Media contact:

All media inquiries contact: media@incarceratedworkers.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Jailhouse Lawyers Speak Launches 2024 SHUT ‘EM DOWN Abolition Demonstrations

Action Dates: December 6-13, 2024

Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, on behalf of other inside collectives, announces the 2024 SHUT ‘EM DOWN Abolition Demonstrations dedicated to advocating to end legalized slavery and dismantling the prison industrial slave complex (abolition). Together, we are continuing to advance the movement for abolition.

This campaign will be a virtual campaign in part, with calls for autonomous demonstrations outside jails and prisons. Simultaneously, we are encouraging imprisoned people across the country to HALT ALL LABOR and ALL commissary spending for one week. Already, sixteen confined locations have committed to shutdowns, with the anticipation of more joining as the message resonates and the word spreads inside. This SHUT ‘EM DOWN week will serve as a bridge to dialogue and building unity inside as a prelude to the forthcoming RAISING HELL campaign.

One aim is to bring a renewed national awareness, urgency and direct actions within and outside the movement that’s dismantling the prison industrial slave complex to include repealing the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, which allows legalized slavery.

Through a series of virtual solidarity music and poetry events, panel discussions [platform to be announced], demos outside places of imprisonment and labor halts inside we will carve out a forced space to be heard and for organizers to network in order to carry the work forward with additional support after 2024. JLS is urging individuals and groups to organize and participate in self-directed actions and virtual events and activities that align with the SHUT ‘EM DOWN Abolition campaign’s objectives.

We invite individuals, activists, grassroots organizers, organizations, labor unions, and communities dedicated to social justice and liberation to join us in this week of SHUT ‘EM DOWN Abolition demos. Your involvement is pivotal in amplifying the voices silenced by confinement and championing the cause of abolition.

For the next several months take action as an individual or organized team:

1. Organize Email And Phone Blasts To Congress: Demand repeal of the 13th Amendment and halt funding for new prisons.

2. Email and Phone Blast Congress: Demand repeal of Truth in Sentencing

3. Write Inside: letter writing campaign to get message inside to HALT ALL work and spending nationwide during SHUTEM DOWN week

Hit the concrete:

1. Demo at Jails/Prisons/Immigration Centers: Pick a location and spread the word!

2. Demo at your local politician business

3. Demo at businesses that use prison labor or support making profits off people in prison

4. Create a Flyer: Advertise your demo and amplify the message

5. Banner and graffiti messaging

Endorse the 2024 SHUT 'EM DOWN, share your flyers, actions and locations with us to amplify the movement at

https://www.jailhouselawyersspeak.com/shutemdown

Disseminate this statement to every prison cell block to every street corner. Resist the silence that has allowed tougher laws, new prisons, unsafe prison work conditions, bloated police budgets, cop cities, more police on the streets, more funding toward prisoncrats agendas, a surge in police shootings, and ballooned war funding – all while accountability dwindles and USA racism mutates donning a more insidious disguise domestically and internationally.

Abolition is the only solution!

We move forward with these words “Free all Palestinians held captive by Israel. Free All Political Prisoners. End all genocides. End prison slavery!”

#endprisonslavery #endlegalslavery #shutemdownabolition

In solidarity,
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak

** Participating people imprisoned that experience retaliation due to the 2024 SHUT ‘EM DOWN Abolition Demonstrations can write directly to us for the NLG Mass Incarceration Committee retaliation forms

Mailing Address:
JAILHOUSE LAWYERS SPEAK
PO BOX 673
MERCER, PA 16137