COVID-19 and the Prison System: 5 Voices from the Front Lines of Resistance

Long-running anarchist radio show and podcast, The Final Straw, brings us a look at the devastating impact of the COVID-19 virus on inmates within the prison system and how people are organizing in response.

Listen and Download HERE

Today we have a show about COVID-19, specifically how the pandemic is being handled in prisons and detention. This show includes a lot of voices, and we structured it that way in order to both include as many perspectives as we could and also to take some of the expectation that interviewees speak to us for an extended period; everyone who is working on this is very busy and we wanted to respect that.

In this show you’ll hear from:

– Rebekah Entralgo who works with the non profit Freedom for Immigrants,

– Finn, a healthcare worker and member of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) working in an outbreak epicenter here in North Carolina,

– Elijah Prioleau who is incarcerated at Waupun Correctional in Wisconsin, where there is a COVID-19 outbreak and they are currently on lockdown,

– and JM and Nikkita of (among other groups) COVID-19 Mutual Aid in Seattle, which is at the outbreak epicenter in the Pacific Northwest.

Because I couldn’t include everything that each person said in full, and frankly that was the hardest part about editing, I’m making a page on our collection at archive.org which will include each interview in full. Just give me until tomorrow to get that up, cause my eyes are starting to cross from all the radio related screen time!

Many thanks go out to everyone who was interviewed, and a special thanks to Ben Turk and the folks at Forum for Understanding Prisons who passed along his phone call with Elijah. More about them, their updates, and lists of demands can be seen at prisonforum.org

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To write to Elijah at Waupun Correctional, address letters to:

 

Leon Elijah Prioleau 420053

Waupun Correctional Institution

PO Box 531

Waupun, WI 53963-0351

To get plugged into mutual aid efforts in Asheville, you can follow the Asheville Survival Project on Facebook, and if you are interested in donating to these efforts in our town the venmo is @AVLsurvival.

List of people and projects that I’m aware of who are boosting prisoner’s voices right now:

Kite Line Radio, which has a Coronavirus call in line for people who are both impacted by incarceration and by Coronavirus, that is 765-343-6236

Rustbelt Abolition Radio, which is amplifying the voices of incarcerated people always.

Forum for Understanding Prisons where you can go to prisonforum.org for up to date information and their list of demands.

Fight Toxic Prisons (FTP)

IWOC (Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee), literally all chapters

FTP and IWOC are making a Prison Support Hotline for COVID-19, to donate go here!!

List of people and projects that I’m aware of calling for immediate end to ICE detention:

Freedom For Immigrants

The TransLatin@ Coalition

Plus many others!

Links from our guests:

Freedom For Immigrants:

https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/

To support Elijah in Waupum Correctional:

look for updates on http://www.prisonforum.org/

Seattle:

@covid19mutualaid ON INSTAGRAM

COVID-19 Mutual Aid on Facebook

Fundraiser for people who cannot access state resources in Seattle

PARISOL