National Day of Resistance to Stop Mass Incarceration

Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide

When it comes to mass incarceration, the reality of the U.S. society is horrific:

o The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but holds 25% of the world’s prisoners.
o More than 2.4 million men and women, most of them Black or Latino, are locked in prison and over 7 million more are on probation or parole. This has a devastating effect not only on those imprisoned but their friends and loved ones.
o Tens of thousands are kept, for years or even decades, in conditions of solitary confinement that the United Nations constitutes as torture.
o There is the disproportionate use of the death penalty against Blacks and Latinos.
o There is the epidemic police murder and brutality against people of color. Over 2,000
Killings by police of unarmed people, just in the decade between 1990 and 2000.
o Policies like “Stop and Frisk” and “Gang Injunctions”, and where inner-city schools are filled with police - all of these are part of the pipeline of youth to prison.
o Former prisoners are labeled with badges of shame and dishonor, even after they serve their sentences—discriminated against when applying for jobs, denied access to government assistance, not allowed in public housing, denied the right to vote.

There have been important examples of determined mass resistance to this problem. Especially important have been the several hunger strikes by prisoners in California’s Special Housing Units (and the statements of support for the strikers issued by prominent voices of conscience) and the civil disobedience campaign in New York aimed at stopping “stop & frisk.”

But much more needs to be done! The plain fact is that many people in the country still don’t know about this ugly reality and most of those who do know about it feel it is the result of criminal activity by those in prison and that it helps to keep them safe from crime.

THIS IS NOT TRUE! MASS INCARCERATION IS NOT BECAUSE OF HUMAN NATURE BUT RESULTS FROM THE NATURE OF THIS SYSTEM HAVING CRIMINALIZED GENERATIONS OF YOUTH! It is not because of a "prison-industrial complex" through which a few interest groups seek to profit off of racism or the exploitation of prisoners. Rather, the cause is the workings and conscious policy of this system.

It’s a slow genocide that could easily accelerate to a fast genocide - fueled by the spouting and fueling of genocidal white supremacist rhetoric by this system's political representatives and media who demonize Black and Latino people with the intent of justifying all this.

This trajectory needs to be stopped NOW! And that will take determined action!

Join us! Build for April 19th –organizing demonstrations, rallies, teach-ins, and other actions to bring out the reality of mass incarceration and to call on others – from different sections in society, especially college campuses, high schools and churches across the U.S. – for a determined movement that will not end until we’ve put a STOP to Mass Incarceration.

April 19th - National Day to Stop Mass Incarceration!
Don’t stand aside, JOIN US!:
StopMassIncarcerationBayArea [at] gmail.com or 510.926.5207