Abolitionist and journalist Jared Ware joins the Beyond Prisons podcast for a conversation on deteriorating abusive conditions within South Carolina prisons.

Jared gives us an update on recent organizing efforts by prisoners in South Carolina and their comrades on the outside, who delivered a demand letter to UN offices in the United States, Carribean, and United Kingdom last month. They argue the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) is violating international standards for confinement known as The Mandela Standards. 

We discuss the last several years of prisoner-led organizing to call attention to horrendous abuses. This includes intense restrictions on prisoners in general population within higher-security prisons, such as metal plates placed on windows, meal slots on the doors, heavy limitations on movement, and little-to-no programming or recreation. 

We also touch on the disgusting, absurd games and propaganda wars SCDC engages in, including collaborations with nonprofits that serve to whitewash the department of corrections conduct and the conditions in which they force people to live.

Resources & Additional Reading

South Carolina Prisoners Call For UN Intervention As Abusive Conditions Worsen by Jared Ware

South Carolina Prisoner Demand Letter To The United Nations

South Carolina Prisoners Appeal to the UN for Relief From Torturous Conditions by Kelly Hayes

'No Other Path to Redress': South Carolina Prisoners Appeal to UN After State and Federal Officials Ignore Pleas for Livable Conditions by Eoin Higgins

Interview: South Carolina Prisoners Challenge Narrative Around Violence At Lee Correctional Institution by Jared Ware

Check out Jared Ware's podcast with Josh Briond, Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

Follow Jay and MAKC on Twitter

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Hosts: Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Music: Jared Ware