Oakland Abolition & Solidarity is a grassroots organization dedicated to abolishing incarceration. Our ultimate goal is not an acceptably comfortable prison life, it is the end of prison – not only prisons, jails, and detention centers, but an end to the entire punitive model of justice and everything that makes it possible.
We advocate the abolition of incarceration, white supremacy, and capitalism. We focus on solidarity work, offering our support to prisoners in their efforts to liberate themselves and organize for their own self-defense against inhumane treatment. We function as a liaison, building bridges between inside and outside to support prisoners organizing their local chapters. We are also part of a movement led and organized by those directly impacted by incarceration: people currently inside, formerly incarcerated folks, families, friends, and other supporters. While prisoners set their own agenda, we also maintain our own principles and judgment.
Abolición y solidaridad de Oakland (OA&S por su nombre en inglés) apoya los esfuerzos de los prisioneros/as para organizar su propia defensa contra el tratado inhumano al otro lado del muro. Funcionamos como un enlace, construyendo puentes entre el interior y el exterior para apoyar a los presos a organizarse en sus capítulos locales. Abogamos por la abolición del encarcelamiento, la supremacía blanca y el capitalismo.
WHO WE ARE
We began in mid-2016 in support of the National Prison Strike, during which thousands of prisoners in dozens of states went on labor and hunger strikes. Our small group built relationships with prisoners across California, assisted with media communications, and contributed to the overall coordination and development of the national outside support network.
In the years since then, we have continued this sort of work; and as we have grown in numbers, our work has expanded to include many other projects, including local material solidarity work. Our connections include our local jail, prisons across California, and relationships with other groups and prisoners nationally.
We are an autonomous formation, operating independently of any organization. Our sole focus is building prisoner solidarity and collective power inside. Our members are of varied race and class backgrounds, including formerly incarcerated folks, tradespeople, educators, and others. We are organized mostly horizontally, with different levels of involvement depending on the scale of commitment.
WHAT WE DO
Prison authorities are used to operating in the dark. They hide what prisons are really like. When people inside speak truth to power or fight back against intolerable conditions, they are kept in the shadows — as are the ways those people are punished.
We shine a light to disperse those shadows. We help people inside address the public, and we let prison administrators know they can’t hurt our comrades without us rising up united against them. We provide support to people who make a collective challenge to the abuse they are subjected to, working to be a bridge to the outside.
At the local level, for years now we’ve provided regular material support to people being released from Santa Rita Jail. Multiple times a week, late into the night, we greet people as they’re released, offering food and rides with no strings attached. Our program has seen such success, we now offer trainings to other groups organizing their own local jail support projects. We’ve also co-created a testimonial and weekly bulletin project, starting with people in our local jail.
At the state level, we build on-going political relationships with prisoners across California, and with their families and loved ones outside. We support their ongoing efforts in numerous ways, such as helping organize rallies at facilities to demand changes to inhumane conditions. We maintain correspondence with many individual prisoners, and our mass-mailings inside include things like useful information of various sorts (like how to apply for COVID-19 stimulus checks while incarcerated), forms or surveys to document grievances, and a newsletter that includes writing by prisoners.
We hold our work as part of a larger strategy of abolition and liberation. Our day-to-day focus is on material solidarity and practical support, but our goal is not just to make a hellish environment a little more survivable. Our dream and ambition is a world without prisons. A civilization free of the entire mindset that treats human beings as disposable.
“We need society connecting us, not solely with other predominantly white social movements but also many people who survive without compromise in this world on fire. We are not individuals acting on our moral impulses—we are a social force becoming aware of its power. Becoming powerful is a matter of making our story a place to inhabit, of making our story material. We dream in the face of nightmares, not as an escape into an alternative reality but as a weapon to change this one.”
— XXXXXX, incarcerated at Lanesboro CI, Polkton, NC
To Struggle Means We’re Alive: prisoners speak out on Ferguson,
Baltimore, and the ongoing revolt against the police
POINTS OF UNITY
Our work, as an outside chapter, is to support prisoners in taking and building their own power. Prisoners set the agenda for their own pursuit of liberation.
We offer critical support, not unconditional servitude. We retain our own principles, judgment, and decision-making power. This is mutual political development. We are comrades in a struggle that grows and evolves on both sides of the wall.
We’re up-front and clear with prisoners and the public about our politics and goals.
We offer immediate material support and solidarity, not just symbolic actions and statements.
We build and maintain intentional accountability relationships with other groups and individuals, to give us perspective, critique, & feedback about ourselves and our work.
We don’t allow our work to be hijacked by people who want to use us as a platform for their own gain or other purposes.
We follow through on our commitments. Promises get kept or we don’t make them. There’s skin in the game and people are depending on us.
We advocate prison abolition, not reform. If prisoners are making demands to reform the policies at their institutions, or for legislative reform that could bring them material relief, we may support those demands – but not at the expense of pursuing abolition in the long term.
We oppose white supremacy. We consider incarceration to be, among many other things, an expression of white supremacy. We acknowledge that racism has its own nature and consequences, independent of class oppression (though often operating in conjunction with it). We challenge our white members to confront how they benefit from and exemplify the racist patterns in our society, and to fight these tendencies continually.
We reject labels given by the state such as “guilty,” “criminal,” or “gang member.” We do not choose who we work with based on these or other simple moralistic designations. We may refuse to work with prisoners who espouse ideologies opposed to these points of unity (such as white supremacists), or who will jeopardize other prisoners’ willingness to work with us (such as child molesters), but such decisions are made in the context of ongoing critical discussion.
We are organized in a mostly horizontal fashion, with three levels of membership distinguished by extent of commitment, accountability, and actual work done. We make decisions collectively and discourage authoritarian behaviors.
PUNTOS DE UNIDAD
Nuestro trabajo, como un capítulo externo, es apoyar a los prisioneros a tomar y desarrollar su propio poder. Los prisioneros establecen la agenda para su propia búsqueda a la liberación.
Ofrecemos apoyo crítico, no certitud incondicional. Mantenemos nuestros propios principios, juicio y poder de decisión. Este es el desarrollo político mutuo. Somos camaradas en una lucha que crece y evoluciona a ambos lados del muro.
Somos claros con los prisioneros y con el público sobre nuestra política y nuestras metas.
Ofrecemos apoyo material inmediato y solidaridad, no sólo acciones simbólicas y declaraciones.
Formamos y mantenemos relaciones intencionales con otros grupos e individuos, para darnos perspectiva, crítica y retroalimentación sobre nuestra organización y nuestro trabajo.
No permitimos que nuestro trabajo sea apropiado por personas que quieren usarnos como una plataforma para su propia ganancia u otros propósitos.
Cumplimos con nuestros compromisos. Las promesas se mantienen o no las hacemos. Hay personas que se ponen a riesgo y la gente depende de nosotros.
Abogamos por la abolición de las prisiones, no por reformas. Si los presos exigen reformas políticas en sus instituciones, o reformas legislativas que les puedan proporcionar alivio material, podemos apoyar esas demandas – pero no al expenso de perseguir la abolición total como meta a largo plazo.
Nos oponemos a la supremacía blanca. Consideramos que la encarcelación es, entre otras cosas, una expresión de la supremacía blanca. Reconocemos el racismo por su propia naturaleza y consecuencias, independientemente de la opresión de clase (aunque a menudo operando conjuntamente con ella). Desafiamos a nuestros miembros blancos a confrontar cómo se benefician de y ejemplifican los patrones racistas en nuestra sociedad, y a combatir continuamente estas tendencias.
Rechazamos las etiquetas dadas por el estado como “culpables”, “criminales” o “miembros de pandillas.” Nosotros no elegimos con quién trabajamos basándonos en estas u otras designaciones morales simples. Podemos negarnos a trabajar con presos que defienden ideologías opuestas a estos puntos de unidad (como los supremacistas blancos), o presos que pongan a riesgo la voluntad de otros prisioneros a trabajar con nosotros (como los abusadores de niños), pero esas decisiones se toman en el contexto de una discusión crítica.
Estamos organizados en una forma casi horizontal, con tres niveles de membresía distinguidos por el grado de compromiso, responsabilidad y trabajo real realizado. Tomamos decisiones colectivamente y disuadimos los comportamientos autoritarios.
OAKLAND ABOLITION & SOLIDARITY 