At the urging of prisoners and RAIL comrades who do work with MIM, MIM is launching a Serve the People Prisoners' Legal Clinic as part of the new MIM-led anti-imperialist prisoner organization. The Prisoners' Legal Clinic (PLC) is organized around prisoners combining their own legal knowledge and skills to meet their own needs. Prisoners who work as part of the legal clinic will write articles for publication explaining the major legal issues facing political prisoners today, and back those articles up with legal briefs that will be available to all political prisoners who need additional legal firepower to wage their battles against the prisons cyst'm. The PLC is centered around political goals, specifically using the law to facilitate political work of political prisoners in Amerika and educating about prisons through coverage of prisoners' legal concerns. This means that the types of legal questions the prisoners tackle should be those that most directly relate to organizing, like censorship, property, library access and Security Threat Group policies.
RAIL Notes is publishing this announcement to call on all interested people to volunteer their time for the PLC. We need people on the outside to help with typing up articles for comrades under lock & key who do not have typewriters. We need your help editing legal articles into plain English that we can print to educate people on the connections between political imprisonment and the law. You do not have to be a lawyer or know anything about the law to volunteer for this work. Many comrades in prisons have taught themselves law and are now ready to do work with others who do not have the background they do. All you need are fingers ready to type and a single hour of free time and you can be a help to this program.
If you want to contribute your time or money to the Prisoners' Legal Clinic, please get in touch with us at the locations on the "contact MIM" section of the Under Lock & Key homepag.
Note: MIM believes that all prisoners in the u.$. criminal INjustice system are political prisoners because the system of imprisonment is political. This is evidenced in the disproportionate weight of prison terms on the oppressed nations, in laws that hold theft of a rich person's property to be a more heinous crime than theft of a poor nation's land, and in the overwhelming presence of physical and mental abuse coupled with the absence of physical or mental enhancement in the so-called Corrections systems.
Because MIM treats all prisoners as political prisoners, this Serve
the People program under MIM leadership will specifically address the political
problems of prisoners. The goal of this program is to be part of a movement
against imperialism and against oppression in prisons. This means that
the legal focus will be on clearing enough space for prisoners to organize
-- to build independent institutions of the oppressed toward the eventual
goal of revolution.
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 99 Hudson Street,
16th floor, New York, NY 10013, Tel: (212) 219-1900 Limited
number of Habeas cases for death-row inmates
HISPANIC AIDS COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATION AND RESOURCES 1017 N. Main, Suite 208, San Antonio, TX 78212, Tel:(512) 227-2204
SOUTHERN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS 83 Poplar Street, N.W., Atlanta,
GA 30303-2122, Tel:(404) 688-1202 Civil rights actions
affecting prison conditions in the South, representation of people
facing death penalty
LEGAL SERVICES FOR PRISONERS WITH CHILDREN 1535 Mission
Street San Francisco, CA 94103, Tel: (415) 255-7036 Legal assistance
to incarcerated parents, their children, families, etc. Does
not have resources to represent individuals, but responds to hundreds
of inquiries per
month
CHICAGO LEGAL AID TO INCARCERATED MOTHERS 205 W. Randolph Street, Suite 830, Chicago, IL 60606, Tel: (312) 332-5537
CALIFORNIA:
LAW OFFICES OF ALAN ELLIS, P.C. 265 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941, Tel: (415) 383-3862
NEW YORK:
PRISONERS' RIGHTS PROJECT OF THE LEGAL AID SOCIETY 15 Park Row, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10038, Tel: (212) 577-3530
POST-CONVICTION REPRESENTATION OF FEDERAL DEFENDANTS. Jackson, MI 49201 Tel: (517) 788-7560