A coordinated prison labor strike in as many as five Alabama correctional facilities resulted in authorities putting two prisons on lockdown this week, ABC News reported, in an attempt to draw attention to inhumane conditions and systemic deprivation within the state’s prisons.
According to Solitary Watch, three organizers who have been held in solitary confinement named Kinetik, Dhati and Brother M helped organize the effort, which began at “Alabama’s Holman, Staton, and Elmore Correctional Facilities. St. Clair’s stoppage will begin on May 9, with Donaldson and other correctional facilities to follow soon after.”
Kinetik, Dhati and Brother M are members of the Free Alabama Movement, which hopes to carry on the strike for up to 30 days depending on the willingness of authorities to negotiate.
“We will no longer contribute to our own oppression,” Kinetik told Solitary Watch. “We will no longer continue to work for free and be treated like this.”
People incarcerated at the prisons are paid $0.17 to $0.30 an hour to perform a variety of functions. While some assist correctional employees in the maintenance, upkeep and staffing of prison facilities, others are engaged in manufacturing or industrial jobs which generate revenue for the correctional system from for-profit companies which rely on cut-rate prison labor. Much of that money is then sucked right back from incarcerated people in the form of heavy fees and fines
Complaints are widespread and include lack of access to reading material, dangerous living conditions, tainted food, negligent treatment of prisoners in solitary and poor health services.
Earlier this year, riots broke out at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, when 100 rioted against hellish conditions, setting fire to part of the prison. Many facilities in the state are notoriously violent.