communities? Prisons
tear apart community by locking it up, by crippling its members,
and by injecting the broken neighborhood with the venom of its
abuse.
     We condemn prisons for their obvious role in the destruction
of communities. We seek the creation of self-determined
communities, everywhere that capitalism and white supremacy have
brought destruction and despair. Through building independent
community structures of survival and culture, we create the basis
for a struggle for independence and freedom from the State. We
oppose the Virginia plan to abolish parole, because we see it as an
intensification of the ruling classes war against poor and
oppressed people.

Anarchist Black Cross - D.C.
P.O. Box 77432
Washington, D.C.
20013 USA