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1. America Cedomir Kostovic Offset, 2004 Springfield, MO
2. Detrás Rejas Leslie Dwyer Digital Print, 2012 Los Angeles, CA Translation: Behind Bars We’re Number One, World Leader in Locking Up People
3. USA - Hßter der Menschenrechte? Amnesty International Offset, circa 1998 Germany Translation: USA–Guardian of Human Rights?
Police Brutality, Death Penalty, Abusing Prisoners, Racism
4. Attica Ernest Pignon Ernest Offset, 1974 Paris, France On September 9, 1971, inmates rioted at the Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in upstate New York. The underlying causes were overcrowding, poor food, inadequate medical care, rigid censorship and minimal visiting rights. Four days after inmates seized control of an exercise yard and took guards as hostages, New York’s Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller, ordered state troopers to attack. Forty-three people died at Attica during a six minute assault. Nearly all were killed—inmates and hostages alike—when state troopers stormed the prison and fired indiscriminately through a thick haze of tear gas. Subsequently, the troopers and Attica guards lied about what had happened and resorted to brutal reprisals, beating and torturing inmates. In January, 2000, a federal judge in Rochester, NY awarded $8 million to inmates who were beaten and tortured, as well as $4 million for lawyers’ fees.
5. Made by Prisoners Sheila Pinkel Digital Print, 2000 Los Angeles, CA
The first significant expansion to the U.S. prison system and the hiring out of prison labor to private business happened after the abolition of slavery in order to re-enslave thousands of African-Americans. In fact, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution stated, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.� Today, prisoners are regularly paid as little as 30 cents per hour, and work for hundreds of U.S. corporations including interests as diverse as telephone companies, airlines and clothing manufacturers.
6. XIIIth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution Rodolfo "Rudy" Cuellar, Louie "the Foot" Gonzalez Royal Chicano Air Force; Committee to Abolish Prison Slavery Silkscreen, 1977 Sacramento, CA
7. Prisons: Slave Ships on Dry Land Andalusia Knoll Silkscreen, 2004 Pittsburgh, PA
Knoll superimposes an 18th century diagram of a slave ship onto a contemporary prison floor plan. The diagram, from a 1789 British abolitionist pamphlet, “Description of a Slave Ship,� illustrates how African slaves were transported in overcrowded and inhumane conditions during the trip across the Atlantic Ocean also known as the Middle Passage. The infamous Middle Passage was the second stage in the slave trade triangle. The triangle began with slave traders in Europe who went to Africa to collect slaves who were then exchanged for goods in the Americas. From the Americas, the traders returned to Europe with their profits and the slave triangle continued.
8. Slavery Still Exists Willie Worley Jr. Photocopy, 2012 Polkton, NC
Willey Worley Jr. is a political cartoonist who is currently incarcerated in Brown Creek Correctional Institute in North Carolina. Worley’s work has been featured on The Real Cost of Prisons Project website: www.realcostofprisons.org
9. No More Cotton-Pickin Prisons Artist Unknown Offset, circa 1970s Austin, TX 1967/68 Photo by Danny Lyon
One of the most prominent and influential photojournalists of the late twentieth century, Danny Lyon began documenting the civil rights movement in 1964 as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1967/68, a time when photographers were rarely allowed in prisons, Lyon photographed seven prisons in Texas and published them in "Conversations With the Dead" (1971), including the photograph used here. The photo was used in this poster without Lyon’s knowledge and his name was misspelled. Six years after "Conversations with the Dead" was published, it was used by the U.S. Department of Justice in a massive lawsuit against the Texas prison system. Lyon testified and the pictures were introduced as evidence. The prisoners won the suit and the prison system was temporarily improved. Thirty years later, in a 1995 interview by Nan Goldin, (Artforum, 9/95), Lyon said, "Actually it's supposed to be worse now. Since then, the demographics of prisons have just gone the other way; the prison population has quadrupled since I photographed in Texas a generation ago. Still, my photographs were used by people who meant well to try to change prison conditions and for a while prison conditions were forced to change.�
10. Missing: 2.3 Million Americans Nicolas Lampert Justseeds Silkscreen, 2008 Milwaukee, WI
11. We Don't Lynch Them Anymore Scott Boylston Digital Print, 2006 Savannah, GA
12. I Don't See an American Dream Scott Braley Fireworks Graphics Silkscreen, 1992 Berkeley, CA
On March 3, 1991, Glen “Rodney” King, an unarmed African-American motorist, was stopped for speeding. He was repeatedly beaten by Los Angeles police officers as he lay defenseless on the ground. Unbeknownst to the police, George Holliday videotaped the beating and it was broadcast throughout the world. The incident raised an outcry as people outside and within African-American communities believed the beating was racially motivated, excessive and an example of routine police brutality. Although 27 officers were witnesses and/or participants, only 4 were put on trial in state courts. The trial was moved from Los Angeles to the Simi Valley community because the defense argued that a fair trial in Los Angeles was impossible. Simi Valley was chosen because it has a much smaller African-American population and a large number of law enforcement personnel live there. In April, 1992, the four officers on trial were acquitted. This triggered a massive uprising in Los Angeles, resulting in 53 deaths, over 2,000 injured and hundreds of buildings severely damaged or destroyed by fire. Looting and destruction were widespread, including in Latin American immigrant communities. Rodney King pleaded for peace before TV cameras, saying, “Can we all just get along? Can we get along?” In response to the public outrage set off by the acquittals in state courts, a federal grand jury indicted the four officers for violating Rodney King’s civil rights. Two officers were convicted and two were acquitted. On August 4, 1993, a federal judge sentenced LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison.
“Stop and frisk” is a policing method carried out by the New York Police Department (NYPD) based on what is called “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity—others call it racial profiling. In 2011, 84 % of those stopped by the NYPD were black or Latino yet they only make up 23% and 29% of the general population respectively. Multiple class action suits have been filed in response to this obvious racial profiling. A January, 2013 court ruling deemed elements of “stop and frisk” to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment. This poster was created for the Silent March, held in June, 2012, when thousands marched to demand an end to the criminalization of their communities. This silent and peaceful procession ended when NYPD officers pushed and corralled protesters for not complying with an order to disperse.
13. End Stop and Frisk United Healthcare Workers East Offset, 2012 New York, NY
14. Jail is Just a Kind of Warehouse for Poor People Peg Averill War Resisters League Offset, mid 1970s New York, NY
15. To Protect and Serve the Rich Mark Vallen Silkscreen, 1987 Los Angeles, CA
Throughout the U.S., laws that prohibit sleeping, eating, sitting and panhandling in public spaces are used to arrest and funnel homeless people into the criminal justice system, thus criminalizing poverty. Some community members have mobilized to defeat these laws. In 2012, voters in Berkeley, California defeated Measure S, which would have prohibited sitting and lying down in public areas.
16. Stop Police Brutality Cristy C. Road INCITE! Digital Print, 2008 Brooklyn, NY
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is a national grassroots organization working to end all violence against women of color, including state sanctioned violence. INCITE! Uses direct actions, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing tactics.
17. Support Self Defense Free the New Jersey 4 Ryan Conrad Naughty North Collective Digital Print, 2008 Portland, ME On August 18, 2006, four young African-American lesbians from Newark, New Jersey—Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson (20), and Renata Hill (24)—traveled to New York’s Greenwich Village where they were subjected to a homophobic verbal and physical assault by Dwayne Buckle (29), also African- American. Buckle verbally attacked the women, who rejected his sexual advances, with statements like “I’ll f**k you straight sweetheart.” He then spat on one woman’s face and flung a lit cigarette at them. After Buckle began choking one of the women, Patreese Johnson took a small kitchen knife and stabbed his arm to get him off her friend. The four women were arrested and received sentences ranging from three and a half to eleven years in prison. As of January 2013, Patreese Johnson remains in prison. Buckle was not arrested or charged.
18. Sam & Alec Sabrina Jones Real Cost of Prisons Project, Center for the Stud of Political Graphics Digital Print, 2006 Los Angeles, CA
19. Crack the CIA Crack the CIA Coalition Offset, 1997 Los Angeles, CA
Ironically, poor communities long reported, and Congressional records prove, that the CIA worked with the military and local law enforcement–under the direction of the Reagan Administration and subsequent administrations–to flood neighborhoods with drugs and weapons in an effort to destabilize the energy and infrastructure of the civil rights movements. The resulting increase in drug use and violence destroyed families, bankrupted communities and fueled even greater expansion of police, courts, detention and incarceration.
20. Dis Belief Robbie Conal Offset, 2000 Los Angeles, CA
This poster was produced in response to widespread corruption in the anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, Rampart Division in the late 1990s. Commonly referred to as the Rampart Scandal, more than 70 police officers were implicated in some form of misconduct, making it one of the most widespread cases of documented police misconduct in U.S. history. The convicted offenses included unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of false evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury and the covering up of evidence of these activities.
21. Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim? Yolanda M. Lopez Offset, 1981 San Francisco, CA
22. ICE Ricardo Levins Morales Digital Print, 2012 Minneapolis, MN The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established in 2003 and is the principle branch of the Department of Homeland Security. When the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was dismantled the same year, ICE took on part of its responsibilities and now handles the deportation and removal of immigrants. Secure Communities is a program formed through a partnership between ICE and the criminal justice system. Any immigrant arrested now is held under ICE detention regardless of whether or not they have committed a crime. ICE detentions can last from 48 hours to over a year. Many immigrant detention centers are privately owned and the longer they hold people in detention the more profits they make. One of the more prominent investors in private prisons is Wells Fargo Bank which owns 4 million shares in GEO Group and 50,000 shares in the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
24. Being Undocumented is Not a Crime Favianna Rodriguez Justseeds Silkscreen, 2008 Oakland, CA
The United States has the largest prison population in the world with over 2.3 million people locked up in prisons and jails. Almost 5 million more people are on parole or probation across the country. In 2011, nearly 7 million people were under control of the U.S. Corrections System up from almost 2 million in 1980. People residing in the U.S. make up only 5% of the world’s population yet we cage 25% of the world's prisoners. In 2011, the Washington Bureau of Justice Statistics showed that the U.S. locks up 716 people per 100,000 where other Western countries lock people up at a much lower rate: France – 96 per 100,000 Canada – 114 per 100,000 Denmark – 74 per 100,000. Germany – 85 per 100,000 Many don’t want to believe that even China incarcerates its citizens at a much lower rate of 114 per 100,000 people. The U.S. compares more closely with countries like Rwanda which locks up 595 people per 100,000. 2011 statistics confirm an even more shocking truth that the U.S. locks up black men at a rate of 3,023 people per 100,000, a rate that is more than 4 times higher than the average rate for all those incarcerated in the U.S. Latino men are locked up at a rate of 1238 per 100,000. 1 out of 3 black men, 1 out of 6 Hispanic men, and 1 out of 17 white men will be imprisoned at some point in their lifetime.
25. Cornucopia of the World Ashley Fauvre Prison Moratorium Project Offset, 2002 Berkeley, CA
Based on 1892 poster by Randy McNally encouraging immigration to California.
26. If We Build It, They Will Come Allison Coley; Architects/ Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility Digital Print, 2004 Palmdale, CA
Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) was established in 1981 to promote nuclear disarmament. Since 1990, they have focused on ecologically and socially responsible development, including educating and organizing their constituency to stop designing prisons. ADPSR is currently asking the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to amend its Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct to prohibit the design of spaces for torture and killing, including the design of execution chambers and supermaximum security prisons (“supermax”), which inflict torture through long-term solitary confinement. The poster’s title is a play on the signature line of the 1989 Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams, where Costner’s character repeatedly hears a voice whispering “If you build it they will come.” In other words, the more prisons you build, the more prisoners you need to fill them. The pledge for the initiative promoted by the poster is: I believe that too many people are being incarcerated and that our society must immediately develop and implement alternatives to incarceration. I believe in creating design for a society with real security and social justice for all and I will not contribute my design to the perpetuation of wrongful institutions that abuse others. In recognition of the deep injustice of the present prison system, I pledge not to do any work that furthers the construction of prisons and jails.
27. Prisons for Profits Mariona Barkus Digital Print, 2012 Los Angeles, CA
28. Divest Mary Sutton Northland Poster Collective Sara Olson Defense Fund Committee Silkscreen, 2001 Minneapolis, MN Divest is the opposite of invest. For decades, apartheid South Africa relied on transnational corporations for capital and technology. First advocated in the 1960s, but only implemented on a significant scale in the 1980s, the divestment campaign aimed at encouraging individuals and institutions to sell their holdings in companies doing business in South Africa. Religious leaders informed their followers; union members pressured their companies’ stockholders; and consumers questioned their storeowners. Students played an especially important role by compelling universities to change their portfolios. Eventually, international institutions and governments pulled the financial plug, and the South African government was forced to negotiate with a wide variety of political parties, including the African National Congress (ANC), ultimately leading to the dismantling of the apartheid system. This poster uses familiar imagery from the anti-apartheid movement and proposes using this same tactic against corporations making huge profits from the prison industry.
29. Dump the Prison Stock! Melanie Cervantes Dignidad Rebelde Digital Print, 2012 Oakland, CA Melanie Cervantes created this poster for Enlace, a coalition of low-wage worker centers, unions and community organizations in Mexico and the U.S. working to hold trans-national corporations accountable for the treatment of their workers. This graphic is part of their national campaign demanding divestment from the two largest private U.S. prisons*.
*See #23
30. Educate Don't Incarcerate Deborah Krall Silkscreen, 2000 Los Angeles, CA
In 1995, while Deborah Krall was teaching pre school in Boyle Heights, one of her students and his older brother came to the school’s Halloween parade in black and white striped convict costumes. Krall was extremely disturbed at this image considering the high rates of incarceration for Latinos. After photographing the child in his costume, Krall used the photo as the focal point of a 1996 art installation in a cell at the Lincoln Heights Jail. The silkscreen poster shown here was made four years later, during the 2000 Democratic National Convention in downtown Los Angeles, and was carried by hundreds of people during a demonstration against police brutality.
31. California: #1 in Prison Spending Design Action Critical Resistance, Freedom Winter Coalition Offset, 2001 Oakland, CA
Since this poster was produced in 2001, the statistics have worsened. California continues to be #1 in prison spending but fluctuates between 46th and 50th in education spending.
32. Investing in Our Future Amy Files Digital Print, 2006 Boston, MA
33. Shut Down CYA Oscar Rodriguez, Kim McGill Youth Justice Coalition Digital Print, 2006 Los Angeles, CA CYA is the abbreviation for California Youth Authority, long known as the world’s largest and most notorious youth prison system. Chad refers to the N. A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton, one of the CYA's two maximum security lockups for those aged 18– 24. Chad earned national headlines in 2004 when guards were captured on film kicking and punching wards. In August 2005, 18-year old Joseph Daniel Maldonado hung himself at Chad. In the eight weeks before Maldonado died, he had rarely been let out of his cell and was denied family visits, mental health care and educational services. Five youths died there between 2004-2005. This poster was part of a successful campaign to improve conditions for incarcerated youth. In 2005, the CYA was renamed the California Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) to distance it from the abuses of the original agency.
34. Will Work for Food! Richard G. Hall, Jr. Photocopy, 2012 Soledad, CA Richard G. Hall, Jr. became an accomplished political cartoonist in the 1980s while in prison. His illustrations and writings have been featured in various publications throughout California and his cartoons were recently highlighted in a publication by Zine Distro based in Homewood, Illinois. He also has been an illustrator for the California Prisoner newspaper. Hall’s politically conscious cartoons comment on various social issues that communities of color face in the U.S. He is currently serving a sentence in Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, California.
Richard G. Hall, Jr. C-0727 P.P. Box 689, YW-343up Soledad, CA 93960
35. Prisons Are Sucking the Life Out of Education Lisa Roth Californians United for a Responsible Budget Digital Print, 2012 San Francisco, CA When originally designed in 2001, California was #1 in prison spending, #48 in education spending.
36. End Youth Life Without Parole Brendan Campbell Youth Justice Coalition Digital Print, 2011 Boston, MA The U.S. is the only nation in the world that continues to sentence its youth to die in prison. In 2012, more than 2,570 youths were serving life without parole (LWOP), nearly 300 of them in California. California has the worst record in the nation for racial disparity in the imposition of LWOP for youth: African-American youths are sentenced to LWOP more than 18 times the rate of white youths and Latino youths are sentenced to LWOP five times more often than white youths. In 2006, a statewide working group that included the L.A. Archdiocese Office of Restorative Justice, Human Rights Watch, the Youth Justice Coalition and several civil rights litigators formed a working group to address the extreme sentencing of youths in California. In 2012, after six years and three attempts, the working group succeeded in getting Senate Bill 9 passed giving youth serving Life Without Parole in California an opportunity for re-sentencing.
37. Justice for Tedi Snyder Youth Justice Coalition Digital Print, 2010 Los Angeles, CA
At the age of 15, Tedi Snyder was arrested and charged with attempted murder, accused of being in a car where another person shot out the window at two other youths. He faced 80 years to life in a case where no one was killed. Only through packing the court with supporters, organizing press conferences and rallies, testifying at sentencing and meetings with court officials, did Tedi receive a sentence of 32 to life, the lowest sentence possible under California law. In Tedi’s case, the jury never heard that this was his first major arrest; or that when Tedi was 13, he heard gunshots and ran up to see one of his best friends dying; or that at 14, Tedi saw another youth whom he considered a brother, shot and killed in front of him, and that the boy bled out onto the concrete as Tedi held him; or that at 15, just two months before his arrest on these charges, Tedi was shot in the head and nearly killed; or that the day before his arrest, he was shot in the hand. Instead, the DA argued that Tedi is broken, beyond repair, cold-blooded; and that he must be caged until death.
Between 1980 and 2010, the total number of women in prison increased 646%, from 15,118 to over 112,797. The number of women in prison, a third of whom are incarcerated for drug offenses, has increased at nearly 1.5 times the rate of men. The sentencing project states that these women often have histories of physical and sexual abuse, high rates of HIV infection and substance abuse. This growing large–scale imprisonment of women has resulted in an increasing number of children who suffer from the loss of their mothers and broken family ties. Almost 2 million children have a parent in prison on any given day. Once inside prison or jail, women are more likely than men to be victims of staff sexual misconduct.
38. Have Women Become That Much More Dangerous? Scott Boylston Silkscreen, 2006 Savannah, GA Scott Boylston originally made this poster in 2003, but was asked to update it for the Action Committee for Women in Prison. In 2003 there were 100,000 women in prison. Two years later there were 140,000. Here is his response to the new information he found: “My job of updating the information graphics of the poster was sobering, and it goes right to the heart of why graphics can be so compelling... Just redesigning it made the increase in female inmates from 2003 to 2005 disturbingly concrete. I hate to think what a poster like this will look like in five years...�
39. Womyn Are the Fastest Growing Prison Population in Amerikkka Kevin “Rashid” Johnson Photocopy, 2005 Pound, VA Kevin “Rashid” Johnson is an artist, published writer and the Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPPPC). Rashid is currently an inmate in Oregon’s Snake River Correctional Institute serving his nineteenth year of a lengthy drugrelated sentence. Rashid has taken the lead in challenging and organizing around prison conditions, which include his recent support and participation in the 2011 California prisoners’ hunger strike. He also designed the logo used to represent the strikers. Rashid’s activism has made him a target of prison officials and caused him to be segregated from the general prison population. His writings have also been banned in many California prisons. Kevin Johnson # 19370490 Snake River Correctional Inst. 777 Stanton Blvd. Ontario, OR 97914
40. No More Shackles Micah Bazant, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children Digital Print, 2013 Berkeley, CA In 33 states, shackling—the use of leg irons, waist chains and handcuffs— continues to be routinely used on incarcerated pregnant women. In 2005, California became one of the first states to prohibit the shackling of incarcerated pregnant women during labor, delivery and recovery after childbirth. Not until January 1, 2013, after three years and countless petitions, letters, phone calls, votes, revotes and two vetoes, did Governor Jerry Brown sign AB 2530, prohibiting shackling throughout pregnancy in California’s state prisons, juvenile detention facilities and county jails. Pregnant women are the most vulnerable and the least threatening in the prison system and even without shackling they are more likely to experience miscarriages, pre-eclampsia, pre-term births, and low birth weight infants, all of which seriously jeopardize the health of the mother and her newborn.
41. Sexual Extortion is a Crime Not a Sentence Mary McGahren Digital Print, 2006 Boston, MA
Every year over 200,000 adults and children in U.S. prisons are raped and sexually abused. Although it is the job of prison staff to keep inmates safe, they are among the main perpetrators of sexual abuse. Prisoner rape is a crime and a human rights violation. In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush, requiring the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics to collect and analyze data on rape in prison and requiring the Department of Justice to make prison rape prevention a priority. Despite the intent of this law, sexual extortion against women, children, men and LGBTQ individuals is an ongoing epidemic in prisons.
42. End the Attack on Our Communities! Melanie Cervantes Justseeds Silkscreen, 2008 Oakland, CA
In 1791, the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified stating that, in regards to imprisonment, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.� Since then, activists have challenged the mistreatment of prisoners based on this statute.
43. Bound Josh MacPhee Stencil, 2006 Troy, NY Solitary confinement is an increasingly common practice in most U.S. prisons. Prisoners may be held in solitary cells for 23 hours a day or more; have very limited contact with other people; endure little or no contact with family members; receive little or no access to rehabilitation or educational resources; and receive inferior physical and mental health care. During solitary confinement, prisoners may develop Special Housing Unit Syndrome—visual and auditory hallucinations, hypersensitivity to noise and touch, insomnia and paranoia, uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear, distortions of time and perception and increased risk of suicide. Once released, many prisoners experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Pelican Bay’s Special Housing Unit (SHU) is notorious for its solitary confinement practices.
44. 3 Strikes Kevin McCloskey Woodcut, 2010 Kutztown, PA
California’s 1994 Three Strikes law created mandatory sentencing of life in prison for anyone convicted of a third felony, even for such petty crimes as writing a bad check or shoplifting socks. On November 6, 2012, Californians passed Prop. 36 to amend the law so that it only applies to “serious” or “violent” felonies. Prop. 36 allows the possibility of 3,000 sentences to be reduced and may save the state as much as $90 million per year. However, the terms “serious” and “violent” are extremely vague and the Three Strikes law continues to be misused to expand the prison industrial complex.
45. $15.4 Billion Spent on Incarcerating Californians JosĂŠ Jimenez Silkscreen, 2010 San Francisco, CA
46. Left to Die Kelly Hickman Digital Print, 2005 Frostburg, MD
During Hurricane Katrina, the sheriff’s department deserted the New Orleans Parish Prison, abandoning 6,500 men, women and children left in their care. As floodwaters rose in the prison buildings and power went out, entire buildings were plunged into darkness. Deputies left their posts leaving prisoners in locked cells, some standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests. Many were not evacuated until Thursday, September 1st, four days after flood waters in the jail had reached chest level. Inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they had no food or water from their last meal over the weekend of August 2728, until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up creating an unbearable stench. "They left us to die there," Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish Prison, where he was sent after the evacuation.
Some inmates said they saw bodies floating in the floodwaters as they were evacuated from the prison. A number of inmates told Human Rights Watch that they were not able to get everyone out of their cells. Several corrections officers told Human Rights Watch that there was no evacuation plan for the prison, even though the facility had been evacuated during floods in the 1990s. Many of the men held at the jail had been arrested for minor offenses including criminal trespass, public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. Many had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less convicted. New Orleans Sheriff Marlon Gusman and other city officials are trying to push forward the expansion of the notorious Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) which would add 5,800 new beds, extend the prison 9-10 city blocks and cost $250 million. OPP is already the largest per capita county jail of any major U.S. city, while resources for housing, education, job training and healthcare continue to be cut or remain deeply underfunded. In an effort to stop construction and shrink the prison system in the city, The Critical Resistance New Orleans chapter has been working with allies and community members trying to build people power in order to shift vital resources away from the prison industrial complex and toward building thriving, sustainable, self-determined communities.
47. Guantanamo Bay Luxury Resort Sixten Stencil, 2003 Melbourne, Australia Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, at the southeastern end of Cuba, has been used by the U.S. Navy for more than a century under a lease set up in the wake of the 1898 Spanish-American War. The Cuban government continues to denounce the lease on grounds that Article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties voids treaties procured by force or its threatened use. Since 2001, the naval base contains a controversial detention camp for militant combatants captured in Afghanistan and later Iraq. After stories of torture and abuse were revealed, the U.S. government said that these prisoners were not covered by the Geneva Conventions—which include prohibiting the torture of prisoners of war—because the prison is located outside the U.S. The justification of torture by the Bush administration received intense criticism both domestically and internationally. On January 22, 2009, President Obama’s first day in office, he signed an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within the year but Congress passed laws thwarting the order. It remains open. This poster uses irony to focus on the conditions.
48. iRaq Forkscrew Graphics Silkscreen, 2004 Los Angeles, CA
iRaq combines the infamous photograph of a prisoner tortured in Abu Ghraib, the U.S. run prison in Iraq, with the graphics of the internationally distributed iPod ad. The poster was produced soon after the photograph was first seen by the U.S. public in 2004. This is one of a series of four posters mimicking the iPod ads. The posters were inserted into rows of real iPod ads in Los Angeles, so that the viewer would do a double take when passing by. An almost identical appropriation of the iPod ad was simultaneously produced by New York artist Copper Greene, who also inserted his posters into the rows of iPod ads in the subways and on the walls of New York. This is a very effective form of culture jamming—once someone sees the parody or politicized version, they can rarely see the real advertisement without thinking of the politicized one.
49. In America Derek Luciani Digital Print, 2006 Boston, MA From the mid-1950s to the late 1990s, many mental health institutions throughout the U.S. were closed leaving patients with no access to mental health care. As a result of this policy, called “deinstitutionalization,� many of these individuals end up in the criminal justice system. In 2006, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that 56% of state prisoners, 45% of federal prisoners and 64% of jail inmates had mental health issues.
50. To Hell with Their Profits Rachael Romero San Francisco Poster Brigade Offset, 1978 San Francisco, CA
The forced drugging of inmates is an ongoing problem—40% of the inmates and patients given antipsychotic drugs develop long term injuries. One of the most common side effects is tardive dyskinesia, which causes loss of bodily control and disfigurement. The drug companies make huge profits with the sale of the drugs and prisons can cut corners by overmedicating inmates rather than finding lasting and rehabilitative alternatives. The forced drugging of people being held in Guantanamo raises further concerns. Prisoners with no history of mental health issues were drugged in what many interpret to be efforts to coerce confessions.
51. Atmos-Fear Doug Minkler New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rico Silkscreen, 1987 Berkeley, CA This poster was created to inform the public about an experimental federal women's sensory deprivation center not designed for rehabilitation or job training but for breaking the spirit of political prisoners. Three of the five prisoners at the Lexington Control Unit were anti-imperialists involved in supporting foreign and domestic liberation struggles: Alejandrina Torres, Silvia Baraldini and Susan Rosenberg. All three have since been released, but can be seen on poster #60. The prison opened in 1986. Educational and organizing efforts, including court cases and the use of this poster, succeeded in closing this prison in 1988. The closing of Lexington was a major victory for political prisoners and the forces working to support them. But at the same time the authorities have moved to greatly expand their use of such high security "control units."
52. Health Care Not Death Care ACT UP/LA, Critical Mass Silkscreen, 1990 Los Angeles, CA In 1990, the overcrowded California Institution for Women at Frontera, was the country's second largest women's prison. All women diagnosed with HIV or AIDS were segregated inside, in the Walker A Unit. The conditions and treatment for these women were deplorable— there was no infectious disease doctor and Frontera had no licensed infirmary. Women died in their cells without medical attention. The prison staff did not want to come in contact with those who were infected. Deaths were sometimes discovered when the food trays piled up. This poster was first used in a boisterous ACT UP/LA demonstration outside the Frontera prison on November 30, 1990. Prisoners inside were placed on lockdown but could hear AIDS activists chanting, "sisters on the inside, sisters on the outside, ACT UP is watching, you won't die." When a series of protests moved to the California Department of Corrections main offices in Sacramento, ACT UP took over the offices of the prison system's Chief Medical Officer to demand an end to inhumane conditions for incarcerated people with AIDS. Several of ACT UP/LA's demands were implemented. An infectious disease doctor was assigned to Walker A. One woman, Judy Cagle, became the first inmate in the history of the CDC to be granted a compassionate release. The segregation policy was changed and the women with AIDS were moved into a medical facility. These actions by ACT UP/LA and other California ACT UP chapters and in particular, the ACT UP/LA's Womens Caucus, inspired ACT UP chapters in other states to take action and advocate better treatment for all prisoners living with AIDS.
53. Inmates Have the Right to Maintain Personal Hygiene Kaiti Robinson Digital Print, 2005 Frostburg, MD Hygiene is a basic human right yet continues to be neglected in many prisons. At times, prison officials withhold supplies necessary to maintain adequate hygiene to further punish and humiliate prisoners. Serious health issues can develop as a result. A dangerous drug resistant strand of staph (MRSA) is rapidly spreading in prisons. It causes large, painful boils which are highly contagious. The spread of the bacteria can be stemmed with soap and basic sanitary conditions. Female inmates have additional hygiene needs, yet inflated prices for sanitary pads and tampons inside prison, where they cost two to three times the market price, can force women to improvise with less effective and less sanitary methods.
54. Capital Punishment Peg Averill Liberation News Service War Resisters League Offset, 1980s New York, NY
55. Killing Kindly Garland Kirkpatrick Helvetica Jones Offset, 2006 Los Angeles, CA
56. Dead Wrong Mary Sutton Digital Print, 2005 Los Angeles, CA Stanley “Tookie” Williams (1953-2005) was a leader of the Los Angeles Crips, a notorious gang he co-founded in 1969. In 1979, Williams was convicted of four murders and an armed robbery that netted $200. While incarcerated, he wrote a number of books, including children’s books, warning readers about gang and prison life. In 2004, he helped negotiate a peace between some of the major Crip and Blood gangs in Los Angeles with the Tookie Protocol for Peace. Williams was nominated 6 times for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end gang violence. With the help of author and journalist Barbara Becnel, Tookie fought to prove his innocence. In his autobiography, he explained that witnesses against him were coerced and there was thus reasonable doubt. Despite these facts and high profile supporters ranging from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Rev. Jesse Jackson, California’s former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Williams’ appeal for clemency. The unforeseen difficulty in killing him in San Quentin State Prison— it took more than half an hour for him to die—led to a moratorium in California of executions by lethal injection. Becnel continues working to prove his innocence.
57. Troy Davis Ricardo Levins Morales Silkcreen, 2012 Minneapolis, MN Troy Anthony Davis (1968-2011) was convicted of murdering a police officer but maintained his innocence from the time of his arrest until his death. Approximately one million people signed a petition seeking clemency for him. He was supported by many groups and individuals including Amnesty International, NAACP, President Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Pope Benedict XVI, and former FBI Director William S. Sessions. Many concerns were raised in the case, including testimony that he was not the shooter, contradictory testimony by state witnesses, former juror appeals for clemency, exclusion of a key figure as a suspect and new DNA evidence disproving original state evidence. Despite overwhelming public support and serious and reasonable doubt, Troy Davis was executed by the State of Georgia in 2011.
58. Sentenced to Death by Mistake Center on Wrongful Convictions Offset, 2002 Chicago, IL Photo by Loren Santow Verneal Jimerson (in photo) and Dennis Williams were African-American men sent to death row for the murder of a young white couple in 1979. In 1996, three journalism students found the real killer who had been identified to the police at the time of the crime. Police used perjured testimony to win convictions against Williams and Jimerson. Jimerson and 14 others were photographed by Loren Santow on March 31, 1997 for a poster series called "Nine Lives." At the time, there were nine men on Death Row in Illinois who were later exonerated. By 2012, there have been more than 300 DNA exonerations nationwide.
59. It's a Matter of Social Control Malaquías Montoya Silkscreen, 2002 Elmira, CA This silkscreen is part of a series by Montoya titled, “Pre-meditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment,” referencing those killed by the death penalty from Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to Jesus Christ. “We have perfected the art of institutional killing to the degree that it has deadened our national, quintessentially human, response to death,” says Montoya. “I wanted to produce a body of work depicting the horror of this act.” Rev. Joseph Ingle is a United Church of Christ Minister, author, two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and a prominent critic of the death penalty. He points out that “since 1977, more than 93 percent of the executions in the U.S. have been in the South.” He also discusses how the patterns for those executions follow disturbingly familiar paths of racial discrimination: “If you kill a white person, you are 11 times more likely to die for that crime than if you kill a black person,” Ingle said. “And it’s even worse if you’re a black person and you kill a white person. Then you are 22 times more likely to die.”
60. Face Reality, Freedom Now! Campaign for Amnesty & Human Rights for Political Prisoners in the USA Offset, 1990 Chicago, IL Some of the political prisoners shown here have been released since this poster was produced, including Silvia Baraldini, Marilyn Buck (deceased), Herman Bell, Edwin Cortes, Linda Evans, Ricardo Jimenez, Adolfo Matos, Dylcia Pagan, Geronimo Pratt (deceased), Luis Rosa, Susan Rosenberg, Alejandrina Torres, Carmen Valentin and Laura Whitehorn. Others, including Sundiata Acoli, Mumia Abu Jamal, Jaan Laaman, Mafundi Lake, Abdul Majid, Thomas Manning, Mutulu Shakkur and Gary Tyler remain in jail. For a more complete list of currently held political prisoners, please visit: www.prisonactivist.org/projects/political-prisoners
61. International Day to Resist the Imprisonment of Leonard Peltier Juan Fuentes, Mission Gráfica Silkscreen, 1990 San Francisco, CA
Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist, artist, and former member of the American Indian Movement who was convicted of aiding in the killing of two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. Imprisoned since 1977, Peltier is one of the longest incarcerated prisoners in the U.S. The Supreme Court has refused to review the case despite documents proving that the FBI faked evidence, perjuredthemselves in court and coerced witnessed to make false statements against him. Peltier is supported by Amnesty International, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Menchú and many others.
62. Etats-Unis Etats Racistes ComitĂŠ du Justice du AMJ en France Offset, circa 1997 France Translation: United States Racist States. No capital punishment, No legal lynching, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal.
SACCO AND VANZETTI In 1920, Nicola Sacco (1891-1927), a shoemaker, and Bartolemeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), a fish peddler, were charged with murder and robbery in Massachusetts. Because they were immigrants and anarchists, they did not receive a fair trial. Despite an international campaign on their behalf, Sacco and Vanzetti, still maintaining their innocence, were executed Aug. 23, 1927.
JULIUS AND ETHEL ROSENBERG In 1950, in an atmosphere of anti-Communism directed against radicals in the Jewish community, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Julius Rosenberg (1918-53), an electrical engineer, and his wife Ethel (1916-1953). They were convicted and sentenced to death for conspiracy to transmit secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Despite an international campaign from the President of France, Pope Pius XII, Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, Reinhold Niebuhr, Pablo Picasso, Israel's Chief Rabbis and many others, President Eisenhower refused to grant clemency and the Rosenbergs were electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison, June 19, 1953. They were the only Americans ever executed for espionage by judgment of a civilian court.
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MALCOLM X Malcolm X (1925-1965) joined the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) while serving a prison term, and became a minister upon his release in 1952. He quickly became prominent in the movement and his popularity rivaled that of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Black Muslims. In March, 1964, Malcolm X publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. A month later, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, announced his conversion to orthodox Islam and his new belief that there could be brotherhood between blacks and whites. In his Organization of Afro-American Unity, formed after his return from Mecca, the tone was still that of militant black nationalism but no longer of separation. In February, 1965, he was shot and killed in a public auditorium in New York City by three men identified as Black Muslims. There is ongoing speculation that the assassination was a collaboration between the FBI and Nation of Islam.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was a Baptist minister, activist, and prominent leader in the Civil Rights Movement. His use of nonviolent civil disobedience became a powerful tactic to advance civil rights. King led the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and in 1957, helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His “I Have a Dream” speech, given at the 1963 March on Washington, established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history and also as a radical. For the rest of King’s life, he was under surveillance by the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). In 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. On April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City, King delivered his "Beyond Viet Nam" speech, speaking strongly against the U.S. role in the war, arguing that the U.S. was in Viet Nam "to occupy it as an American colony" and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Exactly one year later, April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, and many continue to believe that his murder was directly linked to the content of this speech.
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MUMIA ABU-JAMAL Mumia Abu-Jamal is a black writer and journalist, author of six books and hundreds of columns and articles, former member of the Black Panther Party and supporter of Philadelphia’s radical MOVE Organization. He has spent over 30 years in prison, almost all in solitary confinement on Pennsylvania’s Death Row. He has been in prison since 1981, accused of killing a police officer. At the time of his arrest, Mumia was shot by police and almost died that night. The main civilian witnesses at the trial were two prostitutes. One changed her description of the assailant several times. The other subsequently stated that she was under pressure by police to testify against Mumia. Witnesses to support Mumia’s version were never called to testify and many inconsistencies were not examined. The court imposed a death sentence. Groups such as Amnesty International, the PEN American Center and Human Rights Watch all have questioned the fairness of the trial. Demand for a new trial and freedom is also supported by heads of state from France to South Africa, Nobel laureates Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, Desmond Tutu, European and Japanese parliaments, city governments from San Francisco to Detroit to Paris, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, labor unions and by thousands of others. The ongoing international attention given to this case—as exemplified by this French poster—can be credited with Mumia's removal from death row in January, 2012. However, in March, 2012, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that all claims of new evidence brought forward on his behalf did not warrant conducting a retrial. Write to Mumia at: Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM 8335 SCI Mahanoy 301 Morea Road Frackville, PA 17932
63. Free Lynne Stewart Christopher Hutchinson Digital Print, 2009 Hartford, CT
64. Obama...Give Me Five! Jorge Martell, Gonzalo Canetti (photographer) Digital Print, 2012 Oakland, CA
The Cuban 5, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, were arrested by the FBI in 1998. All were convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States. The trial was held in Miami, Florida, a center of hostility against the Cuban revolution. The Cuban 5 neither committed nor intended to commit espionage against the U.S. They were in the U.S. in order to monitor anti-Cuban terrorist organizations in Miami responsible for attacks and deaths in Cuba. A threejudge panel of the 11th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the convictions in 2005 but the full court reinstated the convictions. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review their case in 2009. René González has been on probation since October, 2011 after serving his 13 year term. As of January, 2013, the other four remain in prison.
65. Heroism A Ride Till The End Digital Print, 2011 United States United States Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning (born 1987) was convicted of “leaking� classified documents to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy website. These documents include a video showing a U.S. Apache helicopter crew killing unarmed civilians and two Reuters journalists in Iraq. Manning was tortured and held in solitary confinement for the first 10 months of her arrest until public pressure helped end this illegal phase of his imprisonment. Many consider her to be a hero following in the footsteps of Daniel Ellsberg who released the Pentagon Papers exposing U.S. government lies about the Viet Nam War.
66. Imagine California Critical Resistance, Justseeds Silkscreen, circa 2008 California 1920 Photo by Lewis Hine: Power House Mechanic Working on Steam Pump
67. Mothers of East Los Angeles Justseeds Offset, 2004 Portland, OR
In the early 1980s, the California Department of Corrections was ordered by California state legislators to build a prison in Los Angeles County because of the disproportionate number of inmates originating from southern California. In 1985, the Mothers of East L.A. (MELA) formed to organize their community to oppose the prison. When the prison came up for a vote in the summer of 1991, it failed by four votes.
68. Solidarity with All Prisoners Tim Simmons Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Digital Print, circa 2011 California
On July 1, 2011, a hunger strike was initiated at Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) by prisoners demanding changes to the torturous conditions of their solitary confinement (see poster #43). Soon, over 12,000 California prisoners participated. The hunger strike also spread to prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma. The strike in Pelican Bay lasted nearly three weeks and ended only after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) sent a memo detailing a comprehensive review of every affected SHU prisoner in California whose SHU sentence is related to gang validation. As the majority of people in the SHU are there for being labeled “gang members,” this was seen as a victory. The photo is from the 1971 Attica prison uprising in New York. (See poster #4)
69. End the Media Ban Kim McGill Digital Print, 2012 Los Angeles, CA
70. Ban the Box Garland Kirkpatrick, Mary Sutton Digital Print, 2006 Los Angeles, CA
71. Rise Up LA No Prisons No Jails Mary Sutton Californians United for a Responsible Budget, Rise Up LA Digital Print, 2012 Los Angeles, CA
In 2011, members and allies of the Youth Justice Coalition formed Rise Up LA!, a civil disobedience committee to increase pressure on local officials to address the criminalization, mass incarceration, deportation and police killing of youth of color in Los Angeles. This poster was created to carry in the 2012 May Day March to raise awareness about L.A. County’s jail expansion plans and to link the struggle of workers outside with the struggle of people in California’s prisons.
72. No More Cages Jesus Barraza, Dignidad Rebelde Critical Resistance Digital Print, 2013 Oakland, CA In 2012, California spent billions of dollars and shifted thousands of people from a failed system of state imprisonment and parole to county based jails and probation. This shift appears to follow the same failed policies that lead the Supreme Court to order the corrections department to reduce its prison population by tens of thousands in 2011. People from San Mateo County to L.A. are demanding that community based solutions that rely on access to housing, jobs and health services be the core of the response to violence in our neighborhoods not MORE CAGES! To learn more go to: www.criticalresistance.org
73. Dragon Flight Doug Minkler Center for the Study of Political Graphics Silkscreen, 2012 Berkeley, CA
74. While There Is a Lower Class I Am in It Artist Unknown Offset, 1965-1980 United States
Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) was a champion of industrial unionism, five time Socialist Party candidate for president, anti-war activist, and civil liberties advocate. He organized the American Railway Union in 1892 and led the boycott of all Pullman cars during the great strike of 1894. In 1901, he helped form the Socialist Party (SP) and in 1905 he helped found the Industrial Workers of the World (also known as the IWW or Wobblies). In the 1912 presidential election, Debs won more than 900,000 votes, 6% of the total cast. He was tried under the 1917 espionage act for speaking out against WWI and the draft and sentenced to ten years in prison. In 1920, while in prison, he again ran for president on the Socialist ticket and received his largest vote ever. Public protests persuaded President Harding to pardon him in 1921.
75. Free Cedomir Kostovic Offset, 2002 Springfield, MO
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