Under Lock and Key: News and Commentary about Prisons

Article in MIM Notes 223, December 1, 2000. This radio program must grow! What you can do to help this program get on the air.

What are prisoners saying about Under Lock and Key?

• Prisoner makes contact with revolutionary politics via radio program
• "As soon as I heard the beginning I was automatically hooked. I can relate to so much of the issues that were being talked about...."
• Statement from Jaan Laaman, Ohio-7/Anti-imperialist political prisoner

Below are the rough drafts of program scripts as well as mp3/real audio versions of some programs.

• There is no freedom of speech in prison; Prisoners report on their struggles against censorship. 15:13 Script mp3
• Leonard Peltier denied clemency; It turns out that money does buy political favors; This story and more. 15:45 Script mp3
• Massachusetts bans prisoners from voting; Illinois Department of Corrections misuses public funds. 14:44 Script mp3
• The growth of prisons hurts children; Mumia Abu Jamal explains how the prisons system takes away hope from prisoners; These stories and more. 15:23 Script mp3

• South Carolina imposes DNA database at prisoner expense; Mumia Abu Jamal speaks on the framing of atomic scientist Wen Ho Lee; and Court TV cancels its reality program. 13:24 Script mp3
• Health care is prisons is neither healthy nor care. 15:22 Script mp3
• Texas murders Shaka Sankofa; and Louisiana ends its private prison for juveniles. 14:45 Script mp3
• Corrupt union guards terrorize Soledad state prison; Mumia Abu Jamal discusses police corruption; Ohio prisoners write of repression and resistance. 15:13 Script mp3

Programs from 2000

• Amerika denies prisoners education; MIM creates the University BARS Serve the People Program. 15:08 Script mp3
• In Amerika's dismal crypts, Religious organization banned as a gang; Letters from prisoners describe their torturous conditions after being labeled gang members. 16:36Script mp3
• Washington prisoner wins censorship settlement. 14:01Script mp3
• Attica brothers settle suit and Amerika murders more prisoners; Mumia Abu Jamal discusses the police massacre of MOVE members. 15:07 Script mp3
• LAPD admits to framing innocent people; A Commentary by Mumia Abu Jamal; Reactionary California Proposition 21 Targets Oppressed Nation Youth. 15:11 Script mp3

• Which illegitimate settler country banishes its political prisoners and executes them? Is this South Africa or Amerika? 15:03 Script mp3
• Amerika calls itself the 'Land of the free' yet it has 2 million people locked up; A commentary from Mumia Abu Jamal; And letters from Indiana prisoners. 16:00 Script mp3
• Mumia Abu Jamal gets stay of execution; but the movement must maintain steam; A new Study adds nails in DARE's coffin; A South Carolina prisoner writes that prisons destroy families. 15:05 Script mp3
• Across Amerika, prisoners write of censorship; St. Clair prison outlaws the study of law 15:48Script mp3

• Amerikan dungeons release two anti-imperialist wimmin; Mumia Abu Jamal condemns Black politicians for selling out Black revolutionary Assata Shakur; A new york prisoner explains life in a prison cell. 17:06Script mp3
• In Los Angeles, a George Jackson commemoration celebrates prisoner struggles against oppression; California prison guards lobby to squelch an investigation into guard brutality; Prisoner organizations are repressed under the cover of fighting "security threat groups." 14:37Script mp3
• Prison boom rockets despite 'crime' drop; Mumia Abu Jamal discusses the death penalty; and a prisoner letter describes the new prison torture techniques. 14:25Script mp3
• On Human Rights Day 1999, we draw attention to Amerika's violation of such rights in its prisons; Michigan prisoners protest conditions.; And an essay by Black Nation revolutionary and death row prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. 14:01Script mp3

• A Connecticut prisoner reports that Police brutality is the growing plague; A Wisconsin prisoner spreads revolutionary literature; and an essay by Mumia Abu Jamal. 16:06 Script Real Audio mp3
• A Study denounces waiver of juveniles to adult court; The Attica prison rebellion remembered; and an essay by Mumia Abu Jamal. 15:09 Script Real Audio mp3
• As the struggle for freedom grows, Amerika continues its attack against Mumia Abu Jamal. 18:36 Script Real Audio mp3
• Puerto Rican Prisoners of War are out of prison, but the imperialists attach strings; Torture technology advances in Wisconsin. 17:46 Script Real Audio mp3

• The pigs create yet another phony confession to slander Mumia Abu Jamal; Leonard Peltier remains imprisoned for the indigenous struggle for self - determination; The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee holds a conference in June to launch an intensified campaign for his freedom. 15:41 Script Real Audio mp3
• Isolated prisoners turned on to revolutionary politics by this program; Prisoners report on crackdown at Texas death row. 15:43 Script Real Audio mp3
• End the Amerikan Lockdown Month draws attention to Amerika's fastest growing industry: the incarceration industry. 13:47 Script Real Audio mp3
• Letters from prisoners report: Repression is on the rise. 15:57 Script Real Audio mp3

Programs from 1999

• Alabama and Massachusetts make you ask: Is this the 1999 or the slavery days of 1849?; Mumia Abu Jamal talks about the brutality of prison guards; Prisoners in New Jersey and South Carolina describe their inhumane conditions 14:50 Script Real Audio mp3
• Prisoners and their families discuss control units and frame-ups; Fellow former Black Panther Assata Shakur talks about the importance of Mumia Abu Jamal; These stories and more 14:52 Script Real Audio mp3
• Mumia Abu Jamal's commencement address at Evergreen State College 15:12 Script Real Audio mp3
• Amerika is the land of 1.8 million Prisoners, & the Home of Cowardly Censorship 17:13 Script Real Audio mp3
• Review of Mumia Abu Jamal's All Things Censored CD 15:10 Script Real Audio mp3

• After high school shootings, adults start to crack down on youth 14:01 Script Real Audio mp3
• Movement demanding freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal advances; but the state counter attacks 14:22 Script Real Audio mp3
• Silvia Baraldini wins a transfer to Italy; A Masschusetts prisoner describes the control units in that state; These stories and more 15:41 Script Real Audio mp3
• Prisons populations may already be skyrocketting, but states are finding news ways to reincarcerate prisoners after their sentences are up; Mumia Abu Jamal writes about ineffective defense attorneys; Supreme Court protects warrantless searches & Amerikan cops single out oppressed nationals 13:59 Script Real Audio mp3
• Interview with activist whose death row pen pal was murdered by the State of Texas. 16:01 Real Audio mp3

• Slavery is alive and well in Amerikan prisons 14:23 Script Real Audio mp3
• Books for Prisoners Benefit raises funds and educates youth 14:59 Script Real Audio mp3
• An organization of Pennsylvania prisoners calls for a phone boycott in May; California's "Three Strikes" law is not linked to drop in crime; A new film documents centrol role of prisons in rural towns; Mumia Abu Jamal asks: "Is the Death Penalty the poor's prerogative?"; Massachusetts Supreme Court is weighing prisoner DNA databank 14:44 Script Real Audio mp3
• South African poet and revolutionary Dennis Brutus speaks about the struggle against prisons, imperialism and the death penalty 16:05 Script Real Audio mp3

• The death penalty is defeated again in Massachusetts; Black cops speak up for revolutionary prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal; And Mumia describes torture on death row 12:58 Script Real Audio mp3
• Local activist speaks on death penalty. 14:36 Real Audio mp3
• The struggle for freedom for Black Panther Party prisoner; Geronimo jiJaga (Pratt) wins victory; but Mumia Abu-Jamal gets another defeat in Pennsylvania courts 13:48 Script Real Audio mp3
• Mumia Abu Jamal writes about the Amerikan Gulag; Lynch mob explains the death penalty in Amerika; California and Texas prisoners send statements to the Jericho March. 13:39
• Prisoners' letters and phone calls make it clear: The denial of adequate medical care in prison is torture and murder 13:46

• Drop in illegal murder rates fuels police state hype but the growth of police and prisons is not responsible for drop in murder rates; William Kunstler talks about the real criminals in the government; Mumia Abu Jamal says crime policy is foolishly "Acting Like Life's a Ballgame"; New prison data shows effects of anti-parole trend: Black prisoners do more time than whites 15:27
• Prisoner exposes the phony drug war; Chicago Tribune says prosectors lie; 10th Circuit Court supports prosecutors buying testimony; Mother of drug war prisoner speaks out on entrapment; "Snitch" Documentary exposes Injustice system's use of informants. 15:53
• Imprisoned Black Panther Party member wins new trial only to have his hopes of freedom dashed; Assata Shakur speaks on Mumia Abu Jamal; LA District Attorney pursues case against Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt); Robert Meeropol speaks on the repression of revolutionary leaders. 14:43
• Letters and facts about AIDS in prisons makes it clear: death by disease is the new punishment; and California's prisons drive an HIV+ prisoner to suicide. 16:16

Programs from 1998

• New bill adds hard time fo crimes with guns; Reserve the death penalty for lying cops and prosecutors!; Public universities suffer under the prison craze; MIM announces new anti-imperialist mass organization. 13:55
• Kalifornia prison guards shoot prisoners; State governments take money from colleges to fund prisons. RAIL calls for a prisoner-student alliance; Escaped death row prisoner found dead; Letters from prisoners 16:46
• Amnesty International Takes on U.$. Prisons; A letter from a New York Prisoner says the real criminal is Amerika 15:04
• Amerika demands Christian freedom of religion internationally, but denies religious freedom in its own prisons; Michigan prisons censor VIBE Magazine; Protesters denounce brutality in California prisons 13:55
• Black Nation Revolutionary and Death Row prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal's appeal rejected. 16:08 Script Real Audio
• Congress tries to extradite a former U.$. political prisoner from Cuba; Lynch Mob on the death penalty in Amerika; FBI launches network of state DNA prisoner databases, Collection of MA prisoner's DNA halted; Film about Angola prison portrarys the humanity of prisoners, but downplays the inhumanity of the prison system. 14:20

Not available in audio format

• MA opens new supermax prison; CA DOC spends $450,000 on bus, nothing on education; Mumia commentary on the Black March to Death Row; letters from prisoners in MA and NJ