Carving Out Rights From Inside The Prison Industrial Complex

A bold statement for those living within the industrial prison complex, realized in block prints of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Inside prisons across the U.S., incarcerated people struggle everyday for their basic rights, claiming again and again their status as human beings. Here, within the largest democracy in the world (conditional though it may be), incarcerated people suffer indignities from terrible living conditions to physical and sexual violence, all under the aegis of justice. As a tool to discuss the limits and ideals of human rights within a carceral state, artists at Stateville Prison, who struggle daily for their own human rights, created block prints of each article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The process of drawing, carving, and inking each print created the time and space for artists to critique and reflect on the ways the declaration is simultaneously aspirational, strategic, and fraught with the legacy of the violence of its founding states. For universal human rights to be relevant, it is essential that the most impacted people be heard and their vision of human rights centered. This book features the 30 brilliantly crafted prints presented alongside the corresponding articles from the declaration. The artists and authors ask essential questions of what it means to build a culture of human rights from below rather than institute rights from above. What happens when people denied their rights, begin to reimagine and carve them out once again? This project was inspired by Meredith Stern's Universal Declaration of Human Rights print project and developed in a class taught by Aaron Hughes through the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project.

The Routledge Companion to Art and Activism in the Twenty-First Century brings together a wide range of geographical, cultural, historical, and conceptual perspectives in a single volume of new essays that facilitate a deeper understanding of the field of art activism as it stands today and as it looks towards the future. The book is a resource for multiple fields, including art activism, socially engaged art, and contemporary art, that represent the depth and breadth of contemporary activist art worldwide. Contributors highlight predominant lines of inquiry, uncover challenges faced by scholars and practitioners of activist art, and facilitate dialogue that might lead to new directions for research and practice. The editors hope that the volume will incite further conversation and collaboration among the various participants, practitioners, and researchers concerned with the relationship between art and activism. The audience includes scholars and professors of modern and contemporary art, students in both graduate and upper-level undergraduate programs, as well as artists, curators, and museum professionals. Each chapter can stand on its own, making the companion a flexible resource for students and educators working in art history, museum studies, community practice/socially engaged art, political science, sociology, and ethnic and cultural studies.

Ex Black Panther and now a leading academic dissident, Angela Davis has long been at the fore of the fight against the expansion of prisons. In this recent talk she reviews the background for the current prison building binge, the effects of mass incarceration on communities of colour, and particularly women of colour who are now one of the fastest growing segments of the US prison population. she also offers a personal view of her own time in prison and the imprisonment of others close to her. Double compact disc.

The United States boasts the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. Perhaps not coincidentally, mass incarceration has been a financial boon to the private prison industry. Privatization of prisons is seen by some as a solution to state governments' budget problems, but the mission of these for-profit companies is not necessarily aligned with the reform system. The diverse perspectives in this volume examine the history of private prisons in the United States, whether they are more concerned with rehabilitation or financial profit, and what impact they have on criminal justice laws and society at large.

The prison business in the US is not based on locking up, punishing, or rehabilitating dangerous hoodlums. Follow the money and find how the prison-industrial complex fits into the New World Order of free trade and imprisoned people, the war on drugs, and capital flight.