What are Prisons For? Puppet show about the Prison Industrial Complex

The Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army rolls into town on Friday, July 22nd as part of its whirlwind, month-long excursion across the continental United States to raise awareness about the prison system. Performing at 9 at Villa Vilekula 2623 Neil Ave.

News Updates- FCI Elkton and Pelican Bay

FCI ELKTON- Been calling to check up on the FOIA request every couple days. They're still processing it. If you'd like to help pressure them to take this more seriously, please see this post.

We also received a letter from an inmate at FCI Elkton, who wrote an article about the 24 hour lights-on policy which he says inspired the protest. We're working on publishing the whole article, but here's an excerpt about the food strike: "On May 18th, 2011, the majority of the inmate population at Elkton participated in a "food strike" where they refused to attend the meals offered at the chow hall in protest of a variety of newly imposed policies (constant lighting at nighttime being the most significant). The protest lasted about a week.

Pelican Bay Solidarity

On July 1st hundreds of inmates in SHU in California started an indefinite hungerstrike. The mainstream media is (of course) not making a peep about this, but you can read about it and follow events here.

You can also take action by signing this petition or calling these politicians. Please do.

We couldn't help but take this opportunity to point out the irony of our nationwide celebration of america's independence from an authority far weaker than the authority the US currently holds us under and exercises  around the world. So, we made up some flyers and handed them out first at Red White and Boom and then at the Doo Dah Parade. Of course, handing out flyers isn't going to tear down any prison walls, but we got some new ideas about prison and the fact of the hunger strike's existence into hundreds of people's hands.

FCI Elkton Food Strike Update #1

A few weeks ago we learned that there had been a mass protest demonstration in FCI Elkton. More about that here.

We've been pursuing information about this and unfortunately, we haven't got much to report at this time. Either something big went down or they're really paranoid about sharing any information at all. I expect the latter.

After calling almost daily for over a week, as media, because I was planning to write an article for Street Speech I finally got through to the PR person. He simply told me he doesn't think Street Speech fits his criteria for being media and therefore he would not talk to me.

June 11th reportback

This event ended up being a rather intimate and informal gathering. About ten of us got together, discussed police, safe space, community accountability and long term political prisoners. We had a great dinner in the beautiful backyard of the king house and had a lot of fun with the staged reading of Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Tim Dechristopher showed up as the play was wrapping up, so we got a chance to meet and chat with him. Its unfortunate that our event was overshadowed by a multitude of other things (graduation parties, concerts, naked bike ride) if you couldn't make it, you definitely missed out on a good time. But you don't need to miss out on most of the reasons we got together, because you can still get involved in them.

Prisoner Food Strike in Ohio

Last month (May 18-23) inmates at FCI Elkton (in Lisbon, OH) went on food strike. We have very little information about this right now. One of our penpals mentioned it, and the only information online about it were announcements of the subsequent lockdown and one post on prisonfamilyonline.com. We'll do some follow up and hopefully have more information soon.

Here's what we know now:

Dinner Theatre Solidarity Fundraiser

[read the reportback from this event here.]


June 11th is a new holiday! It's the international day of solidarity with long term anarchist prisoners.

RedBird Prison Abolition is planning an event to celebrate this holiday in Columbus. Please join us at 64 King Ave, on Sat June 11th for the following activities.


6PM- Discussion Circle, come talk about and take action on making ourselves and our community less dependent on the police and prison system. Continue and join the conversations we had after the last performance of Ad Seg.