Poe eee eee EEE EEEEEES
and spokespersons.
Prisons are usually located in rural areas, far from the urban centers where most of their population is from. A growing
trend in incarceration is a move to having private corporations contract with states and cities to house prisoners. One of
the results of the increased privatisation of prisons is the fact that many states contract for the housing and care of pris-
oners across state lines. So someone arrested in Missouri could end up in Texas, where the cost of maintenance is lower,
and access to legal aid and human rights may be harder to come by. One way that prisoner's families use the web is by
creating individual prisoners pages with personal histories, art work, poetry and addresses. Usually posted by parents or
spouses and friends, these sites become a virtual presence of the loved one who is often far from home. Although many
prison families do not have personal computers, they can log in at the local library, school or cyber cafe. There is an anec-
dote that a cleaning woman in a large New York law firm logs on in the evening not only to activist sites, but to on-line law
journals and case records to work on legal strategies for her husband's case. (http://www.findlaw.com/)
A mother's site is at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1526/
A site for high end machines is http://peopleoftheheart.org/index2.htm
Lacresha Murray Watch out, it crashed my computer with all its streaming video and graphic arpeggios. It's an amazing
story of an eleven year old child who has been sentenced to twenty five years.
The web can also be a way to keep tune to the latest in instruments of repression. There are many industry sites where you
can order handcuffs and pepper spray. (www.counterterrorism.com/copex.html) There are counter cop sites such as
http://www. prisonactivist.org/copwatclV Hundreds of service organisations are posting sites: activist against unjust sen-
tencing (http:/Avww.sentencing.org) the Bruderhof Christian radicals (http://www. bruderhof.org/hold/issues/deathpen/in-
mates/index.htm)
There are many artists web sites addressing these issues. The graphics collective, Third World War, has posted a series
of comic style drawings and texts. David Thorne and others have created a series of posters which are posted on line.
(http:/www.igc.org/prisons/resistant-strains/) Various political prisoners have posted drawings of their cells. Many sites
have prisoners drawings and paintings. There are many prison poems and drawings on the Deep Dish site.
(http:/www.igc.org/deepdish). A web page of the Critical Resistance Conference is archived there on line. | worked with
Gina Todus, Chris Burnett and members of Paper Tiger San Francisco to stream audio from that conference and post cul-
tural material and statistics from the conference. The site has been accessed by thousands of users and is still being up-
dated. An overview site is posted at http://members.tripod.com/~gmoses/prisor/plinks.htm and one on the maximum secu-
rity units at shu http://www.ige.org/prisons/cpt/CPFshu.htm!

Many black nationalists see the U.S. prison system as genocide, and compare it to South Africa under apartheid:
http://www.amandla.org/

A list serve with postings of many messages a day is maintained by the Prison Activist Resource Center. The purpose is to
provide newsalerts and pointers. For some the list serve is literally a matter of life and death. The most desperate mes-
| sages are the pleas from mothers or wives or children trying to enlist help to beg for pardons as the execution date nears.
There are currently almost 4000 people on Death Rows awaiting executions. Email campaigns have been used success-
| fully to get medical attention for sick prisoners, or to obtain eye glasses, and there is always hope that a flood of messages
will startle a governor or member of the state supreme court to take notice and review a capital case.
The list serve is the center of many controversies. One very active member is Cayenne Bird who is said to the wife of an
inmate who was killed by guards. She is quite patriotic and her site has billowing American flags as a background. She
has been critical of the fact that former Black Panther and ex-Communist Party USA member Angela Davis has emerged as
one of the main leaders of the prison activist community. Cayenne does not consider herself a radical and spends much of
her time trying to register voters. http://hometown.aol.com/jumplaw/politicsS2/index.htm
Cayenne has many on-going arguments with other list members. For a very brief period of time, a volunteer working on the
site tried managing the postings by editing the mail. The hue and cry that ensued was deafening and worse than all the