Contact
the Brighton ABC group by post at:
ABC
Brighton, PO Box 74, Brighton, BN1 4ZQ, UK
or
email us at brightonabc@yahoo.co.uk
Why
we do what we do...
We live
in a society where a tiny minority own the wealth, the land, run
the big companies and live in luxury on the backs of the working
people who produce everything. They try to control our lives and
keep us in line by every means possible - schools, the media, the
DSS, drugs, Disneyland. If we obey orders, work hard, don't answer
back, we can live a reasonable life - until the next recession.
We can help our bosses keep others down, like the police or bailiffs
do, and get our rewards: power, wealth, security.
But for
those of us not willing to work to keep our rulers in luxury, or
those who try to take back any of the wealth that we have made,
there is the justice system. Strike for a decent wage, steal to
stay alive, resist the control and abuse in our lives, or break
the bosses' laws in any way and we face police, courts, prison.
Prison
is the bottom line in control - their ultimate weapon. Prison means
isolation, bloody punishments, divided families. It drives people
to despair and suicide. The whole system is to split us up and isolate
people who could set an example to the rest of our class. Likewise,
if we step outside so-called normal behaviour, such as women who
refuse to accept the role of wife and mother, anyone whose sexuality
is so-called deviant, we may be stigmatised, tranquillised and ultimately
imprisoned.
On the
outside, fear of prison is built up to stop us from fighting back
against the injustice in our lives and myths are created about prisoners
to divide us from them. Most people are inside for trying to survive.
In Britain, 94% of recorded crimes are against property. About one
third are inside for non-payment of fines or taxes. Thousands are
on remand. Many others are guilty of nothing more than being working
class, irish, black, framed by the police. Full prisons give us
the impression that the police are 'cracking crime' and reminds
us who is in control.Most prisoners are working class people, just
like the rest of us. They are not all the mad beasts the papers
would have us believe.
The press
hype up stories of 'violent crime' to give the existence of prison
some justification and to divide us from prisoners. But the fact is
that only a tiny percentage of crimes are violent or anti-social.
It is also true that such crime is not prevented by prisons. The system
we live in encourages competition, power relationships and self-interest.
This system is also anti-social; while it remains intact there will
always be violence. Calling the shoplifter, the person on the picket
line and the rapist all criminals as if there were no difference between
them, uses most people's horror of anti-social violence against the
vast majority whose offences are to do with property and resistance.
It should
be up to us, in our communities, to deal with anti-social elements
in our own ways; we don't need their so-called justice system to
control us in the name of fighting crime.
You'll
rarely see the bosses in court - no matter how many laws they might
break or deaths they might cause. The rules are there for their
own protection. Even if they do end up in court they can swindle
millions and get suspended sentences or let out of prison after
a few months. We get years.
Just as
the class war goes on in our daily lives, it carries on inside prisons,
too. Many prisoners resist the prison system - in their own cases,
individually, or hundreds together as at Strangeways and throughout
prisons in April 1990; fighting back with joy and rage to tear down
the walls that surround them. Their battles inspire ours and ours
theirs - it's no coincidence that the Strangeways upsrising followed
a day after the Poll Tax riot in Trafalgar Square; a banner on the
roof read 'No Poll Tax Here'.
At any
time, any working class person can end up inside. We must support
prisoners in their day to day fight for better conditions just as
we support strikes and all forms of ongoing struggle. But we know
you can't reform capitalism out of existence: we need a social revolution
that will tear down the prisons along with the rest of the framework
of repression.