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Jan 4, 25
Filed under: Action, Featured, Incarceration, Political Prisoners, Repression, Solidarity
On New Year’s Eve, dozens of cities across the world held noise demonstrations outside of jails, detention centers, and prisons, as hundreds gathered to denounce brutal conditions on the inside, support political prisoners, and raise the spirits of those imprisoned.
2024, like 2023, was a year of record breaking numbers of people killed by the police, with over 1,250 people killed by law enforcement in the US alone. This brutality has been coupled with an ongoing social war waged against the broader population, as homelessness soars and the cost of living and rent skyrockets, while wealth inequality and corporate profits breaks records and the state continues to fund the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In response, both political parties have rallied to push for the building of large-scale counter-insurgency training facilities, Cop Cities, across the US, in the hopes of containing growing class anger from below with police bullets and prison bars.
As Trump and other billionaires prepare to take power, push through tax cuts for the wealthy, slash social services, and cut regulations on corporations, they’re hoping to re-direct working-class anger by calling for mass deportations and attacks on migrant workers. With increased repression, the need for pushing a politics of solidarity and community defense in the face of state repression is needed now more than ever.
Check out our roundup of noise demos below.
In Eugene, OR, people held a noise demo outside of the local jail.
In Los Angeles, CA, people held a noise demo outside of the local jail.
In Tucson, AZ, a noise demo was held outside of the local jail.
In Oklahoma City, OK, people rallied to make “some noise for our kin on the inside of the death trap of the downtown jail.”
In Austin, TX, a report posted on Austin Autonomedia wrote:
We did our math wrong last year! This year, the actual 10th annual New Year’s Eve Noise Demo was a blast of sounds and fireworks. A few dozen rowdy rebels marched to the jail with noisemakers, a sound system, and tons of fireworks.
The following was read out before the noise demo started:
Prisons are not just buildings; they are symbols of oppression, violence, and suffering. We all know the current system is broken beyond repair
Tonight we say fuck prisons. We dance on their concrete graveyard. We mourn the loss of our comrades inside, and we stand in solidarity with those who remain imprisoned behind enemy lines.
Tonight we celebrate. This is not about merely wishing death upon the old world. It’s about wishing life into the new one. It’s about recognizing that we can build a better world if we don’t lose sight of our shared goals. We understand that change starts with us, because our collective power is transformative. Each day we choose who we fight alongside, and we refuse to accept the world as it is now.
The ashes are the result of burning over ten years’ worth of letters from prisoners–words that carried stories, struggles, and resistance. They represent the heart of the work that ABC [Austin Anarchist Black Cross] shared as a collective and the weight we have now released, laying this project to rest with the dignity and care it deserves.
We invite you to scatter these ashes along our path to the jail, and around the jail as a symbolic act. Let the ashes mark both an ending and a beginning: a reminder of what we’ve built and a call to nurture what comes next. Where the ashes land, new possibilities will grow.
Tonight, under this new moon, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, we inaugurate the 10th annual NYE noise demo at the Travis County Jail. With 10 years of ritual, we establish tradition and precedent.
We carve out a time for comrades to feel each other’s presence, to know we are not alone in facing whatever the coming year brings. We renew our commitments and connection to all those held captive by these jails, to remind them that they are not alone.
We use this time to feed and unleash the militant fires burning within us, establishing a combative presence that others would deny is even possible. Through our fierce and consistent displays we have proven that it is legal to shoot fireworks at the jail.
The prison is the threat dangled over every potential insurgent, meant to spread a suffocating fear that smothers rebellious fires. Every year, each act of escalating freakishness and defiant antagonism–shooting fireworks, tearing fences, dancing deliriously, dumping slimeballs–dispels this fear, shattering the prison’s psychic stranglehold and reconnecting us with our own power.
Tonight, and always, let yourself be possessed and carried away by the delirious, ecstatic spirit of anarchy.
May the noise that we bring forth into the world,
whether by voice, by drum, by horn, or by any other means,
reach all within hearing.
May it be pervasive.
May it bring comfort and strength to our accomplices,
fear and confusion to our foes.
May it never cease.Many of the aforementioned ashes were poured into the shape of a circle-A, on top of the spot that hosts the memorial to dead cops.
Happy New Year & Fire to the Prisons!
In Chicago, IL, a rowdy noise demo was held outside of the Metropolitan Correctional Center. From submitted report:
Cheers y’all, to another year of raising hell against the prison state in solidarity with our comrades and community behind the walls. Chicago did it right again with a rambunctious noise demo outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the hellacious downtown federal jailscraper. Mobile laser sound systems blasting, pots and pans clanging; bird whistles and a gaggle of megaphones filled the air with chaotic rhythms.
Folks inside loudly banged windows from every cell window and floor, showing us dance moves and light shows of their own. “Free Them All!” we chanted, demanding the release of Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all political prisoners; and called out the pigs for the murder of Dexter Reed in his car, Sonya Massey in her home, Cory Ulmer and Robert Brooks behind bars, just a few of the over 1,300 people murdered by police this year. On the street, plenty of passing revelers stopped by to see what the street ruckus party was about, checking out the zine cart and even helping hold the ACAB banner. The crowd marched around the building to make sure people on all sides got to see that they are not forgotten, to share the countdown to the end, to ring in the new year and join in on the dance party happening on the street.
An overwhelming pig presence surrounded the area for hours in advance: cruisers lining the streets with dozens of cops idling on corners, a fence blocking off the plaza was installed since last year. Despite their seeming omnipresence, we resisted, shaking their fences and shooting fireworks bouncing off the heights of those brutalist prison walls, exploding joyously outside cell windows. Later, some went to the ICE field office conveniently located down the street visible from MCC. The pigs were too slow to stop a little redecoration with an important unwelcoming message to incoming Trump ICE dictator Tom Homan: painted on the front efface, “Die, Homan. GTFO Chicago,” “Abolish ICE.” We marched on for several blocks before disappearing into the new year for more late night revelry; unfortunately, after everybody had already dispersed, some sneaky pigs apprehended at random a few people at a CTA train platform; one was held overnight and released with a misdemeanor.
It’s imperative to mark the connections between the carceral state and the xenophonic white supremacist colonial project of of mass deportation; many more prisons and jails are being planned to be built to process the millions of lives they intend to interrupt. Homan, the incoming “border czar” says Chicago is ground zero on day one of the incoming Trump regime: but they underestimate how fiercely determined and prepared people are to defend our city from their racist federal stormtrooper armies. We reject the racialized copagandized ‘dangerous city’ narrative crafted by an entire ecosystem of police scanner bros, racist nightcrawlers, and low-orbit suburban MAGA chuds feeding video clips to FOX and other right-wing outlets, who all year have spread disinformation and sensationalist lies, hyping up crime and demonizing migrants to the point of absurdity.
They’ve been laying the groundwork for the incoming regime to attack the good people in our supposed leftist “Sanctuary City”, but even despite this policy, neoliberal administrations fail our newest residents with embarrassingly insufficient social services and decrepit ‘shelters’. A coordinated astroturf campaign from the right has been underway to divide communities and erode the public, an attempt on Illinois MAGA takeover: dustbin of history types Paul Vallas and Darren Bailey have failed mayoral and gubernatorial power grabs, but unfortunately Eileen O’Neill Burke snuck through as new top prosecutor, a racist FOP-backed former judge who in her first week dropped charges against Oak Lawn pig Patrick O’Donnell who committed a brutal hate crime against a 17 year old Palestinian. Caught between cowardly neoliberals and fascist onslaughts, it’s time to break from elections, reforms, and turn to each other to carve new paths.
Crime will be the main vector in which the incoming fascist regime will leverage in justification for their abhorrent plans to deport, meaning our strategy of defending against this must apply abolitionist frameworks and a rejection of “citizenship,” “peace,” and their “law and order.” The struggle to overthrow carceral society is tied directly to the fight for inherent and forever rights and unstoppable force of migration. Facing an untenable dystopic future, more people are realizing the necessity to organize autonomously and collectively, to fight to survive against this fascist wave of aggressive prison politics going buck wild with Trump’s re-election, and to build a more liberated existence. Escalate against the state and support the comrades willing to take risks to bring it all down!
Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that two people escaped from MCC with bedsheet ropes from above the 10th floor of this downtown monstrosity, a reminder that no wall is too high to deter our desires and stop the will of people yearning to be free. Free Them All!!
Ken Jones via Twitter/X
In Asheville, NC, a noise demo was organized outside of the local jail. From a report on It’s Going Down:
In most ways, the noise demonstration held on New Years Eve outside of the Buncombe County Detention Center in Asheville, NC was typical: a crowd of people in celebratory and rebellious mood making a racket so that folks inside the jail would know they were not forgotten. This annual tradition has been a staple of our community in Asheville since at least 2016. But this year, the shared experience of Hurricane Helene and our community’s mobilization for disaster response made the event feel all the more relevant and visceral.
Organized by several local collectives, the event was framed to highlight the daily disaster of jail and our wider carceral culture and landscape. Speakers discussed how incarceration is used by the state to maintain a disastrously unequal and structurally violent society, and the ways in which Helene only intensified these dynamics as folks inside were cut off from assistance and communication even while networks of mutual aid flourished on the outside. Speakers from the local bail fund shared how the group took action during and after the storm to break down some of this isolation, and shared a short presentation on how to visit people in jail and put money on their books, in conjunction with a New Years Day action to put $1 on the books of every person in the jail (an amount that, while small, is meaningful, as it allows the recipient to make a 10 minute phone call).
Another speaker shared about his experience the previous year, when he was locked up in the detention center, and how much it meant to him to hear people making noise outside that night. In joining this year’s march, he said, things felt like they were coming full circle. He also spoke to the ways that the system profits off of incarceration, and pointed out that mass incarceration has its roots in slave patrols and how racism continues to be baked into this system today.
Another local collective, Tranzmission Prison Project, set up a letter writing table for people to send letters of encouragement and solidarity to Luigi Mangione, as he spends this NYE in a jail cell.
Once the speakers wrapped up, the rowdy crew – complete with radical marching band–set out to make noise in front of the jail. As we rallied near the entrance, messages such as “Prison is an ongoing disaster,” “End weekend lockdowns,” and “We say no to HB10, Solidarity with immigrants” were projected on an upper wall, where they would be visible to people inside through their windows. Folks inside flashed their lights, some of whom had prepared for the action in advance by learning and teaching others how to roll up their bedding so they could see out the windows.
Some jail employees came outside to frown uselessly at us for a few minutes, but neither this nor the brief presence of a lurking police cruiser deterred the festive ruckus.
After making a lot of noise, the crowd paused to listen to some more remarks. A comrade with pending charges spoke to their experience of being jailed for over 90 days and how important it is to get sustained support from outside. Another person shared details about a new anti-immigrant state law that compels county sheriffs to cooperate with ICE, and how this new policy will increasingly make the jail the local “face” of a racist federal agenda and a site where fascist state violence is carried out.
All in all, we kicked off 2025 by showing what a community that is ready to support each other in the face of disasters – natural and otherwise – looks like, and had a bit of fun!
In Durham, NC, folks gathered for a noise demo outside of the local jail, shooting off fireworks and projecting messages against Cop Cities and beyond onto the walls. From a post, “Hoping the new year brings us all a spirit of resilience, communal joy, and fierce rebellion. For a world without police and prisons.”
In Miami, FL, South Florida Anarchist Black Cross reported:
This New Year’s Eve we held our first NYE noise demo at FDC Miami Women’s Federal Prison, where one of our members and political prisoner completed their prison sentence this past November. There’s no other way we’d love to spend our NYE then with the friends Amber made inside and excited to expand this tradition to Miami.
In Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Food Not Bombs wrote:
The holidays can be very isolating to people who are incarcerated; especially in facilities like Broward County Jail where in person visitation is not allowed, phone calls are expensive, and letters are banned (small white post cards only).
FTL FNB organizer Caleb is currently incarcerated in a federal prison in Mississippi and the prison’s holiday gift to its prisoners was to permanently cut monthly phone minutes down to 300 minutes a month. Like Caleb, almost no one in the prison is local to MS, so they get very little in person visits and now minimal phone minutes. Caleb only has a 366 day sentence, there are many in his dorm with much longer sentences who barely see or speak to their family for years. The goal is to isolate people: this is why the federal government sends people to facilities far from their home and why there are so many restrictions (at state and federal prisons) on things like mail and phone minutes. Visitation, calls, and letters significantly lessen the impacts of prison on mental health – so prisons try to restrict them as much as possible.
If you’d like to help lessen the impacts of prison isolation; DM us on how to write letters to prisoners, how to get involved with @chip_southflorida which takes phone calls from local prisoners, and/or how to get involved with solidarity noise rallies – we’d love to do more throughout the year if we have capacity.
In Detroit, MI, people held a noise demo with a sound system and fireworks outside of the local jail.
In Ypsilanti, MI, the local General Defense Committee (GDC) held a noise demo outside of a local jail. A post wrote:
Over the course of 2024, we’ve witnessed and acted against the multiple genocides the U.S. is overseeing, including the slow genocide of people held captive in prisons across the country. We’re learned from the women in WHVP about the unaddressed mold infestation across the facilities, the depth of the political retaliation Krystal Clark and many others are facing for resisting medical abuse, and how they survive together in inhumane conditions.
In Atlanta, GA, a noise demo was held outside of the DeKalb county jail.
In Richmond, VA, a noise demo was held outside of the local jail.
In New Orleans, LA, a noise demo was held with a brass band and fireworks outside of the local jail.
In Brooklyn, NY, people rallied and gathered outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) for a noise demonstration. Journalist Talia Jane reported:
Annual New Year’s Eve noise demo at MDC Brooklyn saw a crowd of around 100 who braved a torrential downpour to remind those locked inside that they are not alone. The crowd was aided in noise-making by the contribution of thunder from Mother Nature and radical beats from @rudemechanicalorchestra.
Despite heightened visibility due to both Luigi Mangione and Sean Combs being incarcerated pretrial at MDC, NYPD presence was about the same as it was in previous years. However, MDC cops took it upon themselves, on the presence of this journalist filming the facade of the prison, to carry pepper bullet guns as an absurd show of force against a crowd of punks banging pots and pans 100 feet away. The gimmick was a ridiculous reminder of the violence the state inflicts on people locked in cages away from the public eye — such as the recent lynching by 13 C.O.s of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility in upstate New York — and immediate validation of the rallying cries to “Free them all” and “Burn the prisons.”
Flyers distributed by @mdc_solidarity listed demands also circulating on a petition (in their bio) from the group:
WE DEMAND THAT MDC BROOKLYN:
1. PROVIDE ACCESS TO NUTRITIOUS, GOOD QUALITY FOOD AT ALL TIMES
2. PROVIDE APPROPRIATE HEALTHCARE, INCLUDING MENTAL AND PHYSICAL EVALUATION AND TREATMENT
3. END THE LOCKDOWNS
4. ALLOW REGULAR, ACCESSIBLE VISITATIONS WITHOUT ARBITRARY AND UNJUST RESTRICTIONS
5. MAINTAIN HABITABLE CONDITIONS
INCLUDING A PROPRIATE TEMPERATURES AS WELL AS SANITARY, PROPERLY FUNCTIONING PLUMBING
In Baltimore, MD, a noise demo was held outside of the local jail.
In Central Falls, RI, a noise demo was held outside of the local jail. From the organizers:
We recognize that the same funding used for the infrastructure of war and surveillance is used to militarize the border, militarize the police, and increase detention and imprisonment of all kinds.
That is why we are gathering at the Wyatt to continue to demand its closure and an end to the unrelenting expansion of immigrant detention and prison infrastructure across the United States. The incoming administration is seeking to continue to expand the system of detention and deportation. We are mobilizing at the Wyatt Detention Center to demand an end to the ICE Contract! No more beds for ICE Detention!
While we gather together, we will also continue our call for an end to the Occupation of Palestine and an end to the provision of United States weapons and funding to a genocidal state! The same technology being tested in Gaza and the West Bank is being used at the border with Mexico and to surveil activists across the United States.
In Hamilton, ON, a report posted on Northshore Counter-Info wrote:
This year marked 15 years of new years eve noise demos at the Barton Jail in Hamilton. A group of around 50 people marched around the jail, setting off fireworks, throwing paint bombs and shouting our new years greetings to our neighbours who are locked up. The Barton Jail is a horrific place where every day people experience degradation, dehumanization, and neglect at the hands of COs, administration, and a society that would prefer to forget about them. From denial of medical care, overcrowding, freezing cold cells, to the bleak isolation imposed by the prison system, this dark season feels like an especially important time to let folks know they aren’t forgotten.
This year a trans man died in a segregation cell, while earlier this month an inquest was held into the deaths of six people in the Barton Jail between 2017-2021. As long as people in our community are locked in cages, this cycle will continue.
Direct acts of solidarity do more to restore the dignity and recognize the humanity of prisoners than any inquest or reforms ever will. Let’s keep prisoners in our hearts and actions all year long. Happy new year and onwards to a world without prisons. <A3
In Montreal, QC, hundreds of people took part in a noise demo with fireworks outside of a prison. According to a report from Clash Montreal:
Noise demo went hard in Montreal last night. Hundreds of people showed to wish prisoners a happy new year, setting off fireworks and keeping the cops at bay. Feu aux prisons!
Past New Year’s Eve Noise Demo Roundups on IGD:
