By Ivan Kilgore, June 2019

I’d say the Free Alabama Movement had a lot to do with many of the reforms in the state of Alabama that we are seeing in the news recently. Namely, the resending of the Habitual Offender Act, which lead to a sentence of LWOP. For those of you who do not know bout this prisoner lead movement, you should Google it.

In 2016 some reported 24K to 70K prisoners went on strike throughout the nation to protest, among other things, rigid parole practices and LWOP sentences. Now look what’s happening in Alabama–a state considered to be one of the most conservative and racist states in the nation.

I’d say we need to step our game up in California in terms of the prisoner strikes and meger changes of law. If we Don’t Bring the Noise, then they (I.e. the legislature and prison bureaucrats) aren’t going do too much more than what they’ve done, which isn’t much if you look at the history surrounding prison rehabilitation and parole and law changes in California.

In response to this, I had a kite sent to me from a prisoner who had did a lot of time in California SHU. He was a very upset with the comment. He took it as if I was creating a competition between what was going on with Free Alabama Movement impact on legislation and what happened in California with hunger strikes.

Let’s be real folks. The hunger strikes in California, as monumental as they were, did not lead to any legislative changes in terms of prisoners getting out of prison. They only led to the end of indefinite solitary confinement. My point being… we must keep our eyes on the prize–FREEDOM!

Moreover, peep how afterward CDC[r] neutralized the resistance. Since the hunger strikes, California legislators and prison bureaucrats rushed to create an incentive based rehab program. Shortly after the hunger strikes the first thing they did was allow prisoners who had a year disciplinary free to override to lower a security prison. Next came the juvenile offender senate bills that let what, a few hundred, out on parole? Then the family visits were restored to lifers. This effectively neutralized most of the resistance that was seen in the 2013 hunger strikes for some pu$$y! The effect?

Sadly, a lot of dudes getting out of the SHU have become “programmers” hoping and begging for a date! We seen this before. In a nutshell, the California Department of Corrections reinstated its 1940-1950 rehab control model program that had the same effect throughout the 60s and 70s. Read: “The Rise and Fall California’s Radical Prison Movement” by Eric Cummins.”

For more reality checks, see ubfsf.org