[ prisons -- links ]

Prison Activist Links

Resources are organized by the following subjects:

• General Prison/Policing Resources
• Prisoner Support
• Activist Groups
• Prison Law
• Info on State and Federal Departments of (In)Corrections

General Prison and Policing Resources

• Prison Issues Desk (you're here already!)
• National Center on Institutions and Alternatives
  Info on community based alternatives to prison, prisoner support, sentencing issues, and general criminal justice issues.
• ACLU Freedom Network Website
  The ACLU Freedom Network explores many legal issues with loads of reference material, news, events, and court cases.
• Prison Law Page (centered on California gulags)
• Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice, a progressive policy and research group.
• GloboCopWatch: Send your Reports of Police Abuse and other Crimes Against Humanity
• Police Accountability Home Page
• Political Corrections: huge selection of info on the national security state
• The Penal Lexicon (mostly England, Ireland, Wales)
• CorrectionalHIV Consortium
  Nonprofit organization providing services about HIV/AIDS and TB in corrections.

Prisoner Support

• Some Resources for Prisoners (also available for printing as MS Word for Mac--binhex'ed or Rich Text Format--readable by many programs)
• E.G. Smith Books for Prisoners Project
• Two books to help prisoners' litigation: How to Win Prison Disciplinary Hearings and How Good Was Your Lawyer
• The Prisoners Literature Project sends free books to prisoners on request.
• Mothers Reclaiming Our Children
  An organization based in South Central Los Angeles dedicated to bringing justice to the criminal justice system.
• National Center on Institutions and Alternatives
  Info on community based alternatives to prison, prisoner support, sentencing issues, and general criminal justice issues.
• Connecticut Prison Association
  You can find information on all of the Connecticut Prison Society's main areas of work. They include: alternatives to incarceration, HIV/AIDS education, drug abuse treatment programs, vocational counseling and employment, resettlement support, and creative arts program.

  The site also includes current and back issues of the newsletter Voices from Prison. This journal provides a chance for the inmates to express themselves artistically. The notion of self-expression is truly important and the Connecticut Prison Association feels that inmates should have a voice. They also use this magazine as a forum to discuss issues within the prison system ranging from HIV awareness to outplacement employment programs.

• Free Jimmy Segura Website
  This site is made possible by the Justice for Jimmy Committee,a group dedicated to the efforts to free Jimmy Segura, who has been unjustly incarcerated for many years.You can get the summary of Jimmy Segura's case now Segura Summary
• Penn-Pals Inmate Services is a pen-pal service for prisoners
• Inmate Services, another pen-pal website

Activist Groups

For a big list of groups, click here.

• Prison Activist Resource Center (and Prison Issues Desk)
• Amnesty International
• Anarchist Black Cross Federation
• Anarchist Black Cross (international)
• California Prison Focus
• Committee to End the Marion Lockdown
• CopWatch (there's another page here, and also here).
• Families Against Mandatory Minimums works against mandatory minimum sentencing
• Human Rights Watch Prison Project (from Human Rights Gopher)
• Oberlin Action Against Prisons
• SPG Political Prisoners Page with info on Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mark Cook, and others
• Refuse and Resist!
• Residents Against Prohibition, a group working against the War on Drugs
• Stop Prisoner Rape combats the rape of prisoners and provides assistance to survivors.
• Western Mass. Prison Issues Working Group
• Youth Action Movement
• Engaged Zen Foundation serves the spiritual needs of prisoners

Prison Law

• The Prison Law Page: Legal news and writings concerning California state prisoners -- one of the best sources of info available on the web or anywhere.
• The Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association: The Criminal Justice Section was founded in 1920 to exercise primary responsibility for the Bar Association's work on issues involving crime, criminal law, and the administration of criminal and juvenile justice.
• Habeas and Prison Litigation Update: Newsletter summarizing recent changes to habeas law and how they affect prison litigation.

Info on State and Federal Departments of (In)Corrections

• The Federal Prisoner Locator number is (202) 307-3126. You can (supposedly) find any federal prisoner through this number.
• Crime Bill
• Hypocrisy from the Federal Bureau of Prisons
• UNICOR, the Federal Prison Industries Corporation, who profit off the new plantation system of slavery.
• National Criminal Justice Reference Service -- lots of statistics
• California Department of Corrections