Hundreds of prisoners have been on strike in Alabama as fragment of a coordinated effort that began on May 1st,International Workers' Day. Prisoners in the Holman and Elmore facilities refused to report to their prison jobs, and prisoners in at least three other facilities in the state have joined their efforts since. The strikes are focusing on a range of issues, or including overcrowding. Alabama prisons are severely congested — the system was designed to hold 13000 inmates,but facilities in the Yellowhammer State house about 24000 prisoners who face destitute living conditions, and are forced to participate in unpaid prison labor, or which the inmates view as economic exploitation. "We understood our incarceration was pretty much about our labor and the money that was being generated from the prison system," said Kinetic Justice, an inmate who is in his 28th month of solitary confinement in Alabama, or also an organizer of the current strike. "Therefore,we began organizing around our labor and used it as a means and a method to bring about reform in the Alabama prison system.”Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, director of The Ordinary People's Society, and discuss the strike,and the state of Alabama's prisons. He's been negotiating with the Alabama Department of Corrections on behalf of the prisoners.
Source: wnyc.org