Dear Comrades,
Every year, Critical Resistance (CR) members across the country work to strengthen the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex (PIC) in a multitude of ways, and 2023 was no different. CR created organizing tools for bolstered campaign and project organizing, hosted spaces to discuss successful organizing moves, supported movement partners during calls to action and invitations to strategize together, and even distributed mutual aid resources for community members to aid in resilience. Whether sharing analysis and resources to uplift transformative possibilities, or creating organizing tools to be applied in various contexts locally or internationally, CR aims to build up our collective movements to resist oppression in all its forms. As we wrap up a generative year of movement building, we invite you to support this vital work in 2024!
Movement Building
In moments of heightened crisis such as this, CR works to uplift the connections between all our global fights for liberation – as organizations, community members, and comrades in struggle. This year, CR collaborated and deepened relationships with movement partners across many organizing sectors. Whether it was when CR members went to Atlanta to support with community canvassing to Stop Cop City, joined our movement partners at a Bay Area port to delay a US military vessel from making its way to Israel, or hosted a workshop on PIC abolition and anti-imperialism as part of organizing efforts against the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), CR has worked to deepen the connections between all our liberation struggles and strengthen movement power. We have hosted numerous workshops and trainings for movement partners to share PIC abolitionist analysis and strategy, engaged in mobilizations and strategy sessions, given testimony to decision-makers to propel our campaigns, made statements to media outlets to shift common sense and narratives toward PIC abolition, participated in panels, and hosted volunteer trainings to strengthen our collective capacity. Your steady support enables CR to continue showing up, even during moments of escalating crises, to strongly build the movement for PIC abolition alongside our partners and community members!
New Tools and Resources
Check out some of the resources CR created this year to bolster the movement for PIC abolition and apply to other liberation struggles:
- Take a look at Abolition Means No More War, a webinar on PIC abolition and Palestinian liberation, where CR and our movement partners discussed how our organizations and people everywhere can use abolitionist strategies to mount effective resistance to genocide against Palestinians.
- CR’s Close California Prisons organizers contributed to the CURB Prison Closure Roadmap on how to concretely organize for California prison closures while supporting those impacted by imprisonment and the towns where prisons would be closed. Our CR organizers also developed a new workshop as a political education resource for cross-sector movement building, focused on the intersections between labor struggles and the PIC to explore why prison closure is an urgent workers’ struggle in CA. If you’d like us to host this workshop for your workplace, request a workshop here!
- 2024 has seen two timely issues of The Abolitionist: Issue 39 on reproductive justice and PIC abolition which printed in June, and Issue 40 on control units, which is printing this week in December. Subscribe yourself or a loved one to CR’s newspaper The Abolitionist today to support this radical cross-wall political education project. You can sign up for a paid subscription for yourself or other people. If you know someone who is locked up in a jail, detention center or prison and they would like to receive the paper, you can sign them up for a free subscription here.
- Listen to and circulate CR’s “Over the Wall” podcast with Beyond Prisons discussing CR’s The Abolitionist newspaper! Our first episode, Beyond Abortion: Reproductive Justice and Abolitionist Struggle, covers issue 39 of the newspaper, and Episode 2 discussing issue 40, “ Snuffing Out Revolution: Control Units & Resistance,” will be airing later this month (Stay tuned!). CR also hosted an accompanying webinar for Issue #39 in September – Our Bodies, Our Freedom: Abolishing the PIC Post Roe – which tied together struggles for PIC abolition, reproductive justice, queer liberation, resisting the family policing system, and more. Watch the recording here!
Donate today to help CR reach out $35,000 year-end goal and support these vital organizing resources to build a world without cages or walls! Your support bolsters our ability to create spaces and organizing tools to strategize toward PIC abolition!
CR Merch – last call for holiday orders!
Another way to show you’re on “team abolition” is by wearing CR’s merch! Purchasing CR merch is a wonderful way to sustain our PIC abolitionist organizing and share your abolitionist spirit! Give the gift of abolition today by treating yourself or a loved one to CR’s variety of hoodies, crewnecks, shirts, and totes. If you want your CR merch to arrive before the holidays, please make your orders no later than this Thursday, December 14th.
Thank you for keeping CR strong and grounded in the new year and beyond!
In struggle and solidarity,
– Critical Resistance