U.S. tops world in prisoners
Why Mumia symbolizes struggle vs. jails
By Gloria Verdieu
From a talk at the Sept. 21-22 Workers World Party
conference.
Workers World Party and others have made Mumia Abu-Jamal's
case a top priority for many years. The international movements
to Free Mumia have been working hard to make his name a
household word.
Why is Mumia's case so important to us? Because of who he
is. Mumia is a true revolutionary who since joining the Black
Panthers at age 15 has continued to speak out against war,
racism and imperialism.
His case has become synonymous with the struggle against
police brutality, racist terror and state oppression--all of
which have become more profound in our communities. People of
color, and poor and working class people generally, are getting
a deeper understanding of the reality that Mumia could be any
one of us.
We believe that if the power of the people is victorious in
freeing Mumia, this will open many doors to freeing all of our
political prisoners, including Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli,
Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Sekou Cinque, Jamil Al-Amin, Herman Wallace,
Albert Woodfox, Sara Olson, the MOVE 9 and hundreds more. We
haven't forgotten the five Cuban prisoners and all the
thousands who are being illegally detained because of this
so-called war on terrorism.
Mumia has been on death row for over 20 years. He is
certainly not alone. The total number of death row inmates in
the U.S. is 3,718, the overwhelming majority poor and people
and color. California is the leader with over 600, followed by
Texas with 457, Florida with 388, and Pennsylvania, where Mumia
is being held, has 247. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated
executions in 1976, Texas has executed 281, Virginia 86 and
California 10.
In a report by Victor L. Streib, professor of law at Ohio
Northern University, there are hundreds of juveniles on U.S.
death row--that is, youths who were arrested when under the age
of 18 and sentenced to death.
Over 200 youths have been sentenced to death since 1973 with
Texas, Florida, and Alabama accounting for half of them. Of the
219 death sentences, 81 remain in litigation. One hundred
eighteen have been reversed or commuted.
Gary Graham, also known as Shaka Sankofa, was one of 21
people executed who were convicted as juveniles. The others
included 11 Black males and one Latino male.
The majority of countries have signed international
agreements prohibiting the execution of juvenile offenders. The
U.S. is the only industrialized country that has refused to
adhere to these agreements.
The U.S. has five percent of the world's population and 25
percent of the world's prison population. Some 80 percent of
the inmates are people of color.
As of 2002, the U.S. has a prison population rate of 690 per
100,000 people. China's rate is less than one-sixth that of the
U.S.
In the U.S., there are over 6.6 million adults on probation,
in jail or prison, and on parole within the criminal justice
system. One in eight black males between the ages of 21 and 34
are in prison in the U.S.n any given day.
We will become even more aggressive in our efforts to
dismantle the prison-industrial complex. We will fight police
brutality along with illuminating why the police exist in a
society divided by class. We will abolish the racist, unjust,
brutal death penalty.
We will work towards these immediate actions, but most
importantly, we can link the worldwide struggles together and
begin the business of breaking down and tearing apart this
whole capitalist system of injustice that is destroying our
world.
Reprinted from the Oct. 10, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe to WW by Email: wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Donate to
support pro-labor, anti-war news.
Email
this article
Printable
page