PO Box 9606
North Amherst MA 01059-9096
Prison Connections is both a print and online publication of the Western Mass Prison Issues Group. It contains articles about prison struggles in Massachusetts and elsewhere, as well as information about political prisoners and prisoners of war. The publication's purpose is to "inform and connect people, while offering points of view on prisons from people not usually heard from. We are interested in printing material which actively combats the forces of oppression keeping us separated and offers life-affirming alternatives."
In the most recent issue, there are articles about sentencing disparities for cocaine and crack, the struggle of Massachusetts prisoners to establish a political action committee, and book reviews. The current issue of Prison Connections was among the first to bring to MIM's attention a new postage policy at Walpole Prison that greatly reduced the ability of prisoners to write letters.
The web page is continually updated with action alerts and events around North America, including a number of prison and POW-related events led by RAIL. Their link page is an extensively put together list of many different resources on prisons, from activist groups to the Department of Corrections in most states. There is also a search engine to search the site.
MIM and Prison Connections have a lot of practical unity in recognizing that the current incarceration craze doesn't affect the crime rate, and that the current system targets Blacks and Latinos. Our disagreements, however, are shown the most clearly in the article "Volunteers Sought: Alternatives to Violence Program."
Alternatives to Violence Program (AVP) (not associated with the Western Mass Prison Issues Group) started in 1975 when some prisoners in New York "working with youth gangs and teenagers at risk were having difficulty communicating their message about the consequences of violence," contacted the Quakers to conduct a workshop. Out of that organizing, a movement was born. Now AVP needs more volunteers from the outside to assist in the anti-violence workshops.
Masses-on-masses violence, as well as unfocused violence against the oppressor, sets back the people's struggle and so MIM opposes it. But the problem with the AVP approach is that it puts the focus on prisoners' individual actions. Instead, they should focus on the larger society that encourages violence among the oppressed for the sake of keeping the oppressed nations down through internal strife and selective prosecution.
Some of the other articles in Prison Connections support the formation of prison Political Action Committees as an effective way to make social change. In one book review, Prison Connections correctly criticizes a book for focusing only on the illogical Amerikan practice of incarcerating large numbers of people for non-violent drug offenses, but ignoring violent crime. However, Prison Connections also criticizes the book for not discussing "cost effective alternatives to incarceration for violent offenders," such as so- called "community-based" intervention programs or other forms of state surveillance.
MIM thinks the corporate and Amerikan government leaders are among the most violent criminals offenders in the world. As such, these pigs have no moral authority to condemn the perpetrators of smaller crimes as "criminals." Violent crimes amongst the people exist because we live in a violent society and there is nothing we can do within this society to change that. This is why MIM is organizing for a revolution to eliminate the roots of injustice and crime: capitalism, imperialism and patriarchy. The system's rules have proven themselves incapable of curing the ills of this system.
We publish this review to alert others to this useful web site, and in the hopes of opening a dialogue with Prison Connections about the most effective ways to aid prisoners and to stop crime.