Introduction:

Welcome to The Peak’s Summer Issue, Dispatches From Ontario Prisons. We’ve solicited writing and art from prisoners around Ontario, and we’ve received an incredible response from people currently incarcerated. Throughout the production of this magazine, we’ve been moved and often challenged by the diversity of perspectives prisoners have offered. Take your time while reading this issue. These moving and often painful words shared here require as much time and care to read as they did to write.

“You’ll only feel my words if you care Cuz this ain’t brand new, it’s been happening for years.”

-Jamrock, “The System” (page 26)

We have prioritized giving space in this issue to the writing of prisoners themselves, regardless of their political leanings or the actions that led to their incarceration. The Canadian state has a vested interest in keeping prisoners silenced and stifling resistance against the booming business of locking people up. We prefer to save our judgement and condemnation for the systems of violence that create prisons and supply prisoners to fill them. The writings here are one step towards tracing that violence back to its roots in the legacies of institutional and colonial violence that make prison seem necessary and just.

We are excited to include analysis from outside prison. There are many more stories to tell from the mounting resistance to the violence of prisons and the “justice” system outside the walls. Mac Scott of No One Is Illegal (NOII) explains the threat of imprisonment facing immigrants and refugees in “Detention of Immigrants – The Thin Edge of the Wedge” (page 13), and AJ Withers demonstrates in “Incarceration and Institutionalization: Disability and Imprisonment” (page 62) how prisons are tools of social control that target disabled people. We also hear from the ongoing struggle against new super-prison expansion projects across Canada (page 72).

There is so much work that needs to be done to break these systems of control. As Cathy tells us in “Where to Start With Prison Support” (page 60), “…incarceration is not an isolated event that happens to people you don’t know…no one is exempt from committing crimes, and no one is exempt from having the police or government officials separate them from their loved ones.” She goes on to describe ways those on the outside can support not only prisoners but their families and friends.

So for August 10th, Prison Justice Day, we offer this magazine to you to document the work that is being done to challenge prisons and to break down the walls that separate those on the outside of prison walls from our friends, families, and lovers inside. Special thanks to those inside and out who lent their expertise to this issue, and to the volunteers who transcribed and edited pieces.

Towards the destruction of prisons and the world that needs them,

The Peak

PS: The mazes on pages 31, 36, 51, and 52 are solvable!

Table of Contents:

1. My Prison Experience by Jacklynn “Jade” Hoshowatiuk
2. Rehabilitation by Jamie Westlake
3. Prisoner Justice Day: A Brief History of How it Started by Bryan Hill
4. Out of Sight – Out of Mind by Chris
5. Three Positions Against Prison: A Summary by Anonymous
6. Pampered Prisoners by C.W. Michaels
7. Forgetting the Condemned by Chris
8. Juggle and Hyde by C.W. Michaels
9. Detention of Immigrants by Mac Scott
10. No Thanks to Canada by Akeema Jones
11. Education by Peter Pelly
12. Solidarity, People by Nyki Kish
13. The System by Jamrock
14. Support Ourselves While Supporting Our Loved Ones (SOSOLO) by Natasha Briend and Sashalee Carty
15. Conscious Thought by Natasha Brien
16. This Is Our Year by c.c.
17. Positive Still by Shakira
18. Inside a Women’s Federal Prison: The Poverty-Stricken Population and the Debt that Accompanies Them by Misty
19. Being Out Inside by Sam Miller
20. Unsettled Minds by Natashia “Zarrah” Zimmerman
21. Self-fulfilling LTSO Prophesy by C.W.Michael
22. Prison Program Scam by Chris
23. “The Last Dance” by Yves Lafortune
    
24. Profiteers of Prisons by C.W. Michael
25. My Vacation in Hell by Carolyn Fugate
26. One Day at a Time by Natasha Gomes Le-Yung
27. Rebuild Myself by Sam Miller
28. Mail in Jail by e.war
29. Just Another Poem by Jamie Westlake
30. Reading in Prison by Leah Henderson
31. Alone by Terrence T. Pew
32. Casa Diablo Canada by Chris
33. In Defence of the Earth: Interview with Jeff Luers by Matt Soltys
34. Determining Our Health by Bonnie King
    
35. Prisoner Support by Cathy
36. Incarceration and institutionalization by AJ Withers
    
37. Education/Programming by Jon Mulder
    
38. Support Six Nations Land Defenders: An Open Letter to All Those Who Have Supported Me by Alex Hundert
39. Anger by Lacroix
40. Building Unity Between Prisoners by Jon Mulder
41. End the Prison Industrial Complex by EPIC
42. Timeline of Events Impacting the Prison Situation in Kingston by EPIC
43. Prison Expansion by End the Prison Industrial Complex
44. Map of the Super Prison Expansion by Bryan Hill
45. A Letter to Construction Workers at Collins Bay and Frontenac Institutions by EPIC
46. Call Out for Prisoner Justice Day in Kingston by EPIC
47. Running Down the Walls 2012 by RDTW-Guelph
48. Free All Political Prisoners by Certain Days Calendar Collective
49. C.S.C: Common Sense Cancelled, Not Correctional Service of Canada by Bill O’Sullivan
50. Living Dead by C.W. Michaels
51. Word Search by Unit 2F Vanier
52. Guelph ABC Zine Catalog by Guelph-Anarchist Black Cross