----- Original Message ----- From: Network Africa - Sweden (NAS) <[log in to unmask] Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 2:00 PM Subject: Report From Angela Davies Meeting > Network Africa - Sweden (NAS) > > "ABOLISH THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX" - ANGELA DAVIES > > Angela Davies, a former member of the Black Panther Party, has called for > the abolition of the "Prison Industrial Complex (PIC)", the death penalty > and an end to slave labour in prisons around the world. Speaking at the > "Riv Murarna" conference held at Brygghuset in Stockholm on 28th October, > Angela said that out of the two million people locked behind bars in US > Federal prisons and County jails, one million are Black or people of > colour. The conference had been organised by "Andra Chansen", an > organisation that works with prison-related questions in Sweden. > > Angela is currently an active member of the US-based "Critical > Resistance", a Movement seeking to abolish the Prison Industrial Complex > by challenging the structure of the "criminal justice" which PIC says, is > based on revenge, punishment and violence. > > Angela compared the Prison Industrial Complex to the Military Industrial > Complex, which she said, produces destruction. "The difference is that the > Prison Industrial Complex produces nothing", she said. She explained that > the large representation of Africans and people of colour in US jails was > a direct result of racism. > > She deplored the privatization of the prison system especially in the US > which, she said, had converted prisons into profit-making institutions. > She pointed out that International corporations, which have nothing to do > with the prison system, were involved in the exploitation of prison labour > and provision of telephone and other services solely for profit. > > Specifically, she told the audience that Australia had the largest number > of private prisons in the world, adding that privatisation of prisons had > led many corporations into relying on the expansion of prisons as a means > of making money. She criticised the large number of Aborigines being kept > in Australia's prisons for petty drug related offences. > > She told the audience that Critical Resistance had filed a lawsuit aimed > at stopping California from constructing a new prison with a capacity of > more than 5,000 prison beds and at a tune of 335 million Dollars. > > She said that women prisoners in the United States were constantly > subjected to sexual violence. "Many women prisoners are often subjected to > gynaecological or pelvic examinations by male Doctors even if this kind of > examination is not necessary", she said. She stunned her listeners when > she revealed that a Chief Medical officer in the US had said on a TV > programme watched by millions of people that female prisoners "liked" > gynaecological examination because "they had no contacts with men". > > She said that she had visited a prison in Stockholm to look at the > condition under which women prisoners were being held and reminded the > audience that the number of prisoners in the United States was more than > the population of Stockholm city. > > According to the African-American revolutionary, many people are serving > long jail terms for petty offences which, she said, could earn them > lighter sentences. She said that the campaign against PIC being waged by > CR was a campaign against capitalism, a system which, she said, thrives by > locking people in cages. > > In calling for the abolition of PIC, Angela said that prisons have not > been able to rehabilitate prisoners neither has imprisoning people been > able to minimise crime. Questioning why more money was being spent on the > prison system in the US than in education, Angela charged that the prison > system was providing spurious solutions to problems which could be dealt > with in another way. She said that one of the objectives of the > anti-prison movement was to popularise a different way of talking about > prisons, adding that radical movements could make a big difference in the > situation. > > The former Black Panther activist said that the campaign for the abolition > of the prison system should be connected to the campaign for lighter > sentences. She said that Texas had the highest number of death row inmates > followed by California and gave the example of Mumia Abu Jamal (the > African-American journalist who has been on death row for the last 20 > years) as a typical case in which a person had been put on death row > despite the fact that available evidence showed that he was innocent. She > said that the emergence of DNA evidence had created campaigns for a new > category of innocent people who were behind bars. > > She said that in the United States, expansion of prisons began to increase > at a time when criminologists were saying that crime rate was on the > decline. Angela, who was herself jailed for 18 months as a result of her > activism in the Black Panther Party, said that it was disheartening that > many people had accepted a twisted notion that incarceration created a > sense of security. "People don't question what appears to create > collective emotional security. They don't question things that they think > make them safer", she said. > > She said that it was pathetic that in certain parts of the US where people > relied on agriculture for subsistence, the tendency had changed so that > people had come to believe that the construction of prisons on > agricultural land could lead to economic revitalisation and creation of > jobs. She narrated how in the State of California, people collected money > to give to the state so that the state could build prisons as a way of > creating jobs. > > In another example in San Francisco, she said that people could not > recognise the existence of a prison which had become part of their social > landscape because since they thought it was a museum, they did not notice > it. She appealed for the fostering of alliances of different people - > workers, activists, students etc to campaign against the prison system > which, she said, was similar across the world. > > She answered questions from her audience and later hosted a press > conference which lasted for about half an hour. > > Okoth Osewe > ARIBIS Media Group > ------------------- > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, write to [log in to unmask] > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------