MIM NOTES No. 201            January 1, 2000

Fight repression and national oppression: MIM launches 'Under Lock 
& Key 2000' campaign

by MIM Prison Minister

Under imperialism, imprisonment is a tool to control the 
population, to repress political and social criticism, to bury the 
ugly inherent products of capitalism like drug use and 
homelessness, and to silence those with potential to build a 
better world.

If trends continue, the prison population of the United Snakes 
will surpass 2 million before the end of the year 2000.(1) To help 
readers understand the urgency to fight against prison expansion 
and Amerikan repression, we calculated the projected prison 
population for the year 2020; it will reach 10 million if we do 
not halt current trends.(2) Amerika leads the world in per capita 
imprisonment. The imprisonment rate of oppressed nationals in the 
u.$. is unrivaled throughout modern history. Even Apartheid South 
Africa before Nelson Mandela became President had a lower rate of 
Black incarceration than apartheid Amerika has today.

We fight against oppressive prison conditions and expose the 
hypocrisies of Amerika's INjustice system both to build support 
for revolution and to meet the needs of the oppressed. There is 
room for wide participation as we fight winnable battles. For 
those who agree with us that organizing to meet the needs of 
prisoner education and legal cooperation is a worthy effort, there 
are many projects to participate in. For those who agree with us 
that revolution will be necessary to bring true justice for 
Amerika's prisoners we call on you to help lead this revolutionary 
movement against the Amerikan INjustice System. We ask prisoners 
to continue to build study groups, conduct legal research and 
other anti-imperialist projects to organize on the inside, and 
send artwork, articles, letters and speeches to help organize on 
the outside.

Following the surge of revolutionary nationalism in the 1960s led 
by the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Party/Puerto Rican 
Revolutionary Workers Organization, the original Brown Berets, the 
American Indian Movement and I Wor Kuen, Amerika launched its 
massive imprisonment campaign. Smashing revolutionary nationalist 
organizing and urban rebellion was the goal and increased 
imprisonment was part of the answer. Currently, one in three young 
Black men is in some way under the direct control of Amerika's 
prison system; one out of eight Latino men is in prison, jail or 
on probation or parole.(1) For First Nation men on reservations, 
that number is reportedly about one in two.(3)

Compared to whites, oppressed nationals are more frequently 
stopped by pigs regardless of their involvement in any 
imperialist-defined crimes. And oppressed nationals are more 
frequently arrested. In the case of crack cocaine, the u.$. 
government reports higher rates of use by whites but perpetuates a 
crime against the people by arresting Blacks for crack possession 
at a higher rate than whites.(4) Once inside the criminal 
injustice system, oppressed nationals do not get fair trials, 
adequate legal representation, or juries of their peers. And 
oppressed nationals receive longer sentences (as compared to 
whites with comparable convictions) and frequent denials of 
parole.

Statistics condemning the Amerikan prison system and exposing its 
role in systematic oppression of Amerika's internal semi-colonies 
are nothing new for MIM Notes readers. MIM has been organizing 
against the Amerikan INjustice system since our early years. Now 
we call on our allies and supporters to help build opposition to 
Amerika's prison system in the year 2000. There are small and 
large tasks that need to be done to expose the u.$. prison system 
and build foundations for a revolutionary society that does not 
use prisons as warehouses for humyns.

Many liberal organizations with extensive resources have research 
and charity projects addressing the dramatic increase in Amerikan 
incarceration and the brutality prisoners face. However, MIM is 
not a liberal organization seeking merely to reform the prison 
system. As proletarian internationalists, we may currently have 
less money than the pigs and than those only seeking to clean up 
the appearance of oppression. But unlike the liberals we have 
strategic confidence in the power and moral authority of the 
international proletariat. And because we are well- organized and 
are genuinely serving the needs of the people, we are able to 
accomplish more with less.

Our primary purpose is to build the foundations to overthrow 
imperialism. We seek self-determination for all oppressed nations 
and work toward building the only system that serves the needs of 
the people -- a dictatorship of the proletariat, and ultimately, 
communism. We seek reforms that advance proletarian 
internationalism, but know well that within a sick system, reforms 
alone are only temporary band-aids subject to reversal as soon as 
it is convenient for the oppressor.

Within the context of prison reforms, we can learn from the 
example of the 1971 Attica prison rebellion and other protests 
against inhumane conditions. Sometimes the oppressed face a 
situation where they can either die fighting or they can die 
sitting down. The Attica brothers made the righteous choice to 
fight to the end. And they won some improvements in prison 
conditions. But once attention was averted from the conditions of 
prisoners, privileges that the oppressed had fought and died for 
were taken away. We understand that such a cycle will not end 
until the oppressed seize state power and upset the relations 
between the oppressor and oppressed.

Each month during the year 2000, MIM will be focusing attention on 
a different aspect of Amerika's war against the oppressed through 
prisons. Though we continuously conduct education pertaining to 
all imperialist crimes, we are soliciting help to further expand 
educational materials and organizing events related to each 
month's focus. We list the focus of each month here and welcome 
creative contributions and research submissions. By no means 
should the month's specific focus limit you from focusing anti- 
imperialist organizing on other areas as well.

Material submitted that serves the interests of the oppressed will 
be added to MIM's website, distributed across the kkkountry and 
turned into an informational arsenal to End the Amerikkkan 
Lockdown. For specific research assignments, or to help out with 
educational events and actions, contact the address on page 2 or 
e-mail MIM Prison Minister <pm

mim.org> Please note that submissions for MIM Notes should arrive 
at least one month before the issue it is intended for.

Notes:

1. The Sentencing Project, http://www.sentencingproject.org

2. MIM's prison projection, MIM Notes 197, 1 May 1997. p. 1 and 6.

3. MIM has no statistical information on the incarceration and 
arrest rates of First Nation members at this time. This is a 
difficult statistic to gather because of the white chauvinist 
methods of statistics analysis by the u.$. government, but we 
welcome research assistance and essays related to this topic.

4. U.S. Department of Justice.