Prison Abolition from Behind Prison Walls
JSTOR Daily, October 27, 2021: Prison Abolition from Behind Prison Walls
“The tenth issue of the Anarchist Black Dragon, from the spring of 1982, was a somber one. Carl Harp, a journalist for the paper—produced entirely in prison by a collective of incarcerated people—was murdered in his cell after writing the introduction to the issue. Titled “The Dragon Speaks” and offering no indication that his life was in imminent danger, the posthumous introduction offers insight into the fraught climate of the times.
Founded in 1977, the Anarchist Black Dragon shared the communal concerns of leftist incarcerated people in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington. As the name of the paper suggests, the writers were committed anarchists who advocated for the abolition of prisons. In the third issue, the collective argued that all prisons “are used to break people, to trample them into a mold that no sane people would willingly accept.” Although the publication was not easily accessible outside the state penitentiary, they did have allies on the outside who helped share their work.”
Additional reading:
Anarchist Black Dragon Archive
Columbia Journal: Incarcerated Writers Initiative
Harper’s Bazaar, June 28, 2021: 5 Formerly or Currently Incarcerated Writers on What Freedom Means to Them
