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

Support prisoners in Alabama on strike against slavery

19 January 2023

By Payday & Global Women’s Strike

We send greetings and solidarity to our sisters and brothers in the Alabama prison struggle, (…)
Your demand as workers who get no wages strengthens the struggle against slavery everywhere.

Supporting Prisoners: Mumia Abu Jamal

18 September 2022
Mumia abu Jamal & Pam Afrika

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.

Supporting Prisoners: Russell Maroon Shoatz

18 December 2021
Maroon & Theresa Shoatz

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.

Detainees win historic ruling on minimum wage

29 October 2021

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.

Protesting Royal College of Psychiatrists endorsement of abuse and cruelty

28 June 2021

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

No to solitary confinement: Free Kevan Thakrar

19 June 2021

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.

Solitary confinement is a crime Webinar

12 May 2021

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.

Don’t deport Maru Mora Villalpando

1 February 2018
Protest for Maru

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.