Crime and Punishment

December 27, 2011

If what Dostoyevsky says is true – and I believe it is – then America, which boasts the largest prison population in the world, is perhaps the most uncivilized country there is. A bold statement, I know, especially coming from someone who has spent the past 23 years behind bars. But if what Dostoyevsky says is true, then what happens inside these places is crucial to understanding what kind of society we live in; and who better to speak to the reality of prison life than someone who is living the experience?

But no one wants to learn about the madness that predominates inside these places. People – average, law-abiding citizens – are losing their homes and jobs and are struggling to survive, and the last thing anyone wants to hear is how hard prison is for a bunch of criminals. “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” is the prevailing sentiment and attitude. It never occurs that the rising incarceration rate is connected to the same economic and political policies that resulted in the home foreclosure crisis and the rise in unemployment...READ MORE

The Roots of the George Jackson University

By: Eugene Jamaa Shakur

“Imprisonment is an aspect of class struggle from the outset. It is the creation of a closed society which attempts to isolate those individuals who disregard the structures of a hypocritical establishment, as well as those who attempt to challenge it on a mass basis. Throughout its history, the United States has used its prisons to suppress any organized efforts to challenge its legitimacy - from its attempts to break up the early Working Men’s Benevolent Association, to the banning of the Communist Party during what I regard as the fascist takeover of this country, to the attempts to destroy the Black Panther Party."  

{Blood in my Eye pg. 106 -107}. 

Our Afrikan Historical Development

We Define:  New Afrikan Prisoner of War

(N. A. P. O. W)

Since Afrikans in Amerika have been dislocated, that is, taken off of their own terms for the past three plus centuries, we seldom allow ourselves to operate as subjects of our own historical experience.  Most of our people in Amerika and throughout the diaspora are inclined to frequently operate an illusion that creates disillusionment and self-alienation, which is the most fundamental alienation a person, can have.  Our struggle is against extreme mis-orientation, to move beyond the spectrum of African people being objects rather than subjects in practice breaking away from the fringes of European experience and classification.  There can be no argument against the hatred of slavery that our ancestors had to endure, the thought of their daughters and sons would bear the burden of being born into this cruel system of slavery, captured by tens of millions, brutally abused on slave ships by unspeakable atrocities, brought to the shores of Amerikkka and sold, herded and consequently subjugated.

                Through the historical dynamics of this experience we ultimately became prisoners of war, that we did not start, we were infringed upon, through manipulation , deception, and coercion, the duplicitous activity in complicity in the slave trade by our own people, the misconception of how the invaders interpreted slave trading contrary to the wars that took place amongst rival/tribes/nations which resulted in captured prisoners interpretations of European classifications, and history has shown that we have frequently followed the path of Europeans without understanding our own identities.  Whatever the complexities of Afrikan people history we subsequently became New Afrikans Prisoners of war (N.A.P.O.W)...READ MORE

Zuri and The Voice

Written and Illustrated by,

Baridi Williamson

One day a small African child named Zuri walked away from her people in the village, who were always fighting among themselves and warring with other tribes in their nation.  Zuri had traveled a great distance before she stopped and suddenly realized that she had walked very far away from her village.  Looking around, it dawned upon Zuri that she was lost, in a great big world…all alone!  “Where am I at?  Where am I going?” Zuri asked herself, thinking out loud.

                It was then that Zuri heard The Voice from beyond say:  “You are heading where your people are going in time, if they do not embrace the light” warned the mysterious voice...READ MORE

The Vortex of Dementia

By Abdul Olugbala Shakur 

Transcribed by Kilaika Baruti

Though I have been active in the struggle for practically all of my life, from a Panther cub to an Urban guerrilla in the service of the underground, I have never considered myself to be a writer or at least not a good writer, but I felt it was imperative for me to conjure up whatever hidden skills I may possess to find the words to articulate this man-made construct that many of you out there call the Prison Industrial Complex.  But for many of us trapped within its catacomb of solitary madness, this man-made construct of nefarious intent possess a more sinister title:  The Vortex of Dementia...READ MORE