Call Issued for Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration in October 2014
Plans Made by Activists Gathered in NYC To Say NO MORE to Mass Incarceration
April 14, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
We received this report from the Stop Mass Incarceration Network:
2.2 million people in prison, more than 80,000 of them held in the torture of solitary confinement, more than 5 million formerly incarcerated people are denied basic rights even after they’ve served their sentences. All of this disproportionately targets Blacks and Latinas/os. When you add the families and communities of all these people, it amounts to tens of millions of people living their lives caught up in the criminal “injustice” system of this country.
This is unjust and illegitimate. It must be stopped, and the movement to stop it will be taking a huge leap forward in October 2014. A strategizing session held in New York City brought together people from many different backgrounds from all across the country last week, and a Call for a Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation was issued at this session.
The strategy session was hosted by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. 90 people participated in the session, including family members of police murder victims, formerly incarcerated people, family members of people currently incarcerated, people involved in struggle against inhumane conditions in immigrant detention centers, students, attorneys, media people, ministers, immigrants from several different continents. There were Asians, Blacks, Latina/os and whites assembled to flesh out a vision of the Month of Resistance and develop a plan for making it as powerful as possible. People came from California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut and of course, New York to participate in this session.
This session envisioned October as a month of powerful manifestations of determined resistance to mass incarceration, including: nationwide demonstrations on October 22, the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation; a major concert and other cultural expressions, panels and symposiums on campuses and neighborhoods, sermons in churches, mosques and synagogues and more. It will be a month that involves thousands and thousands of people in standing together and saying NO MORE to the horrors being enforced on millions of people by the monstrous system of mass incarceration in this country.
If you are someone who is forced to live your life under the threat of mass incarceration and all its consequences, you must join us in acting in October. If you are someone who understands how wrong all this is, how much it devastates the lives of so many people, you must join us in acting in October. Join us in making October a month of powerful resistance that can awaken millions to these horrors and challenge them to join in acting to make it NO MORE.
Stop Mass Incarceration Network
Email: stopmassincarceration@gmail.com
Web: www.stopmassincarceration.net
Twitter: @StopMassIncNet
Phone: 347-979-SMIN (7646)
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