Prisoners' Rights

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Connexions Library

Abbas fears the Prisoners' Hunger Strike
Cook, Jonathan
Article
2017
The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process. Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, bo...
Barred from Prison
Culhane, Claire
Article
1979
An account of what occured inside the B.C. Penitentiary during a prison uprising in September 1976.
Canadian Information Sharing Service: Pilot Copy, February 1976
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1976
The first issue of the Canadian Information Sharing Service publication. The name of the publication was later changed to Connexions and then to Connexions Digest.
Connexions: Volume 7, Number 1 - March 1982
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1982
Convict and Immigrant Detainee Struggles Converge in Strike Wave
Barksdale, Amiri
Article
2016
There was a time in the United States when it was not only common knowledge, but commonly reported, legislated, and adjudicated that crime is a function of poverty. This went out sometime during the C...
Crayons of Askalan
Hotait, Laila
Film/Video
2011
In 1975, at the age of fifteen, Palestinian artist Zuhdi Al Adaw is sentenced and confined in the high security prison of Askalan, Israel for fifteen years. With the help of his fellow prisoners and t...
Culhane, Claire: Connexipedia: Article from PrisonJustice.ca
Article
Canadian social justice activist. (1918-1996).
Herman's House
Bhalla, Angad Singh
Film/Video
2012
'What kind of house does a man who has been imprisoned in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?' This film captures the remarkable creative journey and friendship of Herman Wallace,...
Intractable: Hell Has a Name: Life Inside Australia's First Super-Max Prison
Matthews, Bernie
Book
2006
A firsthand account spanning two generations of high-security confinement in the 1970s NSW Australian prison system.
Israeli guards 'humiliated inmates'
Article
2009
A group of female former Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails have accused prison guards of subjecting them to intrusive and degrading treatment.
Justice Behind the Walls: Human Rights in Canadian Prisons
Jackson, Michael
Book
2003
An account of the state of justice in Canadian prisons, weaving together the threads of correctional history, penal philosophy, landmark court decisions, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and legisl...
Mass Incarceration for Profit
Dolinar, Brian; Kilgore, James
Article
2015
In the face of growing public criticism and improved technologies, companies like Securus search for new ways to remain competitive while marketing themselves as providers of a quality service that ke...
Memoirs from the Women's Prison
Saadawi, Nawal el
Book
1994
Nawal El Saadawi was imprisoned in 1981 by Anwar Sadat for alleged "crimes against the State." She offers both firsthand witness to women's resistance to state violence and insights into the formation...
My Freedom, Your Freedom
Naecke, Diana
Film/Video
2012
Knowing nothing but drugs and violence since childhood, Kuebra and Salema have spent their adult years in and out of a Berlin prison, their experiences calling into question the effectiveness of incar...
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Alexander, Michelle
Book
2010
Argues that Jim Crow and legal racial segregation have been replaced by mass race-based incarceration as a system of social control.
The New Jim Crow: A talk
Alexander, Michelle
Article
2010
Nothing short of a broad-based social movement can address this problem. Such a movement has to be multi-racial: Latinos and women, especially women of color, are the fastest growing segment of the pr...
No Longer Barred From Prison
Culhane, Claire
Book
1991
An account of one individual's determined efforts to get inside prisons to see what is actually happening there. As her story makes clear, the penal system cannot tolerate such close scrutiny: she her...
One Thousand Years of Solitude: Life in the SHU
Mariner, Joanne
Article
2012
Indefinite solitary confinement: a large-scale experiment in sensory deprivation and social isolation.
One Woman Army: The Life of Claire Culhane
Lowe, Mick
Book
1992
A biography of Claire Culhane, member of the Canadian Communist Party, crusader for prison abolition, and peace activist opposed to the Vietnam war.
Our Generation: Volume 21 Number 2
Roussopoulos, Dimitrios
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1990
Political Prisoners in the Sacrifice Zone of Empire: Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jeremy Hammond
Hayase, Nozomi
Article
2014
Recently, two cases concerning the constitutional rights of people in prison came to public light. They involve two U.S. political prisoners: Mumia Abu-Jamal who is serving a life sentence at a facili...
Prison Labor: Workin' For The Man: Article in Covert Action Quarterly #54, Fall 1995
Erlich, Reese
Article
1995
Article analysing the roots of prison labour in America.
Prisoners of the Good Fight: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
Geiser, Carl
Book
This book tells of the hope young Americans had to stop Hitler and Mussolini in Spain, how they were captured, and what happened to them after their capture. It reveals the amazing breaks which allowe...
Prisoners' Rights Group
Culhane, Claire
Article
1978
The Return of Commercial Prison Labour
Scherrer, Christoph and Shah, Anil
Article
2017
Prisons are seldom mentioned under the rubric of labour market institutions such as temporary work contracts or collective bargaining agreements. Yet, prisons not only employ labour but also cast a sh...
The Return of Debtors' Prisons: Reservations for the Poor
Breyman, Steve
Article
2010
Nearly a quarter of the people spending time behind bars on Riker’s Island in 2008 - one in four inmates - were there because they didn’t have the money to pay bail on a misdemeanor charge. These unfo...
Silvia Baraldini Wins Return Home: Against The Current vol. 81
Marotti, Maria Ornella
Article
1999
On June 11 the U.S. government agreed to a longstanding Italian request to allow political prisoner Silvia Baraldini to serve the rest of her term in her native country. The move, announced by U.S. Am...
Traditional Aboriginal Spirituality Within the Prison System
Article
1984
Raises the issue of freedom of religion being denied to Native prison inmates who are not of Christian origin.
A Welcome Prison Victory at Youngstown: Hunger Strike on Death Row
O'Hearn, Denis
Article
2010
Three death-sentenced men were on hunger strike in Ohio State Penitentiary on January 3 to win the same rights as others on death row in the state.
When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A true story in the movement for prison abolition
Bissonette, Jamie
Book
2008
In the months before they took over running the Walople maximum-security facility in 1973, prisoners and outside advocates created programs that sent more prisoners home for good. This account reveals...
Wobblies & Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Theory
Lynd, Staughton; Grubacic, Andrej
Book
2008
Wobblies and Zapatistas offers readers an encounter between two generations and two traditions. Staughton Lynd and Andrej Grubacic meet in dialogue in an effort to bring together the anarchist and Mar...

Connexions Directory of Groups & Websites

Anarchist Black Cross
The ABC is an international organization formed to support political prisoners.

Sources Library

High-school youth to rally outside Ontario prison on Family Day
Sources News Release
2015
High school aged youth from Peterborough and Toronto are changing the way they celebrate Family Day (February 16th) this year, rallying outside a maximum security prison in Lindsay, Ontario.
Immigration detainees re-start hunger fast; hundreds rally outside Lindsay jail
Sources News Release
2013
Immigration detainees at the Centre East Correctional Centre, some of whom who have been indefinitely held for as long as seven years are calling for their release and an end to indefinite detention a...

From the Connexions Archives

Bulldozer
Periodical profile published 1982
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1982
Intended as a vehicle for prison reform, Bulldozer publishes letters, poems and articles by and about prisoners in North American maximum security institutions.
Bulldozer
Periodical profile published 1984
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1984
Bulletin of the Quaker Jails and Justice Committee
Vol. 1 No. 5
Bishop, Elaine; Harkins, Kathy (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1977
Irregularly published newsletter outlining some of the current concerns and activities of the Quaker Committee.
The Journal of Prisoners on Prisons
Periodical profile published 1989
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1989
A Quaker Committee on Jails and Justice Newsletter
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1979
A newsletter that argues against capital punishment.
Rap About Prisoners
Periodical profile published 1976
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1976
Representing people both inside and outside the prison system.