Oakland, CA -- The protests against torture in California prisons continue. In June the United Front to Abolish the Security Housing Units once again held demonstrations across the state on the first Saturday of the month. MIM and RAIL activists collected 56 petition signatures in Oakland, among the largely Black passers by. As usual, we heard many stories about friends and relatives in prison and a number of men who had been behind bars themselves.

The Black youth, many who have relatives in prison, have an easy time understanding what we're talking about and why it's important to fight against the torture of control units. Kids walking with their parents asked if they could sign the petition too, after hearing our description of conditions in the control units. And even the kids walking alone stopped to find out what we were doing after hearing that it was about torture in prisons. This is a reflection of the national consciousness of oppressed nations within U.$. borders. While white kids are worrying about whether their friends have a better xbox, Black kids are worrying about when they will get to see their father or brother or uncle again.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2004 about 13% of all Black men between the ages 25-29 were in prison or jail. For the same age group 3.6% of Latinos are incarcerated and 1.7% of whites. Lockup statistics for that year are: White males: 717 per 100,000, Latino males: 1,717 per 100,000, Black males: 4,919 per 100,000. This disproportionate lockup rate is nothing less than government sponsored genocide. Here in California trends are similar to the rest of the country but because of the large Mexican population, as of December 2001 (the latest date statistics are available), Mexicans made up 35% of the prison population, while Blacks were 31% and whites 29%.(1)

If these numbers reflecting blatant national oppression in Amerika aren't enough, we can look at the control units inside prisons -- small, long-term solitary confinement cells where the sensory deprivation and isolation causes serious physical and mental illness. These units target the politically active, the organizers, and anyone the prison staff decides is a threat.

As one prisoner wrote to us this month about the transfers and classifications in California prisons: "I was transferred here because I wrote different officers up for misconduct of their duty and badge, and they felt I was a threat to exposing what was really going on behind these walls. So they sent me here, which is to them the uncontrollable inmates that they feel need to e shown that they are in charge." In California we

know that these units are disproportionately populated by Mexican prisoners, although the department of corrections has not published statistics on this since the 1990s. Coming into prison in California, Mexicans are automatically classified as part of a gang based on where they are from.

The national oppression in prisons is a direct reflection of national oppression in Amerikan society. Prisons are a tool of social control used by those in power to maintain their power. It is not only men like Mumia Abu Jamal who are locked up for political reasons. The entire system of imprisonment in Amerika is political. From the police stopping men for "driving while Black," to the courts where money can buy a good verdict, to the sentencing laws which slam crack users with penalties far higher than users of powder cocaine, and into the control units. This is why MIM says that all prisoners are political prisoners, not just the prisoners locked up for their political views and actions.

On the streets of Oakland several people who stopped to sign the petition to shut down the SHU commented that we should shut down the whole prison system. This sentiment is right on. These people are seeing the whole system for the failure that it is. And they are right that the U.$. government should not have jurisdiction to lock up all those people while it runs around the world committing the biggest crimes of all.

But MIM does not call for a freeing of all prisoners, instead we say that we need to seize power for the people and give all prisoners a real trial of their peers. No doubt many of them should and will go free. But those who have committed crimes against the people also need education. It will take a lot more than opening the prison doors in Amerika to end the injustice. This is why we put the fight to abolish prison control units in the context of the larger battle against the imperialist system and its criminal injustice system.

Notes:
1. California Prisoners and Parolees 2002, www.corr.ca.gov