State prison inmates plan a work strike on Saturday in conjunction with a march in Washington to protest corporate food giant Aramark, which provides meals at more than 500 correctional facilities in the country. Their means of organizing: social media.
Planning for Saturday’s protest duplicates how inmates in 24 states used Facebook,Twitter and YouTube in September to stage a work strike on the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising to protest prison conditions, which they called “modern-day slavery.”
“We connected from our social media platforms,” Bennu Hannibal, an inmate serving a life sentence for murder in Alabama, told Vice News, using a smuggled cellphone to conduct the interview. “All those platforms allowed us to connect with different people and different organizers from around the world.”
In most states, prison officials want to prevent inmates from having easy access to the outside world via social media — and not just to avert prison strikes. They fear prisoners could use social media to stalk a former victim, run crime rings, threaten a witness, arrange contraband drops or find out personal information about prison guards and officials.
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Yes
ReplyDeleteYes, we have to get back to not making illegal activity a reason to give criminals more rights than the average person. Same with illegals living in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteThere should be no phones no computers no tv no radios nothing but VERY hard labor and 1 visitor a month.
ReplyDeleteThe should be worked hard and fed little.
ReplyDeleteThat's why they call it contraband.
ReplyDeleteYes. Prison should be about the loss of all freedoms!
ReplyDelete