IDOC Watch: Prison Abolition in Indiana

  There are nearly 30,000 people held captive by the Indiana Department of Correction and another 20,000 or so in county jails at any given time. Indiana is not unique in its reliance on cages to contain and pacify its population, people it considers to be too dangerous to the social order. It is unique in that while many other states have been trending downward in terms of the size of their prison populations, Indiana has done the opposite. Since 2015, the number of Indiana residents behind bars has increased thanks to a change in sentencing laws, keeping felony level 6 convicts in local jails with more severe felonies having longer sentences. These are broad and surface level statistics though. Much more can be said about the IDOC that cannot be so easily quantified. The administration of Indiana prisons follows a strategy of pacification and silence. Prisoners are underfed, their medical needs are ignored and treated carelessly with pain killers and psychotropic drugs, hallways and cells overrun with brown sewage water. And lest someone wanted to get the word out to the world about these conditions, that costs 26 cents a minute, not to mention the almost certain retaliation that would follow for speaking ill of the institution. None of this is the result of neglect or ignorance on the part of the powers that be in the DOC administration. The quickest way to a promotion is to demonstrate a malicilous indifference to human suffering and a sadistic satisfaction in breaking the will to resist. That's why the best way to make your bones as an IDOC prisoncrat is to spend some time on the SHU at Wabash Valley, where the political prisoners who refuse to bend the knee often end up, being starved, maced, and sensory-deprived just to shut them up. 

       A situation like this calls for a major organizing effort. This is exactly what we in IDOC Watch set out to do several years ago and continue to strive for today. It began as simple correspondence leading to a concret plan. Organizing with prisoners has been going on in Indiana for a long time, but in Indiana, "the south's middle finger", broader bases of support are hard to find. Most people are ignorant of the carceral system in general. Even if they know the buzzwords like "mass incarceration", to the average hoosier it's still something that happens somewhere else, not exactly at the forefront of their minds, much less concerning their day to day lives. Indiana's permanent Republican supermajority would very much like to keep it that way. This is a situation we set out to change, but a few things had to be accomplished first. Number one we needed a crew of committed Abolitionists. That is, a group of people that do not measure success by petty reforms achieved by calling congresspeople. You know, the kind of reforms that end up backfiring and becoming new avenues to exploit prisoners. That's an old story, you think you've gained something because a group of state senators takes a tour of a prison, only to be escorted through a meticulously rehearsed production where hand-picked inmates and staff paint the rosiest picture possible. Or you spend all your organizations time and energy getting the DOC to cancel their contract with a  medical provider like Corizon, only to turn around and hire a equally detestable company like Wexford. We needed people who wouldn't be satisfied with these kinds of half-measures. We needed people that were committed to building power, power that could threaten the very basis of the prison system. That's what abolition means, power. Outside of that, everything is imaginary. We don't want a kindlier, gentler prison system, we want a completely new world. Now before you ask the inevitbable questions about what a world without prisons could look like, consider this. To be an abolitionist is to take a particular stance, one that excludes the possibility of being co-opted or manipulated by the enemy. Anything less than the abolitionist stance makes us vulnerable to the million and one methods carefully cultivated by those who wish to see us fail, who use every tactic at their disposal to derail us and make us think we're doing the right thing. We can't fight from a position of weakness when we start out with so little on our side. If you take anything at all from the meaning of Abolition, take that. 

              The next thing we had to do was create a network of correspondence between the abolitionists and the prisoners. This is the life blood for any prison organization. Outside organizers can not do the work of liberation for the prisoners, they can only be accomplices in the struggle. Connecting with the politically active is the easiest part. Odds are they've been corresponding with plenty of people before you ever thought of it. These comrades have seen it all and they are a wealth of knowledge and experience. Correspondence is no easy thing though. It takes time and energy, emotional and physical. The most important thing is to keep that communication going. It can be easy for the outside organizer to forget the psychological toll of sitting in a cell, waiting for that next letter or that next email. We can never let people think that they have been forgotten. It's imperative that work be distributed and delegated so that ones do not become overwhelmed and drop out. This is a difficult challenge and we've seen our share of ups and downs. Nowadays when we recruit we make it clear to people the kind of committment that is expected. This can slow growth but it makes the organization stronger. The worst case scenario is someone who committs for a time but then leaves inside comrades hanging and lets a  lapse of communication disrupt the network. 

             So we have our comrades and we have our communications network. The next step is to build solidarity. This comes with meeting the needs of and responding to the crises faced by our inside comrades. We have gained a lot of valuable experience with this kind of work. Every single day a guard will harrass a prisoner with taunts and racial slurs, they may mix rat feces or saliva in their food, and/or write them up on bogus charges of "failure to comply" or an assault on staff which was no more than someone being in a justifiably bad mood. Then there's the systematic abuses like no heat in the winter or excessive cold that saps the energy of the body, the starvation level of caloric intake from sack lunches or miniscule portions. On and on and on. Prisoners have no hope in fighting these abuses through "institutional methods", and so that's where we come in. We have cultivated a significant online presence through social media and our website. We consistently publish the writings of our comrades, giving them as wide a reach as possible. We network with prison-focused organizations throughout the country. All of this comes into play when we orchestrate a response to a particular abuse going on in the prisons. Phone and email campaigns are always the first measure. The collective puts out a mass request  for phone calls and emails directed at the particular prison as well as central office. Typically a script for callers to read is included if they so choose. The ideal is having as many people as possible flood the institution, gumming up their phone lines and inboxes with concerned messages. This tactic can be suprisingly effective as there is a significant burden put on the daily workload of the admnistration to either resolve the issue or to discover a way to sidestep. Depending on the severity of the situation an escalation in our response is required. This is where it gets trickier because it is where the limitations of decentralized communication networks have to be overcome and translated to targeted, organized, and on the ground work. 

           The ability to expand our work further depends on a number of factors. These include an accumulation of knowledge regarding the operations of the prison system and, most importantly, the cultivation of an extended support network. The difficulty in making this happen cannot be understated. Especially in a state like Indiana. We do not have the organizational history, we do not have access to reliable media coverage, and we live in the context of an extremely reactionary society. We have taken on the responsibility of making the prison struggle a primary issue mostly by doing what others simply have not. This means that much of what we have done has been experimental. Through our solidarity work we have developed relationships with families and friends of prisoners throughout the state. We have organized a holiday gift drive for 4 straight years, developing a long list of contacts. We are publishing a quaterly newletter for people on the outside to read the works of prisoners. We have hosted several protests at the IDOC headquarters and several prisons at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Work is being done now to consolidate the extended networks of contacts we have obtained into a robust solidarity network. This will take more time. Ways for people to get invovled and stay involed must be developed in order not to lose people for idleness. An essential part of ensuring growth and participation will come from prisoners and especially former prisoners. Thankfully we are also working to bridge the gap between the formerly incarcerted and the population at large. 

           This is of course a issue of re-entry. As you likely know, prisoners exiting the DOC are offered next to nothing to get them off and running. If they are lucky enough to have supportive family and friends, it is still an immense strain given the need for employment, housing, transportation, and the suffocating requirements of the parole and probation systems. The psychological toll of spending so many years in a cage is unfathomable. Adjusting to mundane tasks of daily life is a struggle in itself. We cannot expect the state or even typical non-profits to make up for this. We have worked with people who spent their entire adult lives behind bars who were suddenly thrust into a rapidly changing world with no one to guide them through it. Being effective at re-entry support can only come with experience and an accumulation of resources. It takes a serious level of maturity. Learning how to set boundaries, regulate expectations, and communicate effectively are vital skills that every collective needs to develop. Without them we can only expect the vast majority of people to wind up back behind bars. The problem is even more complicated when a politically active person is released. The state will go out of its way to violate them on the most minor of trumped up charges. In order to establish an effective re-entry support model, we have raised funds for the purchase of homes, side-stepping the problem of bigoted landlords. We have a thoroughly planned proposition for starting ex-prisoner led companies to generate more funds for the re-entry program. All of this requires a high level of organization and a delegating of labor so as not to overwhelm any of our comrades. Our hope is that as more and more people successfully get out and stay out, they will take the lead in developing the inside-out support network by working in and among themselves and the families and friends of those effected by incarceration. This is a monumental task but a neccessary one. Our potential depends on growing our power through successful re-entry. 

              Looking back at the years we have spent in IDOC Watch, we believe that we have created something that has made real progress in the prison abolitionist movement. At the very least we forged a path that can serve as an example to prison abolitionists everywhere. One thing we have struggled with but have made great strides in rectifying is consolidating our organizational model. We now have a formalized structure, and importantly, a concrete political line. The political line has served us as an educational tool for new recruits both inside and out and has been used for study groups. It draws a clear demarcation between reform oriented and abolitionist oriented prison organizing. Though we do not reject tactical cooperation with other organizations, especially when these organizations meet fundamental needs of prisoners and their loved ones, we maintain our political principles and use them as a guide. We have learned how to divide our labors across needs of correspondence, finance, crisis response  and other forms of work. As with every organization though the toughest challenges can come from within. We cannot tolerate harmful or abusive behavior and we must hold it accountable. Many organizations struggle with and ultimately collapse because of harm done by members to other members. Harm which often goes ignored or covered up. This is unnacceptable. It is inevitable that conflicts arise. Struggles over politics, strategy etc, are a healthy thing, but harm is something else entirely. We must learn to protect our comrades and hold those who have done harm accountable. This creates a culture of trust, which is indespensable when doing the kind of work we do. 

              If you are reading this and are thinking that you too would like to be part of the prison abolitionist movement then we can only rejoice in that prospect. Start correspodence which goes across the walls. Share the voices of prisoners. Study the ins and outs of your state's prison system. Remember that those who are incarcerated will lead the struggle for liberation. It is their freedom to win. Those on the outside play a vital role but cannot be victorious alone. They have a responsibility to the prisoners and they will show their committment through their work. Always be watchful of those who say they are on our side but push us to capitulation. Be skeptical that the state ever takes actions that serve your interests. Invariably their is always something else going on underneath. IDOC Watch is here to support you, and we need you too. All Power To The People!

IDOC Watch can be contacted at: 

idocwatch@gmail.com

idocwatch.org

facebook.com/idocwatch