Mumia Abu Jamal

DEFEND PRISONERS

Payday continues to support many collective and individual campaigns by prisoners. We have joined with Legal Action for Women (LAW) and other organisations (run overwhelmingly by women) to oppose the death penaltymiscarriages of justice (including Joint Enterprise), prison conditions, prisoners' economic exploitation and slavery and above all the cruel and inhumane use of solitary confinement - a policy used to punish rebellious inmates.

Prisoners in the US and UK are disproportionately people of colour coming from poor communities where they have suffered racism and discrimination even before those of us who are not white face the racism of the criminal justice systems.

It is generally recognized that the vast majority of women in prison have committed crimes of poverty often in an effort to feed their children. Mothers in prison face the extra excruciating punishment of separation from their kids who they have spent their lives protecting.

And women – partners, mothers, sisters, daughters of prisoners – have been the most resolute campaigners against prison injustices, always supporting their loved ones inside. 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 everywhere.

5 prisoners fighting for justice
Protest at Yarls Wood
RCP-28-June-21-protest-panoramique

Kevan Thakrar in isolation at Whitemoor HMP

31 May 2024

By Anti-Carceral Solidarity

Kevan Thakrar has been placed in solitary confinement. He has no property, his cell doesnt even a toilet seat. Take action against the Islamophobic violence Kevan is being subjected to now!!!

Lawsuit: Alabama Is Denying Prisoners Parole to Lease Their Labor to Meatpackers, McDonalds

20 April 2024

By Kim Kelly, In These Times

Ten plaintiffs in a landmark class-action lawsuit are challenging what they and their supporters describe as an unconstitutional forced labor scheme in Alabama’s state prisons. Incarcerated workers save prisons $9+ billion a year in operational costs and earn them $2+ billion in sales of goods and services, while the prisoners make pennies per hour.

I Made 13 Cents an Hour as a Prison Janitor. Here’s Why I Donated My Wages to Gaza Relief

6 April 2024
Hamza Jihad Furqaani

By Hamzah Jihad Furqaani as told to Aala Abdullahi, The Marshall Project

It’s a common misconception that once someone enters jail or prison, they lose their interest in the outside world… For me, at age 56, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

More than 10 days of hunger strike at a detention center for migrants in the US

25 March 2024
death at North west detention center

By Carlos Soledad, El Salto

229 immigrants detained inside the Northwest Detention Centre in Tacoma, Washington, continue their hunger strike in response to the death of Trinidadian Charles Leo Daniel for unknown reasons.

Support Hunger Strike at the North West Detention Centre, Tacoma, US

21 March 2024

By Global Women Against Deportations & Payday

Please support the hunger strike inside and outside the detention centre, protesting the death of Mr Charles Leo Daniel, in solitary for almost 4 years, and against detention conditions.

Help! Leonard Peltier needs medical transfer

5 March 2024
Leonard Peltier

By Leonard Peltier Official Ad Hoc Committee

Imprisoned Indigenous elder Leonard Peltier is in urgent need of medical care.  Peltier was falsely convicted and imprisoned and has been kept there as revenge for his community daring to resist.  He has withstood decades of torture in US prisons, taking a terrible toll on him physically.

Support Hunger Strikers & Rashid Johnson at Red Onion State Prison, USA

23 January 2024
Rashid Johnson

By Oakland Abolition & Solidarity

Since December 26, 2023, up to 30 prisoners in solitary confinement at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison have been on hunger strike to protest the continued use of torturous long-term solitary confinement. 

Victory for Keith Lamar – his execution moved to January 2027

30 July 2023
Death row prisoner Keith Lamar

By Keith Lamar on death row

The governor has issued a reprieve, meaning that the projected execution date has been moved to January 13th, 2027. Let’s keep moving forward everybody. Let’s keep demanding justice.