On September 9, 1971, inmates took over Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, protesting what were systematically horrible living conditions and routine racially motivated abuse of prisoners. After a tense standoff that lasted five days, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller sent in state troopers to retake the prison. In the takeover, thirty inmates and nine guards were killed. After they regained control of the prison, police engaged in brutal reprisals against surviving inmates.
The tragedy at Attica might have served as a wake-up call to those in charge—a warning against the status quo of inmate abuse and neglect. But this did not happen. Forced to work for pennies per hour (if that), stripped of their voting rights in many states, and exposed to rampant abuse at the hands of guards—along with many other ordeals—the prison population has remained vulnerable and unprotected.
Beginning on August 21, prisoners across the country went on a coordinated strike to protest the conditions they face behind bars. They warned that if officials fail to improve prison conditions, they risk “another Attica.” While much of the media reported the strike was occuring in seventeen states, Brooke Terpstra—an organizer with the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, which is supporting the protest—said in an interview that the committee has confirmed strike action in eight states and one Canadian province, including at an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington.
The protest, which will last until September 9, has so far included hunger strikes, sit-ins, and refusals to participate in prison-mandated labor. This poses a problem for both prisons, which rely heavily on the labor of inmates, and the myriad private corporations whose products are made by prisoners.
The strike poses a problem for prisons, which rely heavily on the labor of inmates, and the private corporations whose products are made by prisoners.
Organized and led by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a group of incarcerated activists who provide legal training to other inmates, the strikers have released a list of ten demands. First among them is “Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.” Additional key demands include ending what inmates have labeled modern-day slavery by paying those incarcerated “the prevailing wage in their state or territory” for work they are doing and eliminating the “overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole denials of black and brown humans.”
Incarcerated activists had originally planned to protest in 2019 as a follow up to a large-scale prison strike in 2016 protesting prison labor practices. But after guards at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina prison waited hours to intervene in a riot that resulted in the deaths of seven inmates, organizers moved the action up to 2018.
Leaders of the strike say the dates chosen for the protest are symbolic, as August 21 marked forty-seven years since activist and Black Panther Party member George Jackson was shot by prison guards. September 9 is when the Attica uprising began in 1971.
Jared Ware, a journalist authorized by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak to speak about their views, said in an interview that inmates aren’t expecting to be invited to the negotiating table by the end of the strike, but that they do think it’s possible some demands could be met. For now, though, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak hopes the media attention drawn to the strike will bolster their cause.
“Prisoners believe they can shift consciousness and take hold of the conversation,” Ware says. “And for these past few days I think they’ve already done that . . . . There’s a lot of mainstream press sharing their ideas and demands.”
The prisoners’ efforts have come at a cost. Terpstra says prisoners face harsh retribution for participating in and organizing political actions. He cited the case of Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan, an inmate on death row in Ohio, who was reportedly transferred into solitary confinement in July after prison officials accused him of organizing a work stoppage. In addition, Terpstra says inmates in Louisiana’s Angola prison, the largest maximum security facility in the country, have backed off plans to strike after “extreme threats of violence” by guards and warnings that time would be added to their sentence if they participated in the protest.
Those on the outside can’t understand how much prisoners risk by going on strike, Terpstra argues. He criticized the mainstream media for requesting video interviews of inmates and asking why more haven’t gone on strike.
“It’s almost unfathomable for people who have never done time to know what it takes to stand up inside,” he says. “The level of violence [inmates] face is off the hook.”
Lewis M. Steel, senior counsel at the employment law firm Outten & Golden LLP, was one of the observers who tried to negotiate a settlement at Attica before Governor Rockefeller called in state troopers. As he sees it, conditions in prisons have only gotten worse since then.
“The uprising led to terrible consequences for the prisoners,” he says. “The authorities became very repressive and their way of dealing with Attica was to try to make it impossible to have an uprising like that occur again.” Steel says after Attica, courts from the U.S. Supreme Court on down rarely deemed abuses involving prisoners as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.
But prisoners have consistently fought back, Terpstra argues, even if the public rarely hears about it. “There is a prisoner uprising happening every single day in this country, a group of prisoners collectively rising up to improve their situation,” he says. “And it is almost never reported.”
In addition to being influenced by the solidarity prisoners at Attica displayed—although wary of the bloodshed that resulted—Ware says inmates are basing the current strike off the successes of the 2016 nationwide prison protest, which at the time was called the largest prison strike in U.S. history. But organizers have also updated some of their tactics this time around.
The ideas being espoused by striking prisoners—that inmates deserve to be treated like human beings—scare prison authorities.
“Strike leadership has kept their faces and legal names out of the media,” Ware says. “They included hunger strikes, sit-ins and boycotts this time instead of just work strikes. They made that shift knowing not all prisoners have jobs to participate in a work strike.”
Along with these actions, Terpstra says the ideas being espoused by striking prisoners—that inmates deserve to be treated like human beings—scare prison authorities.
As a result, inmates view organizing on the inside as crucial.
“The prisoners realize this is a political struggle,” Terpstra says. “It’s about changing consciousness, developing power. It’s about galvanizing themselves as a class that can act in unison and also in concert with outside movements.”