IDOC Watch Inside Political Education Program

idocW

PO Box 11095

Indianapolis, IN. 46201

idocwatch.org

Summary

We collectively agree upon the most relevant material (articles, books, excerpts, etc) to be sent inside to the study groups, materials that we feel contain real life perspectives on either current events or historical events. We hope that by providing this education (which IDOC refuses to do), we not only can change people’s whole lives, but through the process of participating in political education a sense of collective struggle could emerge which could hold the power to drastically change concrete conditions within the prison system, and potentially abolish such a system.

Program’s Necessity

Prison administrations make tactical decisions to continue the “divide and conquer” strategy that has always been utilized to keep oppressed people from collectivizing their struggle. Accompanied by that is the fact that people are miseducated from birth by the state’s education system. The latter is important to note because what occurs is prisoners find themselves captives of a system that they don’t even understand, which significantly adds to the societal alienation they are already experiencing. This leaves many to suffer through their incarceration accompanied by sentiments of hopelessness/helplessness.

Not only does that cause issues within the prison, but also in society and on a mass scale since the majority of prisoners are going to released from prison at some point. While Indiana and many other states around the country continue to eliminate educational opportunities/programming within prisons, we seek to fill that void with a more powerful kind of education, and in a form the prisoners conduct themselves.

Vision

Through groups of prisoners gathering and discussing amongst each other (learning collectively,) barriers such as “race”, organization, crime level, etc, would be lifted.

In this process we hope it brings about a realization that prisoners, when collectively organized, possess the power to outright change their conditions. A successful organizing effort on this front would allow for far greater ground to be won in the abolition war. We’d then be able to effectively coordinate inside-outside action and tactics we should focus more on moving forward.

Read some of the responses by current/formerly incarcerated people from previous Abolition Study Sessions

Read recent essays by Incarcerated Study Group Participants