It is so easy to view the death penalty as nothing more than a means to an end that we sometimes overlook the fact that it should not be an unpleasant experience for the person involved. Thanks to Romell Broom we have been reminded of its niceties and the importance of administering it humanely. Not, however, that everyone agrees that it needs to be a pleasant experience. Indeed, in the death penalty's most recent experience in the United States Supreme Court it was met with a somewhat callous approach by a majority of the members of the Court.

We will be posting regular updates and information regarding Mason. She is currently in a county jail pending her sentencing on February 5th. Donations are still needed to cover legal and family costs. Please consider holding a benefit for Mason in January!

The Update is a publication produced by the Anarchist Black Cross Federation. It is one of the few publications designed specifically for news/articles about and from political prisoners and prisoners of war in North America.

From the late 1950's into the 1970's, the F.B.I. conducted a series of actions in a counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) designed to disrupt, discredit, and destroy certain individuals and groups in this country. The Communist Party, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.), the Black Panther Party, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.), the Black Liberation Army (B. L. A.), the Socialist Workers Party, La Raza Unida ("the Unified Race"), MOVE, the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) and others were among the targets.

In March, 2008 I was released from Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California after over six years in prison. I won a writ, a portion of one anyway, in October, 2007 in Los Angeles that agreed with my attorneys that the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) had violated my double jeopardy right by adding a year to a sentence that a real court had already addressed. I got half-time, so six months were deducted from my sentence and the BPH commanded staff at CCWF to release me March 17, as the court had ordered.

This year’s Running Down the Walls is taking place on August 23rd in honor of former political prisoners, Sacco and Vanzetti. On this day in 1927, both men were executed by the state of Massachusetts for being anti-war, immigrants and anarchists. Today, there are over 150 Political Prisoners and Prisoners-of-War in the United States. These prisoners have been unfairly incarcerated while fighting for social justice and self-determination. They are our generation’s Sacco and Vanzetti. Show them you care for and support their efforts by RUNNING DOWN THE WALLS!

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP), an all-volunteer group established in 2006 by Rainbow Bookstore staff, volunteers, and other concerned citizens received a letter on May 13, 2008 from John Bett, Administrator at the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Adult Institutions (WI-DOC-DAI) stating “effective immediately, the WI-DOC Division of Adult Institutions will no longer allow books or publications from Rainbow Bookstores in any DOC facility.”

The number first appeared in headlines earlier this year: Nearly one in four of all prisoners worldwide is incarcerated in America. It was just the latest such statistic. Today, one in nine African American men between the ages of 20 and 34 is locked up. In 1970, our prisons held fewer than 200,000 people; now that number exceeds 1.5 million, and when you add in local jails, it's 2.3 million—1 in 100 American adults. Since the 1980s, we've sat by as the numbers inched higher and our prison system ballooned, swallowing up an ever-larger portion of the citizenry. But do statistics like these, no matter how disturbing, really mean anything anymore? What does it take to get us to sit up and notice?

A federal judge on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a former Black Panther in the 1972 stabbing death of a Louisiana prison guard. Albert Woodfox, who was held in solitary confinement for over 30 years, is one of three former Panthers known as the "Angola Three." He and two other black prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were convicted in the killing of guard Brent Miller on April 17, 1972.

A Lambertville teenager who torched two unfinished homes and took an ax to a utility pole to make a statement against urban sprawl was convicted yesterday in Monroe County Circuit Court of arson and malicious destruction of property. Michael W. Sykes, 17, pleaded no contest to two counts of arson of real property for deliberately setting fires two days apart in March that destroyed homes under construction in Bedford Township.