The Exploitation of Imprisoned Human Beings
The Louisville Workers Brigade
9/25/2024
Jailhouse Lawyers Speaks (JLS) is a prisoner-led organization fighting for prison abolition. They have members across the country, in various jails and prisons, working to provide political and legal education to imprisoned human beings and to improve the horrendous conditions which characterize America’s punitive and inhumane system of incarceration. Connecting with organizers outside of these institutions, JLS seeks to build coalitions of resistance against the U.S. carceral industrial complex.
The Louisville Workers Brigade proudly amplifies the message and cause of Jailhouse Lawyers Speaks. In our analysis, imprisoned human beings are not only working people, but represent a segment of our class enduring some of the worst, most exploitative conditions. We believe building power for our class entails the incorporation of all segments of the working and oppressed masses and we would be derelict in our duty as organizers were we to ignore the 1.2-million-plus working people currently imprisoned in our nation’s jails and prisons.
For Brigade organizers, this issue is one close to our hearts. We have had friends and loved ones who were imprisoned. Many of us currently know folks suffering within these institutions of cruelty. Our city boasts one of the most inhumane county jails where numerous working people die every year due to the jail’s neglect and brutality. Our police department is known the world over for its violence and barbaric practices. The murders of Breonna Taylor and David McAtee (just two people among the countless victims of LMPD), the systematic sexual assault of children though LMPD’s Explorer Program, and the violent repression of peaceful protestors in the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising are just some of the marks of shame our city sports. Organizers who neglect to agitate around these issues gravely underestimate the scope and prevalence of the problem and fail to understand the nature of policing in the tyrannical class system working and oppressed people suffer under.
The problem of American policing and incarceration is multifaceted, but its poisonous roots can be traced to the owning class, as with most issues facing our world today. Policing itself is a manifestation of the class system, acting as the lawful arm of state-sanctioned violence the owning class wields to enforce its will upon the working and oppresses masses. Drawing from its origins of catching runaway slaves and of murdering indigenous Native Americans, policing today unapologetically continues the American legacy of hostility towards working and oppressed people under the farcical banner of “protect and serve.”
The prison industrial complex is a profit-making machine for the owning class, serving to enrich our exploiters and oppressors through private contracts to operate these institutions of brutality. Whether through outright privatization of our jails and prisons or through the myriad of privatized “services” offered within prisons (phone calls, visitations, commissary, etc.), our prisons and jails are designed to funnel money from the most vulnerable and marginalized in society to the ruling class. When given the chance to work (something many inmates view as a positive since working offers a reprieve from the mind-numbing boredom of being caged 24/7), prisoners are “compensated” with cents per hour and are not even afforded the meager protections traditional workers are given. Imprisoned human beings are regularly denied basic human necessities like healthcare, educational opportunities, community ties, and basic leisure.
American policing and the prison industrial complex are both components of the rotten system all working and oppressed people suffer under. In order to remake society, to construct a world for working and oppressed people, organizers must concentrate all of our energies towards securing economic, political, social, and cultural power for our class. This work is of paramount importance and must incorporate all aspects of the working class, including those currently (and formerly) incarcerated.
Jailhouse Lawyers Speaks has announced the 2024 SHUT ‘EM DOWN campaign to advocate for the end of legalized slavery and the dismantling of the prison industrial slave complex. This campaign involves JLS organizers, within the jails and prisons, staging work stoppages and halting all commissary spending between December 6-13th, identified as “The Week of Solidarity.” On the outside, JLS is asking for organizers to participate in this campaign by planning demonstrations outside of local jails, prisons, and ICE facilities. Leading up to the Week of Solidarity, community supporters on the outside are asked to organize inmate letter-writing nights, educational presentations, and other actions to build up momentum and support for the nationwide demonstrations in December.
The Louisville Workers Brigade has signed on to endorse JLS’s 2024 SHUT ‘EM DOWN campaign and to help organize Louisville’s participation. We began with an inmate letter-writing night at our August Community Social and by formulating a list of ten demands to be presented to Metro Louisville city government during the Week of Solidarity when we’ll help organize a demonstration outside of Louisville Metro Department of Corrections (LMDC); we encourage our readers and supporters to sign this petition which can be found on the “SHUT ‘EM DOWN 2024” tab of our website. Additionally, the Brigade has arranged for a special guest speaker at our October Community Social on October 23rd: Sonja Wilde-de Vries, a local organizer and activist who co-directed Out: The Making of a Revolutionary (2000), a documentary about political prisoners in the United States. We are building a coalition of working and oppressed people and progressive groups to plan and organize the demonstration for the Week of Solidarity and other related actions leading up to the rally; our first open strategy meeting was held on September 22nd and we will be holding our second on Sunday October 13th; any and all working and oppressed people and progressive groups are welcome to attend (please see our website’s “Events” tab for details)!
A friend of the Brigade, Collin, is currently incarcerated in the Hardin County Detention Center in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. For over a month, Collin complained to jail authorities of a horrible toothache. Instead of being allowed to see a dentist, he was given pathetic short-term remedies that did little to nothing to alleviate his suffering. Finally, after over a month of neglect and abuse, Collin woke to a terribly swollen face and an unignorable pain emanating from his mouth; despite his condition, the jail expected him to report to his kitchen duties. Collin reached out to the Brigade, begging for any relief we might be able to secure for him. The Brigade immediately published a call to action on social media, offering a script that our supporters and followers could use to call and email the jail to demand that Collin receive the medical treatment he needed. Because of the overwhelming show of working class solidarity and power that directly followed that call to action, Collin received medical care within twelve hours of our posts going up.
We end this article with that story, not only to highlight our work around this issue and the personal and material impact such organizing can have on the lives of working and oppressed people, but also to illustrate the power and strength of our class when we unite in solidarity and take action to secure improvements to our conditions. Though the Brigade does not condemn or shy away from political avenues of organizing, we realize that many working and oppressed people are suffering now, in the present; hopefully waiting for the paternalistic intervention of politicians is a folly that many of us no longer have any patience for (which is why organizers must also be diligently building a political party that represents the interests of working people).
The Louisville Workers Brigade, on behalf of the coalition we are forming to organize our city’s participation in SHUT ‘EM DOWN 2024, warmly invites you to join us in our work! Together, united in solidarity, we can secure liberation, not only for imprisoned human beings currently suffering within the prison industrial complex, but for all working and oppressed people!
To find out more about Louisville’s participation in SHUT ‘EM DOWN 2024 and to sign our petition to Metro Louisville city government, please visit: