Air Date: November 6. 3 readers: A, B, C A: Congress tries to extradite a former U.$ political prisoner from Cuba B: The death penalty in Amerika C: FBI launches network of state DNA prisoner databases A: Collection of Massachusetts' prisoner's DNA halted B: Film about Angola prison portrays the humanity of prisoners, but downplays the inhumanity of the prison system C: Welome to Under Lock and Key, news and commentary about prisons from the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. The U.$. incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any other country. The rate for imprisonment of Blacks is 4 times that of apartheid South Africa, and the U.$. sends more Black men to prison than college. The purpose of this program is to educate about, and inspire activism against the Amerikan lockdown. A: Congress tries to extradite a former U.$ political prisoner from Cuba Assata Shakur has lived in exile in Cuba since 1979, after she escaped a bogus prison term. Assata first organized with the Black Panther Party and then with the Black Liberation Army. Assata and Sundiata Acoli were ambushed by the New Jersey pigs on May 2, 1973 because both were revolutionaries fighting for liberation of the Black nation. It's important to note that Assata was never convicted of the charges that made her wanted and worthy of stopping on the NJ turnpike by the troopers. During the ambush, a State Trooper was killed. Assata was convicted of aiding and abetting in the alleged murder. Assata never handled a gun during the ambush and was shot with her hands raised in the air. Sundiata was convicted of killing the pig and remains locked up in Amerikkka's gulags. Both were tried in white Amerikas courts after being set up on these bogus charges. Assata is one of the many fighters for liberation of the Black Nation who was set-up and convicted on serious felony charges as part of the U.$. government effort to squash national liberation struggles. Assata has continued to speak out from exile about the conditions of political activists imprisoned in Amerikkka. She has exposed the psychological warfare against them and consistently pointed out the fact that prison conditions are designed to stop the oppressed from organizing for their own liberation. Today Assata is faced with the possibility of forced extradition from her exile in Cuba. In a recent United Snakes congressional vote, Assata's ex-comrade and former Black Panther, Bobby Rush, supported the extradition. Earlier this year, New Jersey pig governor Whitman offered a $50,000 reward to for the return of Assata from Cuba. Activists within u.$. borders have a responsibility for understanding and opposing the conditions of occupation that dominate the Black Nation. The Black Panther Party argued that the police occupy the Black Nation as a foreign troop occupies territory, and this is still true today. Under these circumstances, Assata Shakur was wrongfully convicted and forced into exile for the crime of being a revolutionary. Under these circumstances, Assata Shakur knows that she cannot expect fair treatment within the confines of the United Snakes of Amerika. [Play track one of "Lynch Mob". Ideally, start 3.5-4 seconds in. This is 1:54 long and there is no gap between this and the 2nd track. Some white dude says "The mob was totally unruly--mob was totally unruly--mob was totally unruly" and it's over and we cut. There is an explosision right during the 3rd time he says it.] B: FBI launches network of state DNA prisoner databases On October 13, the FBI launched a network of state databases of prisoner DNA. The network will match DNA material from so-called "unsolved crimes" and future "crimes" with the evidence from the prisoner's DNA. This is yet more evidence that this rotten system doesn't think that prisons serve a rehabilitative purpose.=20 We called the crimes so-called because this system has a subjective definition of crime. The importation of drugs into North America isn't a crime, nor is the U.$. bombing of Africa's largest pharmaceutical company. The crimes of the U.$. government and its allied corporations are far more dangerous than any anything else that happens in North America. The database currently has 250,000 DNA samples and 4,600 unsolved cases. Another 350,000 samples from various states will be online soon. All 50 states passed laws authorizing the pigs to take DNA samples from at least some types of prisoners. Not all states have begun collecting samples, however, and as we will discuss next, Massachusetts' law has been recently struck down. A few states mandate that all prisoners, including those convicted of white-collar crime, give samples. The Federal government does not have such a law, yet. C: Collection of Massachusetts' prisoner's DNA halted On August 14, Massachusetts prisoners won a victory in the courts, with Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein ruling that the state's DNA database was unconstitutional. Forty-seven other states have similar laws, and the prisoner's and probationer's attorneys hope that precedent has been set to strike down these other laws. The principal grounds by which the law was struck down was of privacy rights based on the Fourth Amendment. The judge argued that "[r]egardless of the state's compelling interest, an unjustified random bodily intrusion without any indication of individualized suspicion is unreasonable and intolerable." Typically privacy "rights" are reserved for those with power and prestige to protect. We emphasized the word "rights" because unlike the bourgeoisie, we don't pretend that there are certain rights that people have. Rather, we believe, as Mao Zedong said, that "there are no rights, only power struggles." The only thing that we can count on in this world is what the masses themselves can fight to gain and retain. The Bill of Rights in the U.$ Constitution claims to speak for all citizens, even though it is rarely that way in practice. But it is a good tactic for progressive lawyers to try and get the Bill of Rights to apply to everyone, especially prisoners An additional weakness of the Massachusetts law is that it did not restrict what the DNA could be used for. It would have been totally legal for the pigs to use it in their current state-funded racist quest for a "crime gene." Nor was information gleaned from the DNA--such as disease susceptibility--required to be shared with the person from which it was snatched. RAIL opposes the DNA database because it is a potential weapon in Amerika's war against the internal colonies. The database could be (mis)used in many ways, but even as it relates to the fight against actual crime, we don't want to see the pigs gain any additional tools. As sixty years of government statistics show, locking more people up doesn't affect crime. We aren't saying that violent crime is Ok, although we rarely fail to point out that such crime is a small portion of what prisoners are incarcerated for. But we can't let this system and its leaders point fingers at street crime when they are guilty of far larger and more violent crimes each day. A: The Farm: Angola Directed by Jonathan Stack and Liz Garbus Film about Angola prison portrays the humanity of prisoners, but downplays inhumanity of the prison system Angola is the largest prison in Amerika, covering 18,000 acres. Of its 5,000 prisoners, 77% are Black. Most of the prisoners are sentenced to "natural life" or extremely long sentences, leading to the warden's estimate that 85% of the current population will die behind the walls of Angola. Angola was transformed from an old-style slave plantation into a modern day slave plantation (prison) after the Civil War. The old plantation was also called Angola, after the place of origin of so many of the slaves who worked there. The film, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, effectively talks about the personal impact of a life sentences on prisoners, thereby bringing out the humanity of the prisoners. For example, the film tries to portray the loneliness created. The average prisoner at Angola never receives a visit from the outside after the first 3 years of incarceration. But it fails to talk about the systemic brutality of prison, nor does it address, beyond mentioning it, the history of Angola as being one of Amerika's most violent prisons. C:Angola uses 1,800 non-prisoner workers to run the prison. Two hundred families of employees live on the grounds of the prison. Early in the video, we see one guard boast of the great job security working in a prison brings. This reactionary statement is quite accurate, as prisons are one of Amerika's leading growth industries. Unlike the armed pigs on horseback, the real work on the Angola plantation is done by the prisoners. Most prisoners work in the fields for 4 cents an hour. The best jobs in the prison pay only 20 cents an hour. The film interviews six prisoners for their stories. One prisoner is a trustee, one on death row, one an old man dying from cancer, and another an old man turned religious leader. One of the most effective things about the film is showing the arresting mug shots of the prisoners interviewed. These photos are from 1972, or 1959. The prisoner incarcerated in 1959 was 24 at the time. The prisoner on death row reports that since age 12 he has spent all but four years in prison. Due to the Amerikan injustice system, prison is all some residents of North America will ever know. The most amazing part of the film to RAIL is the segment on one prisoner's parole hearing. A Black man was sentenced 20 years ago for the rapes of two teenagers. When the "victim" was interviewed by police, she was asked "Would you be able to identify the assailant?" No, she said, because "All niggers look alike." But she was able to identify one person in the line-up -- the one in handcuffs. The photograph of the lineup shown in the film verifies the fact that only the defendant wore handcuffs. At the parole hearing the prisoner presented new evidence, suppressed from the defense at the time of trial, that the medical report after the rapes reported that the teenagers were virgins. Therefore, not only was this Black man framed, but the rapes didn't even happen. There is more. At his parole hearing, the "victim" is told that the parole board is very sympathetic to her, and one parole board member identifies himself as the president of a "victims rights" organization. Two board members are old white men, and one is an old Black man. The "victim" is still a racist, saying that she fears all Blacks, and while she doesn't fear the Black pig on the parole board, she wouldn't want to be alone with him either. All on camera, the parole board decides to deny the application before the prisoner even enters, and when he leaves, they forget about the camera and make their bias even clearer. A: The warden of Angola claims his job is to spread hope that prisoners will "win the lottery" and be allowed to leave the prison. As the film ends, updates are given on each prisoner. No pardons are given, and appeal hearings are denied. This applies to even the elderly religious prisoner, who has a pardon recommendation on the governor's desk. The dying prisoner is buried in the prison cemetary. RAIL puts so much work into the prison issue because the prisons and police are key weapons in Amerika's imperialist war against its internal Black, Latino and Indigenous colonies. As opposed to the film, this perspective offers an explanation as to why the incarceration rate for Blacks is eight-times that of whites. While RAIL was impressed with the portrayal of injustice in the film, we thought the necessary indictment of the whole Amerikan injustice system was far too subtle. Thousands of people will see The Farm. Most won't be affected by it. The film's politics are too subtle and the lives of incarcerated Blacks so foreign to most, this film will have little impact. RAIL will likely show The Farm in the future, adding it to our arsenal of documentaries about prison. We will be sure to emphasize the weaknesses of this film in our introductory remarks as well as the discussion in order to present a more revolutionary view of the Amerikkkan Lockdown. B: This has been, Under Lock and Key, a weekly Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League program about prisons. For more information, contact: RAIL PO Box 712 Amherst MA 01004, or email mim@mim.org.Return to Under Lock and Key RAIL Radio Program page