A demand and suggestions for Socialist organizing of prisoners, always a vast working class constituency in the United States

‘Propaganda in Jails and Prisons’ by E.E. Kirk and Harry M. McKee (San Diego County Jail) from International Socialist Review. Vol. 14 No. 4. October, 1913.

EVERY Socialist Platform should contain a plank relating to prisons and jails. It should embody the fact that the bulk of the persons confined belong to the working class; that their offenses are generally against property laws, and are of a nature that would disappear with a sane economic system. After recognizing the prisoners and their offenses, there should follow a statement that special efforts should be made to reach the prisoners and the officials of the prisons and jails with the Socialist program. The Immediate Demands should also, we believe, contain a demand for the prisoners, to the effect that so long as persons are punished by confinement, their surroundings should be both sanitary and hygienic, and the places of confinement should be open to public inspection. Also, when prisoners are compelled to work, the value of their labor should be paid to the order of the prisoner.

What Is Crime?

A crime is any act or omission which is expressly commanded or prohibited, and which the state prosecutes and punishes in its own name.

Crimes are either felonies or misdemeanors.

A felony is a crime which is punishable with death or by imprisonment in the state prison. Every other crime is a misdemeanor.

The minimum punishment in a state prison is one year; the general maximum punishment in a county or city jail being six months. There are a few exceptions in each case.

The total number of those who are jailed is appalling. The city jails, the county jails, the reformatories and the state prisons harbor hundreds of thousands each year. Naturally the prisoners come from the working class. Very few capitalists see jail or prison from the “inside looking out.” The crimes for which punishment is inflicted are mostly infractions of the property laws, the inevitable outcome of the present social system.

Jail life makes rebels. Every prisoner is a protestant, some boldly, some whining and others sullen. They each feel that the law and the authorities have discriminated against them. But theirs is a blind protest.

They cannot put their finger on the exact cause. In many instances the prisoner places the blame on some individual or set of individuals. He either “has it in for” the district attorney, the police, the judge, his “pals,” his own bad luck or weakness. Without knowing it, this protest is against society and present conditions.

Here is the field for the Socialist. Through our literature the prisoner may learn why he has been punished; why other offenses of greater hurt to society are unpunished. He will learn history in its rightful sense, and as a victim of the system, he will apply it correctly. He will thus be able,not only to adjust himself to jail life making it less intolerable, but when he comes out will see the world through different eyes.

Briefly, the Socialist Party has the opportunity to change the prisoner from a blind rebel into an intelligent revolutionist. The possibilities of this are thrilling.

The rule as to reading matter in jails and prisons is generally that he may have anything that is published outside of the state in which the prison is situated. There is almost unlimited time for reading, and outside of the books supplied from the prison library (there are no libraries in county or city jails) the only printed matter is of a religious nature. Socialist papers, books, and magazines will furnish material for discussion and will prove of real value.

A Few Suggestions.

How are any of these things to be done? Well, that all depends on your opportunities and willingness. See the jail in your town. Have you ever been inside? Citizens have the right to inspect public property. It may be that your local jail is a disgrace from every viewpoint. Look it over, talk to prisoners, and learn if you can better their conditions. If so, go to it. Tell the facts, first to the officials of the jail, and if there is nothing doing, then to the newspapers. Pass resolutions of censure.

If sanitary conditions are all right—and that’s rare and unusual—then find out if a visiting committee cannot get in to see the prisoners at stated times. Religious bodies have a chance to tell the prisoner about his soul; you should have the same chance to explain the present day industrial, political and economic conditions. The average prisoner is in your local jail for some petty offense. But every man charged with crime passes through the county jails. The inmates of these little jails don’t get into the limelight of the reforms that some of the larger prisoners are enjoying. They will be glad to see you. “When a feller needs a friend” is the time he will listen closely. Besides he gets a chance to discuss matters with Socialists.

Of course, it is apparent that the local doing the work will not benefit by an increase of members from the jails. The men generally scatter on being released. But there is also this advantage. A prisoner has no interest in professing to be interested in Socialism as he has in an emotional doctrine. They learn to understand. The fruits of teaching are to give the men confined, a new hope, a new language, and the consciousness of their own class.

If there are women prisoners in your local jail, find out if there is a matron. If so, what are her duties, and do the Socialist women interest themselves in her? In the San Diego county jail, there has been a matron for fifteen years, yet never until a year ago did any women’s organization attempt to assist her with her charges. And from inquiries made from turnkeys and jailors with many years’ experience, we find that no union, no radical organization has ever approached them in an endeavor to interest them in humanizing their work.

So let’s investigate the local jails and prisons for the benefit of both prisoners and guards. Propaganda work can be done there. And also let us see that our national and state platforms declare the Socialist position toward the prison victims of this system.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n04-oct-1913-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf