Prisoners’ Justice Day events organized by Abolition Coalition members are taking place coast-to-coast on August 10th to commemorate deaths in custody and demand an end to the violence of imprisonment

In the wake of a never ending wave of deaths by imprisonment and the continued onslaught of carceral violence, Prisoners’ Justice Day (PJD) is being observed tomorrow for the forty-sixth year through one-day hunger and work strikes behind bars, as well as solidarity events beyond the walls across the world demanding prisons change to the extent possible while struggles to abolish human caging continue. PJD was first observed on August 10th 1975 by people imprisoned at Millhaven Institution whose central demand was the abolition of solitary confinement exactly a year to the day Eddie Nalon was killed by imprisonment when he was left alone to die in a segregation cell in the federal penitentiary located near Kingston, Ontario.

The observance of PJD is especially poignant this year. Johanne Wendy Bariteau, a PJD event organizer in Montreal with lived experience of imprisonment, explains: “With billions being spent by governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the capacity exists to make additional investments in people and communities in the form of housing, income, peer, health, mental health, and other supports to safely divert and decarcerate people from prisons and other carceral sites like migrant detention centres and psychiatric institutions. To date, however, many governments have released far too few prisoners, exposing human beings – including Indigenous and Black people who are mass incarcerated on Turtle Island – to heightened risks of contracting COVID-19 and premature death”.

Magín Manolete of the Vancouver PJD Committee adds: “Prisoners and allies observing PJD have been calling for an end to segregation and all other injustices of the prison system for almost 50 years. Despite Supreme Court rulings to end indefinite solitary confinement, segregation is still being used by CSC, provincial corrections, youth detention, immigration detention and psychiatric institutions. In the name of the COVID-19 response, physical distancing, medical quarantine and self-isolation have locked-down, segregated, and isolated prisoners from their families and communities while outbreaks still occurred. Prisoners’ access to temporary absences, parole and programs that would allow them to be released have too often been denied. The already antiquated, inhumane, and genocidal function of the prison has become more powerful and far-reaching. This violence must stop!”

Alanna Fricker from the Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project states: “People behind and beyond bars observing PJD this year are demanding an immediate end to carceral policies and practices that pose a significant risk to public health by keeping people locked-up in congregate settings known to be vectors of communicable diseases like COVID-19, as well as undermine community safety by profoundly harming prisoners who will eventually be released”. In addition to echoing demands from inside and outside prison walls on PJD, groups that are part of the Abolition Coalition are mobilizing from coast-to-coast, including through the 10 Days of Abolition and 10 Days of Prisoner Resistance public education campaigns. Several Abolition Coalition member groups are also organizing PJD events on August 10th.