DEFEND PRISONERS
Especially since 2008, Payday has supported many collective and individual campaigns by prisoners. We have joined with many organisations to oppose death penalty, miscarriage of justice (including Joint Enterprise), prison conditions, prisoners economic exploitation (often working at $1/day) and above all solitary confinement a policy used to punish rebellious inmates.
Women – partners, mothers, sisters, daughters of prisoners – have been the most resolute campaigners against prison injustices, always supporting their loved ones inside. We therefore have constantly worked with women and women’s organisations in those campaigns. And whenever we could, we have campaigned internationally, opposing the prison systems in the US, the UK and elsewhere.
With organisations in Global Women Against Deportations, we have campaigned to close immigration detention centres.
By Payday men’s network
Mumia Abu Jamal, an award-winning journalist was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1982 in a trial ‘drenched with racism’. While pressure got Mumia off death row, he has never stopped fighting injustices inside and outside the prison walls.
By Payday men’s network
Black Panthers member Russell Maroon Shoatz was jailed in 1972 in connection with the death of a police officer and spent 29 years in solitary confinement. Yet he never stopped opposing injustices inside and outside prison.
By Gene Johnson, Seattle Times
A US federal jury has determined that The GEO Group must pay minimum wage — rather than $1 a day — to immigration detainees who perform tasks like cooking and cleaning at its for-profit detention center in Washington state.
By Payday men’s network
On Monday 28 June, Legal Action for Women, Payday men’s network and Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike coordinated a protest against the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) supported by Prisoner Solidarity Network, Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association, Community Action on Prison Expansion and Figh
Payday men’s network
Kevan Thakrar was wrongly convicted of murder and attempted murder in 2008 under “joint enterprise”, the legal rule by which a member of a group can be convicted of a crime even if he/she didn’t commit it. In 2010, he was was put in solitary confinement in Close Supervision Centres (CSC), locked in his cell 23 h/day.
By Legal Action for Women, Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike, Payday men’s network
Watch a wide-ranging panel of speakers from around the world as well as so many justice campaigners making their case against cruel and inhumane solitary confinement.
By Payday men’s network
Long time immigration rights activist Maru Mora Villalpando who has spearheaded the fight against the North West Detention Centre near Tacoma in the US was threatened by deportation in 2018. She won her battle thanks to an international protest.
By Payday men’s network
In 2010, six African American prisoners at SCI Dallas staged a peaceful protest to blow the whistle on the torture inflicted by the guards on inmates of all races. For their stand, they were viciously beaten and charged with riot.