Letter From a Collective Editor
Hello! I am excited to be editing the Abolition Apostles newsletter for February! I have been part of this collective since fall 2021 and am involved with the Penpal Back End Working Group (if you’ve been matched with a penpal recently or emailed us recently, you may have gotten an email from me!). I’m also a member of the Abolition Apostles Book Club, where we read and analyze fiction through an abolitionist lens. I am based in Massachusetts where I have lived for about ten years.
Please do not hesitate to join our Slack if you want to get more involved with the day-to-day work of Abolition Apostles. If you want to get in touch, I can be reached via email (jviola95@gmail.com), Instagram (@joeviola3), or through the Abolition Apostles Slack.
-Joe V.
February at Abolition Apostles
Announcements
We’re in the process of choosing a new name for our collective! Please submit ideas here. We encourage everyone to ask their penpals for suggestions and submit them via this form as well!
Upcoming Meetings
Refer to the calendar website, Slack, and Instagram for any schedule adjustments or additions, and meeting links that haven’t been generated at the time of this letter.
February 27 (5:30pm PST/8:30pm EST): Texas Penpal Strategy Meeting
Last year, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shifted all mail to a central mailing facility and are seeking to phase out all physical mail communication in favor of standardizing Securus, a private for-profit e-communications company. This new policy has resulted in delays of up to two months in receiving letters from incarcerated individuals. If you have a penpal in Texas, you may have been impacted by these delays. A group of outside penpals came together last month to brainstorm ideas for challenging this system. All are welcome to attend these meetings, especially if the new Texas mail policy has made communicating with your penpal difficult.
March 4th (5pm PST/8pm EST): Outside Penpal Support Squad Meeting
A lightly facilitated space to reflect on relationships with our penpals and support one another through any challenges we may be facing. Meetings are usually on the fourth Mondays of the month. Please note that February’s meeting is postponed to 3/4.
March 5th (5:30pm PST/8:30pm EST): Penpals Backend meeting.
This working group coordinates penpal matching, our database and website, and more. Join the meeting to learn how you can be involved.
New Penpal orientations: February 26, March 10th, March 25th, April 8th at 5pm PST/8pm EST.
Volunteer
Volunteering = building community. Talking within your circles about your experience penpalling is huge! Our current wait time for people on the inside to be matched is about 18 months. Every connection helps. Join a penpal orientation to start writing to a penpal, join a meeting above, or keep an eye out on our Slack channel for more opportunities.
Resources
Check out our website!
Support
We accept donations via OpenCollective, where you can view details of our expenses. More details on our webpage.
Pen Pal Spotlight
Geno C.
Geno has been a part of the Abolition Apostles community for several years and was a frequent caller to our hotline (where incarcerated people could get to know outside volunteers, seek resources and support, and have outside community members advocate for them). When the hotline folded during our transition, I kept in touch with Geno by email and phone. I always enjoy talking with him – especially when the absurdity of current events and politics is discussed!
Geno’s sentence is ending soon and he will be going home to the Osh Kosh, Wisconsin area by the end of the year!! This is of course exciting news and we are thrilled for him! Geno has big plans post-incarceration that includes trying to patent and sell his invention Contrap Cap – a device that discreetly covers the tops of beverages when consuming them in public to prevent tampering and spiking. In addition, Geno will have to secure housing, basic necessities, and all the other expenses for day-to-day living.
As Geno prepares for his freedom, I have been working with other friends of Geno to crowdfund – both for his invention and for basic reentry expenses. Geno is a dedicated friend and family member, passionate and inventive entrepreneur, and all around great guy whose compassion for others shines through to all who talk to him (and is evident in his invention), so any contributions to his GoFundMe would be greatly appreciated!
Likewise, if anyone has a laptop (in working condition) that they are no longer using and would like to donate to Geno, or know any organizations in Wisconsin that can help, please get in touch with me as I am helping him secure a computer.
Abolitionist News
A (small) victory: Massachusetts announced that its oldest prison, MCI-Concord, will be closing by this summer. While the remaining individuals incarcerated there will be transferred to other prisons, its closure is due to the decline in incarceration rates in Massachusetts resulting in the prison operating at 50 percent capacity. Read more.
A setback: A report by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General found that the Bureau of Prisons “contributed to the deaths of hundreds of federal prison inmates...The report found that recurring failures within the Bureau of Prisons, such as inaccurate mental health screenings or prison staff missing inmate rounds, led to inmates dying in federal custody.” Read more.
Art From The Inside
Kenneth West is an artist, writer, poet, screenwriter, and inside pen pal based in Texas. Last year, Kenneth donated a piece of his art to Abolition Apostles: “Prison Lives Matter,” which now lives at the Social Justice Center (Abolition Apostles' fiscal sponsor) in Madison, Wisconsin.
A major part of my journey to prison abolition was through Christianity, especially liberation theology. I was intrigued by the religious symbolism of Kenneth’s work, and wrote to him to learn more about his inspiration. Kenneth shared that his Christian faith inspires his work, and gratefully sent me a piece of his work entitled “You Too Brutus.”
In an accompanying letter, Kenneth told me that he suspected that this piece would be controversial. Perhaps you can see why! But often the best art draws the viewer into dialogue and action through discomfort. Kenneth noted that the frying pan and the blood stains represent the ways that Jesus has been “fried,” betrayed, and crucified daily, even by those who purport to be Christians.
I was struck by his comparison of Jesus to figures like Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King. Kenneth explained that he finds that the world views Jesus as a weak and docile pacifist, “instead of the radical revolutionary that he was” — just one way that Jesus is “fried” and crucified on the daily. He noted that “revisionist history seeks to blunt the sharp edges of all leaders and revolutionaries,” like sanitizing the end of apartheid as being accomplished by the “goodwill of the white South Africans” rather than the radical struggle of Mandela and the ANC. Likewise, Kenneth wrote that Dr. King is “held up as a great pacifist, but from reading his actual writings I learned that Dr. King was actually quite radical,” citing his speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silent,” “but the power structure likes to focus on the pacifist part.”
Even if the Christian imagery does not resonate with you, I hope you agree that Kenneth’s art is powerful and forces us to reckon with the ways that revolutionary figures and movements have been sanitized. You can browse more of his artwork here. Kenneth is also a published poet, and I have been enjoying his collection United In Struggle: Poetry for the People. I encourage anyone who loves poetry to check it out!
Political Education
Outside pen pal Dale S. shared this wonderful archival resource of newspapers written by and for incarcerated people. A great resource for all abolitionists who are also history nerds!
Kenneth West’s artwork has inspired me to dig back into liberation theology, and one book I recently picked up is Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible by the Palestinian liberation theologian Mitri Raheb. I read Raheb’s new book as the death toll in Gaza approaches 30,000 as the genocidal campaign against Palestine by Israel continues. As an American from a Christian background, I appreciate Raheb’s exploration of the theological roots of US Christian Zionism and the impact this ideology has on American political and material support for Israel. Considering the deep connections between state violence in the US and Palestine, including in policing and carceral systems (see Jewish Voice for Peace’s Deadly Exchange initiative), this book is a must read for all abolitionists!
Connect
Email: AbolitionApostles@gmail.com