Perilous Chronicle Perilous Chronicle

Summary
Welcome back to the Perilous Podcast, a news and oral history project featuring original interviews with prisoners and detainees who have participated in or witnessed protests, uprisings and other forms of unrest behind bars. We also gather analysis and insight from researchers and advocates in an effort to build a better understanding of systems of incarceration and collective action and strategy.

In this episode we hear an audio version of Over a Decade of Resistance to the Northwest Detention Center written by Ridley Seawood and Alexa Villatoro. 

Visit our website to view the show notes for this episode. 

Welcome to another episode of the Perilous Podcast. This week we bring you an audio version of our recently published article on police surveillance of activists in Tucson, Arizona, during the 2020 wave of protests in response to the murder of George Floyd. The original article can be found here.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Perilous Podcast. Recently our capacity for producing podcasts has fallen off a bit. We send our apologies to our listeners for the gap in episodes. This month, we bring you an audio version of our article on the death of anarchist prisoner Brian McCarvill, who tragically died from COVID while still inside, on his 68th birthday. Our sincere condolences to those who knew Brian.

We would also like to take this time to let you all know about a new website for indigenous Yaqui land defender, Fidencio Aldama Perez, from the northern Mexican state of Sonora. He is currently sentenced to 15 years and six months on trumped up charges. More info can be found in both Spanish and English at fidencioaldama.org.

Before we get in to the content for today's podcast, we have a few headlines from some of the current struggles ongoing inside prisons and detention centers.

Near Montgomery, Alabama at the Kilby  Correctional Facility, 11 imprisoned people have been on hunger strike since January 1st in response to the conditions of their captivity. The strike was launched to coincide with the Alabama prison strike/30 Day Economic Blackout called for by the Free Alabama Movement and is  planned to conclude on January 31st. The hunger strikers are refusing food and medicine until they see steps taken to curb the rampant prisoner on prisoner and guard on prisoner violence, the smuggling of drugs by guards into the prison, and the deadly impact of the Arizona Department of Correction's negligence in preventing the spread of COVID19. On January 4th, prisoner Ronnie Miller, was beaten by a guard in retaliation for his participation in the strike he is now out of the infirmary and recovering in his cell. See our show notes for more details  and for information on how to write these 11 individuals.


write them here
on the black out
'I Feel Like I'm Finna Die': Why Everyone in Alabama's Prison System Has a Death Sentence

On January 4th, 60 ICE detainees held in the Hudson County Jail in New Jersey launched a hunger strike in response to the inhumane conditions and injustice of their captivity. The strikers call on those outside to join the fight against racist immigration policy, family separation, medical neglect, and incarceration. According to immigrant support group Abolish Ice NY-NJ, as many as 146 people have participated in hunger strike. 40 detainees transferred to Orange County Correctional Facility and 3 strikers placed in solitary in retaliation for their participation in the strike.

More info:


Prison Hunger Strikes Continue In NJ As ICE Detainees Fear COVID
Immigration advocates say detainees are being transferred out of Hudson jail; county and ICE say that’s not true

As of January 8th, Victor Fonseca reached 50 days of hunger striking in North West Detention Center. Victor is now joined by four women hunger striking. These detainees strike to demand that everyone in solitary be released, that everyone who is sick be released, that all detainees be freed. Follow La Resistencia North West for updates.

On this episode, we wanted to try something a little different. This past November, the Perilous Chronicle released a data analysis and article about the first 90 days of prisoner revolt after COVID-19. This was exciting for us as a project and as people concerned with prisoners and their resistance. So we wanted to talk directly with our data editor, to give folks an inside look into thePerilous Chronicle project and why we think this type of analysis is unique and important for the movement against prisons both inside and outside the prison walls.

View the Full Report

Special music interlude from NoName

This episode was first featured on "This is America", a project of It's Going Down.

This week, we cover the prison evacuations in Oregon as wildfires tear through the state and down the coast. 

In order to get a closer look at the situation, Perilous correspondent Ryan Fatica spoke with a prisoner named Bryan MacDonand who was evacuated to the Oregon State Penitentiary. Bryan described the conditions he is living through as the constant threat of COVID-19 collides with the dangers of smoke inhalation, lack of adequate food and medication and the violence of the prison environment.

For more info, check out the full article on Perilous Chronicle.

Welcome back to the Perilous Podcast, a news and oral history project featuring original interviews with prisoners and detainees who have participated in or witnessed protests, uprisings and other forms of unrest behind bars. We also gather analysis and insight from researchers and advocates in an effort to build a better understanding of systems of incarceration and collective action and strategy.

This week, we cover the hunger strike that occurred at the Pine Prairie ICE Detention Center in Louisiana. In order to better understand what happened at Pine Prairie and the context in which the protest occurred, Perilous correspondent Ryan Fatica spoke with Sylvie Bello, founder and CEO of the Cameroonian American Council. Sylvie, who is in touch with the strikers and their families, was able to paint a vivid picture of the conditions that have led the detainees at Pine Prairie to put their bodies on the line.

Perilous Chronicle is run by a small group of dedicated volunteers and very little funding. If you value our work, please support us by visiting our website and donating via PayPal or Patreon and rate and follow us on iTunes. With your help, we can expand our efforts to track, document and archive the stories of prisoners and detainees who are standing up for themselves in the midst of overwhelming odds. Perilous relies on crowdsourced information for our grassroots tracking and archival efforts. If you have information or are in touch with a prisoner or detainee who has witnessed or been involved in a protest or other form of unrest, please get in touch with us at info@perilouschronicle.com.

For show notes, please visit our website at perilouschronicle.com.