A CALL TO ORGANIZE A PRISONER SUPPORT NETWORK COMPOSED OF PRISONERS’ LOVED ONES – PAPA (PEOPLE AGAINST PRISON ABUSE) (2024) By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

In my experience, most times when people are abused in prison and report it to their loved ones on the outside, the response is either disbelief or the assumption that the victim did something wrong. And even if the prisoner is believed, their loved ones don’t know what to do about the abuse.

Those who TRY to respond typically run into dead ends complaining to a prison official or legislator who promises to “look into” or to “investigate” the situation, yet nothing is done or changes, leaving them feeling isolated, powerless and alone.

Most loved ones, and even prisoners for that matter, don’t understand how the prisons and government operate and to what end. Often they ‘trust’ that those in power are upright and will do what’s ‘right’ when wrong is brought to their attention. THEY’RE NOT AND THEY WON’T. Most politicians are driven by desires for power and wealth, period. So they only care about pandering to the powerful and wealthy. They don’t care a wit about the common people. To do right by us they must be MADE to do so.

I’ve spent many years organizing resistance against government abuses, inside and outside the prisons. And have learned a few things along the way. Foremost is that the public UNITED is the one thing officials fear, because YOU are the source of their power. Their PUBLIC IMAGE is the very basis of their ability to obtain and remain in positions of power. You the public put them there. But as long as you struggle against abusive government individually, you have no power to affect them or their image. But brought together into a group united with other loved ones of imprisoned people (especially those who are victims of abuse), you have the power to make and take away the careers of those in power by exposing and challenging them publicly, which means, they will become responsive to you and your voice.

Virginia prisoners, as do others all over, need an outside support network of our loved ones and those who have been in prison; people who genuinely care about what happens to us and will therefore go to the mat for us. Career “advocates” and “activists” won’t do this; because most of them have their own agendas (whether its not-for-profits chasing grant money or clout-chasers looking to rub elbows with government officials), and they have their own ideas about what we should be doing and how. They are unwilling to go AGAINST the system or don’t know how to UNITE the masses or more than a handful of people into an organized resistance group.

But mothers whose imprisoned sons and daughters have been beaten or killed by guards or mauled by prison attack dogs or subjected to constant racist abuse in remote prisons staffed by rural segregated whites, bring a whole other level of love and righteous anger, concern and commitment to an organization that aims to challenge such abuses, especially when educated by those of us who understand the system from the inside and underside. We need an organization composed of such people, led by those of us who can educate them on the conditions and reality of these places and the games officials play. We need you as our support.

EVERYONE in the oppressed communities, the Black, Brown and poor white communities in particular, have loved ones or know someone in prison. Brought together these people can become one of the largest and most forceful pressure groups in the country. A union of prisoners’ loved ones.

I want to call on loved ones of imprisoned people to come together to form a pressure and support group for us: People Against Prison Abuse or PAPA. To begin we need to form a steering committee of devoted and accountable outside and inside people who can coordinate the group, do outreach to loved ones to bring others into the group who need help and support in addressing abuses of imprisoned loved ones, and develop strategies of protest, exposure and resistance.

For those interested please get in contact with me or with Sojourner at:

EMAIL: Shepanther0716@protonmail.com

PHONE: 646-470-5190