ABOLITION
EVERYDAY SH!T: THE PILOT ISSUE
Content Notice: state violence, racism, self-harm, prison abuse, censorship, solitary confinement
The W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction and Prison Radio have a relationship that precedes the rebirth of Abolition Journal. Prison Radio Legal Director Noelle Hanrahan participated in our first cohort. We all maintain a duty to the work to free Mumia Abu Jamal in his lifetime; this was before he would become our first-ever Abolition School graduation speaker. We’ve spread their calls through our networks and uplifted the opportunity for further community fundraising. We not only believe in their mission, but more so recognize that their work is integral to advancing the work of liberation. We are entirely grateful to be able to reprint work from their incarcerated correspondents into our pilot platform, while we intend to continue to imagine together how to uplift the voices of incarcerated people in the ongoing struggle to destroy all the cages that stand against our liberation.
A contribution has been arranged for this privilege, yet the work of Prison Radio requires more expansive public material support. They have no large foundation support and rely on committed supporters to help keep their phone lines open and the rent paid. We invite anyone engaging with these stories to please make a gift today.
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Selections were curated by Andrés González-Bonillas of the Abolition Journal Working Group
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I NOW FACE RETALIATION AND CENSORSHIP FOR REPORTING PRISON ABUSES | KEVIN “RASHID” JOHNSON
(3/20/2025)
In Oct 2024 the story broke that numerous prisoners at Red Onion State Prison had set themselves on fire in desperate response to racism and abuse at the Virginia prison that has an extensive history of corruption and racism. It was through audio recordings that I made by phone on various outlets, including Prison Radio and Prison Riot Radio, that the story got out. Numerous media outlets picked up the story, as Chadwick Dotson, the director of the Va prison system, the warden of Red Onion and other officials, repeatedly lied and denied the prisoner self burnings and abusive conditions at Red Onion and other rural Va prisons. These lies were exposed and also generated public protests and staged responses by Va legislators.
Each one of the prisoners who set themselves on fire that spoke to the media and legislators were met with retaliation. They were assaulted by guards, had property destroyed, and had their phone, secure email, and postal mail access cut. The objective of officials was to suppress exposure.
As the source of exposure of the foul conditions at Red Onion and other remote Va prisons, and being the one person who persisted in refuting the series of lies and coverups by Va officials in respond to these exposures, it was only a matter of time before I was targeted.
On Feb 23, 2025, I wrote and sent out a followup report on prisoners at Red Onion continuing to set themselves on fire in desperate response to continuing abuses at the prison and proven empty promises by officials to address those conditions.1 I promptly recorded the report on Prison Radio and Prison Riot Radio by phone. Israel Hamilton, the warden at Keen Mountain, a remote Va prison where I am confined admitted that he and VaDOC investigative staff have been closely monitoring my communications to the outside.
In immediate response to my phone call to Prison Radio and Prison Riot Radio, and coverage by the Va Mercury newspaper of my exposures of conditions in the state’s remote prisons, Keen Mountain investigators charged me with two disciplinary infractions on Feb 25, 2025 for “unauthorized use/abuse of mail/telephone….”
The basis of the infractions were calls I made on that day to my publisher and a call I made to Prison Riot Radio that was listened in on by Keen Mountain investigators Rasnake and C. Cole. In both cases I was accused of making 3-way calls, something for which prisoners are NEVER given infractions. The timing and basis of the infractions were clear retaliation, both in fact and law, and intended to create a basis to cut off my ability to use the prison phone system.2
On Feb 26, 2025 I spoke with warden Hamilton, who came into my cellblock, about the infractions. He admitted they were in retaliation and response to my media exposures of Va prisons, but claimed it was at the prompting of officials at VaDOC headquarters and Western regional office. He stated if I didn’t draw media, public or legal attention to Keen Mountain, he would make the charge “go away.” I made no such agreement.
The first infraction was heard on Mar 5, 2025, I was found guilty of the report and a penalty of 45 days telephone restriction was imposed. I immediately informed outside supporters of the penalty, and they went to work generating protest. Which incensed Hamilton and his colleagues.
Under the guise of imposing the phone restriction Hamilton and his staff deactivated my telephone pin number so I cannot use the phone system at all; thus eliminating my ability to call my attorneys, to contact the VaDOC grievance hotline to contest obstructions of my use of the grievance procedure and so on.
My second infraction was set for hearing on Mar 12, 2025. On that date Hamilton had a guard R. Smith fabricate and sign a statement that I refused to attend my hearing and that I refused to sign the statement myself at 9:53am. Unit surveillance camera footage will show this guard NEVER confronted me to attend any hearing nor to sign any form. His entire account was falsified. Falsifying state records is a crime in Va and carries a mandatory penalty of termination of state employment and the offender cannot work for the Va government again. As a result of the false claim that that I refused to appear at the hearing I was found guilty and had a $15 fine imposed.
In addition to these retaliatory actions against my phone use and to create pretexts to cut off my phone access, my secure emails and postal mail have also been targeted.
Numerous outgoing recent emails I have written on the prison’s secure email system containing articles and messages have been deleted, and not forwarded, without notice or explanation. This is being done by the warden and investigative staff.
My legal mail has also been targeted.
On Mar 7, 2025 I was delivered a piece of legal mail from a federal court in a pending case by investigator Coles and recorded by Rasnake on her body camera. The postdate showed the court mailed it to me on Feb 13, 2025. The mailing itself set me a Mar 6, 2025 filing deadline. Rasnake attempted to engage me in a dialogue about me supposedly making 3-way calls, but I questioned why my legal mail had been held for three weeks before being delivered to me. Where they staged the delivery to elicit something incriminating against me on body camera, they actually created video evidence of illegally withholding my legal mail.
In addition five incoming mailings from a supporter Kevin Jeanes were denied delivery on Mar 13th upon false claims that they all contained names and numbers of other prisoners. The mailings actually contained news articles about my reports on Va prison conditions and other matters related to the VaDOC. On Mar 7, 2025 a “letter” from the Revolutionary Prisoners’ Literature Fund was denied for no just reason. As were numerous other items of mail.
Also I have attempted to file written complaints on all of these issues, yet the grievance officer here at Keen Mountain refuses to process them, while I am unable, because of my telephone pin having been deactivated, to contact the grievance hotline on the prisoner phone system to make a complaint of these complaint and grievance obstructions.
Suddenly, after my report on Feb 23rd about Red Onion prisoners continuing in desperate response to continuing abuses at the prison to set themselves on fire despite empty promises by officials to investigate and reform conditions there, all of my media and avenues of communication have been targeted. It was bound to happen, after their prior failed attempts to suppress my continuing exposure of them by their lying to the public, attempting to slander me in the media and block journalists’ efforts to contact me, and so on.
This is actually the second time I’ve been targeted in this manner for reporting on the self-immolations at Red Onion. It occurred the first time while I was still confined at Red Onion, after I exposed the first round of self-immolations in Oct 2024 on Prison Radio. As Noel Hanrahan, the director of Prison Radio reported in the Inquest on Feb 27, 2025, I was thrown in solitary confinement at Red Onion and had my phone access cut off for that first Prison Radio report.3
These are the methods of officials that I explained in my article, “Ignore, Isolate, Discredit, Kill: The Official Response to Critical Exposure.”4 Methods that we must rally the masses to oppose.
Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!
1Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Red Onion Prisoners Continue to Set Themselves on Fire in Desperate Response to Ongoing Abuses” (2025) http://rashidmod.com/?p=3750
2“The First Amendment forbids prison officials from retaliating against prisoners for exercising the right of free speech.” Farrow v. West, 320 F. 3d 1235, 1248 (2003). The courts have held that retaliation may not take forms that in other instances might have been otherwise legitimate.
3Jennifer Black & Noel Hanrahan, “When Fire is the Only Way Out” INQUEST (Feb 27, (2025) http://inquest.org/when-fire-is-the-only-way-out/
4http://rashidmod.com/?p=3687
Knowledgeborn is currently housed in California’s notorious supermax in Pelican Bay. People who want to express support for him can call that prison at 707 465 1000.
90 DAYS PROBATION FOR FILING A GRIEVANCE | KRYSTAL CLARK
DIRECT SUPPORT TO FREE KRYSTAL CLARK | Artwork and animation by Tina Orlandini for AgitArte
(03/31/25)
“This is going too far. I matter. We matter. My life matter. They life matter. Our health matter. We do not deserve this. We stand for something. I stand for me. I stand for all. This is unacceptable.”
Hi everybody, this is Krystal calling from the Valley of Death. Been trying to stay strong. Been really down for some days, my breathing and everything. Dr. Ellison, my guy, he is such a evil doctor, like, I don’t know how, I don’t just don’t know how he got licensed or anything. This is sad. I went over there, and he didn’t do anything. Just, you know, playing with my health, playing with my life. This is unacceptable what’s going on. It’s getting hot. Y’all know how mold grow really, really bad when the prison gets affected with it and I’m highly allergic to it. People don’t get it. It’s bad. It affects me really bad. I cannot keep on going through this. I don’t know how much my body can take of this. It’s just heartbreaking. It’s really sad.
And another thing, it’s not just only him. The warden, nobody will not doing anything and not paying attention and don’t care. This is the things they do to me. And then when I speak out and try to fight and get help, they–it’s just torture. This is retaliation. Harassing me every day. I’m on grievance restriction for 90 days for grieving them and fighting for my health and writing them up for what they doing wrong. So, I’m on 90 days restriction? That’s totally unacceptable what they are doing. Denying the grievance so they can’t [unclear]. Not even calling me out, not even [unclear], not even looking into it, just denying it.
This is crazy. How could they keep on getting away with this? 15 years? It’s been 15 years, and they still don’t care. This is unacceptable. The way we living, when is gonna to get help in this place? They came to the unit, got all our blankets, some of them was changing them, give us all dirty things to change our blankets and bring us blankets with blood, hair, spots, oil on these blankets. This is unacceptable. We get too much money to be getting used stuff! Too much money! Where’s the money going?! Where are they spending the money at? I would like to know where’s the money going, for us to be living like this. You just painting over this mold. You just painting our water fountain it seems, not even changing the pipes, still infected water. What is going on in the facility? Bugs in the food. Girl found a big bug while she eating the meatball. A big, huge bug was cooked inside of the food. What is going on? This is wrong.
We don’t deserve to get treated like this. Step in and do something warden, step in and do something. How [unclear] come in and see how this prison is running and how we living in here. This is, one more thing, I’ve been, so much, telling it, speaking out, this is unacceptable. We are dying. We are sick in here. People need help. We need help in here. Is somebody going to help? Why? Why is nothing being done in here? The medical field should not even be here. Did they pass the test? We need to be looking into that. What do they, what do they have on they records, cause sure as hell if I was a nurse and a doctor, I wouldn’t be working in no facility like this, and what’s going on this facility. So, that tell you right here, it’s something on they background we need to be looking at. This is going too far. I matter. We matter. My life matter. They life matter. Our health matter. We do not deserve this. We stand for something. I stand for me. I stand for all. This is unacceptable. Just because we in prison don’t mean that we don’t matter and we do not have rights! We have rights!
Krystal Clark is a Correspondent for Prison Radio, reporting on the conditions at Women’s Huron Valley in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Krystal is in critical need of our help. For the last 13 years, she has been slowly tortured by the conditions inside the prison. Exposure to mold, lack of basic health care, and retaliation from guards for speaking out have caused Krystal’s health to deteriorate so dramatically that her face has suffered paralysis and she relies on a walker for mobility. Krystal is 38 years old. When she entered Women’s Huron Valley in 2011 she was a healthy woman and now, a doctor outside of the prison has assured her she won’t survive if she stays at Huron Valley.
TOUCH AND GO, FROM NO MOON (2025) | SPOON JACKSON
This is Spoon Jackson of Rabbits of Realness. And I’m here to let you know about the visual album, No Moon, on Spoon Jackson – YouTube. It just came out last Saturday. There was a release party in New York, Manhattan, where it had a packed audience, and they had 18 different filmmakers, put visuals to 14 songs that’s on the album. And there was a petition. We launched two at that time on Change.org, to Free Spoon Jackson before 50 years, cuz I’m coming up on 50 years in prison, incarcerated.
So, I just wanted to let people know about that and hopefully get them to go to my YouTube station and you know, and share the notice about the petition, and hopefully check out the visual album, cuz if you like it, go ahead and get it. If not, that’s beautiful too. But I think you will enjoy it, because, like I said, we got 18 different filmmakers involved in the album from all over the world, from Germany and Sweden and America.
Spoon Jackson was sentenced to LWOP (Life Without the Possibility of Parole). He turned his life around in prison through remorse, self-examination, and hard work in numerous rehabilitative programs. He learned to process and express emotions and developed into a mature, empathetic humanitarian with a social conscience. Spoon has a large international audience deeply moved by the wisdom he’s earned during his incarceration.