Writing letters is a simple, direct, and deeply meaningful way to support people inside. Our Portland chapter is sending a letter to every person in Oregon State prisons — help us with our final push!
The #WriteThemAll Campaign — How it started...
Everyone caged inside prisons deserves support, solidarity, resources, and care. Critical Resistance PDX has been hosting monthly prison letter writing nights for over six years providing political education, resource connection, and empathetic and genuine support to thousands of imprisoned people in the Pacific Northwest.
Last July, with the pandemic increasing the isolation of our imprisoned comrades more than ever, CR PDX launched Write Them All, a campaign to send every person in a state prison in Oregon a hand-written letter sharing solidarity and resources about PIC abolition, Critical Resistance and other local organizations providing prisoner support.
...How far we’ve come!
Building the community support, solidarity, and infrastructure to accomplish this goal, as of mid March our amazing Oregon volunteers have sent 12,193 letters and are still writing 1,576 letters! We have just 787 people that still haven’t been assigned to volunteers.
This campaign has deepened and transformed our correspondence program, from regularly receiving and sending about 30 letters a month to 300! We’ve also already received response letters to our Write Them All letters from 1,617 imprisoned comrades. We are building solidarity, engaging in political education, providing research and resources, planting more & more seeds for inside-outside abolitionist organizing, and breaking through isolation for as many imprisoned people as possible.
We are calling on our national network of comrades to help us finish this push, to allow us to shift energy into building longer-term political relationships and solidarity with the folks who write back, and to create the tools necessary to share this #WriteThemAll model with abolitionist organizers and correspondence programs in other states.
With less than 1,000 letters left to assign, CRPDX is so close to our goal to #WriteThemAll. With the help of our national network of PIC abolitionists, let’s finish strong!
How You Can Support:
1.) Sign up to write 1, 5, 10, or 50 letters! Writing letters is at the heart of this project. Handwritten letters provide human-to-human interaction and show care and support. If it’s your first time, don’t worry! We provide templates and guides for what to include and best-practices for prison letter writing. Since this letter is to someone you don’t have an established relationship with, you can write the same letter to different people (as many as you can!). Sign up here!
2.) Host a letter writing night with a community you’re a part of! Writing letters in a group is a great way to share abolitionist education and action with the people around you. Gather online or safely in person, set a goal for your night, share our resources and talk to new people about abolition of the prison industrial complex! Sign up and get support from a CR PDX chapter member here
3.) Donate stamps, envelopes, and printing! Donating the stamps and envelopes for the letters you send from home, printing as many of our resources as you can, and making financial contributions to help us buy books for imprisoned comrades, all help ensure the success of this ongoing project. Make a one time donation or become a monthly sustainer here!
4.) Share this email and project widely!
We want as many people as possible to have the chance to learn about, and participate in, this action of solidarity with imprisoned people. Forward this email, follow @CriticalResistancePDX on instagram, share information about Write Them All, share and post pictures from your letter writing nights and encourage your friends to match how many letters you wrote! If you’re based in Portland or Oregon and are interested in local opportunities, reach out to us at [email protected]
In a time that for many is marked by feelings of isolation, and when PIC abolition is talked about more widely than ever, this is a concrete step many of us can take to show up for some of those most impacted by the prison industrial complex. Sign up today, we're excited to hear from you!
CRPDX with the help of Willamette Valley Abolition Project, and Sisikyou Abolition Project is also coordinating a mass mailing of Economic Impact Payment (Stimulus Check) Forms and vaccine infoone pagers to every prisoner in Oregon state prisons. In order to make this happen, we need support from as many volunteers as possible.
Will you help us by signing up for this push to support prisoners access stimulus and vaccine info? Please fill out this google form to sign up as a volunteer! If you can't help out at this time, please consider sharing this information and ask to friends, family and other community members.
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