Dear John,  

No one should be subjected to inhumane conditions—not in a pandemic, not ever. But in the United States, 2.3 million people are incarcerated in prisons, jails, and detention centers, where they are locked behind bars and subjected to cruel mental and physical harms of confinement, even in ordinary times.  

Now COVID-19 has multiplied the dangers of imprisonment exponentially. To date, there have been more than 176,000 positive cases among incarcerated people as well as staff—and at least 1,000 people have died.

Join AFSC and partners from Sept. 9-13 for our National Days of Action to #FreeThemAll. We are working to get as many people out of prisons, jails, and immigration and juvenile detention centers as possible as COVID-19 spreads at alarming rates through these facilities. And we are also working to abolish these carceral facilities once and for all – and instead build transformative forms of justice based in community well-being.

To learn more, register for our webinar “From Attica to Abolition” on Sept. 8 (7:30-9 p.m. ET / 4:30-6 p.m. PT).

The days of action mark the 49th anniversary of the Attica uprising, when more than 2,000 people incarcerated in upstate New York took over the yard of Attica Correctional Facility to protest inhumane conditions and demand freedom, wages, education access, medical care, and more. Our webinar will feature a powerful panel of speakers about how the demands of the incarcerated organizers at Attica are echoed in the current call to abolish prisons, jails, and detention centers and the movement to #FreeThemAll.

Sign up for our webinar today.

For more ways to take part in our days of action, visit our #FreeThemAll resource page. Find in-person and online events and opportunities to demand that public officials take action. 

We hope you will join us for our #FreeThemAll days of action.  

In solidarity, 

Lewis Webb 
Interim Coordinator of Healing Justice 

Kristin Kumpf 
Director of Human Migration and Mobility