As a decades-long Political Prisoner I have participated in and become aware of many failed efforts to abolish the prison industrial complex (PIC).

     

Here I offer a new prison abolition path.

     

We must begin a nationwide push to turn the PIC into an incubator of the social and environmental changes that are needed in the 21st century. A paradigm that can unite prisoners, positive change elements in the broader society, academia, prison employees, the communities they come from, and society at large is a quest to provide Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) within the entire PIC (for prisoners and prison employees alike).

     

We will start by convincing sympathetic volunteers from academia of the value of using technology to help prisoners and prison employees to master science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills. Such an undertaking will give our present abolitionist efforts leverage far beyond what we presently exercise.

     

Specifically, such an effort must set its sights on finding cures for cancers, AIDS, autism, alzheimer’s, and other diseases; producing improved and innovative ways to lessen the dependence of society on planet-killing fossil fuels through affordable solar and wind energy technologies; as well as developing and spreading all the knowledge needed to realize the potential of organic gardening and farming as mechanisms for mass organizing.

     

The courses are already out there, developed by many universities, and available to the public. The technological means of bringing them into the prisons also exists, requiring no significant new infrastructure.

     

Properly motivated, prisoners have both the intellect and the time to discover how such knowledge and skills will give them leverage, causing research (profit) hungry corporate giants to flock to the prisons seeking access to the secrets behind the published papers coming from newly-educated prisoners—even when that means using corporate power to change the laws that stand in the way.

     

Prison employees must also be encouraged and supported to take advantage of their workplace/prison incubators. Once such an exciting and challenging undertaking gains a foothold among enough prisoners, the present anti-social “gangsta” community/prison culture will be pushed to the margins. That will doom the PIC as we now know it, and therefore the present employment of hundreds of thousands of prison staffers. Offering them an alternative form of productive employment should be a part of our strategy.

     

My hope is that this proposal can be married to the best of what others are working on in terms of prison abolition.

     

Straight Ahead!

Maroon

Russell Maroon Shoats/z