Meditation on Accountability

Abolition is truly a project that requires balance. It is a negative and positive project. It is presence and absence. Often, we lean one way to the detriment of the other way. Inside, we tend to focus on the dismantling, the negative aspect. We are captive in an oppressive system predicated upon anti-Blackness. We are …

Happening

We were in the small block yard. I was talking to another prisoner and suddenly remembered I needed to ask another prison a question. As I walked over to the circle of prisoners he was in, I noticed how animated two of them were. As I reached the circle, one of the two guys turned …

Dear Essex / 4.16.2021

Dear Essex, It is our birthday again. I am sitting here in this tomb of sorrow thinking about your weapons. Since I picked them up, I have been questioning whether I can carry the responsibility you shouldered. You told us that someone would have to answer the mail you leave, the messages on your phone …

In The Belly, Vol 3

Our third issue just reached comrades in PA, through their painfully slow book delivery system. That means we are posting it online now. Here are two PDFs, one is a reader and one is a Booklet, thanks to the comrades who made this beautiful booklet-making tool In The Belly 3, Reader: in-the-belly-vol-3-readerDownload https://abolitioniststudy.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/in-the-belly-vol-3-reader.pdf In The …

You Gotta Learn the History: an Interview with Michael “Safear” Ness

Michael “Safear” Ness is an imprisoned abolitionist organizer at SCI-Fayette in Pennsylvania. IA is an outside friend and comrade.  IA: When and how did you become an abolitionist in your thinking? And in your practice? Safear: I’ve been radical since before abolition was in my vocabulary. Meaning, I was always someone who wanted to understand …

Defend Stevie Against Violent Retaliation!

Image: "Bars 1" by Josh MacPhee, thanks to JustSeeds. Description: Black background, with white bars bent and broken in the middle. Stephen Wilson, a Black queer abolitionist organizer and a prisoner of the state of Pennsylvania, is once again facing retaliation, harassment, and repression at SCI-Fayette. A rank-and-file prison cop named Digiacomo, who has for …

Study Groups & Moving Together: An Interview with Stephen Wilson

image credit: Fences, by Rini Templeton, thanks to JustSeeds Stephen Wilson is a Black queer abolitionist writing, organizing, and building study groups and community behind the wall at SCI-Fayette in Pennsylvania. Ian Alexander is his friend and comrade on the outside. This interview is the first in a series that will be published together as a …

Who’s Got A Hand In This Sh*t?

By Michael "Safear" Ness (Written January 22, 2021) The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections refuses to waste money on individual COVID-19 tests for the prisoner population, instead preferring to test each prison's accumulated sewage for COVID levels. An official PA DOC memo dated January 21, 2021 from Secretary of Corrections John E. Wetzel states, "Facilities will …

Vaccine Fact Sheet

Our brilliant Chicago comrades at NU Abolition & Northside Prisoner Letter Writing Coalition made this fact sheet to send to all your imprisoned friends and contacts. Please send and share widely! "Vaccine hesitancy in the Black community and prison populations is a result of decades of medical neglect and abuse and is a fair reaction …

In The Belly Special Issue

The Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition DEAR COMRADES, This is not Volume 3 of In The Belly, it’s a special issue. While ITB is regularly written primarily by imprisoned people, Editor-In-Chief Stephen Wilson wanted to share this document with you. It is a roundtable, a series of interviews, that he conducted with a group of non-incarcerated …