"From behind prison walls" is a regular column written by framed-up union and political activist Mark Curtis. To correspond with Curtis, write him at #805338, Iowa State Penitentiary, Box 316, Fort Madison, Iowa, 52627.

FT. MADISON, Iowa - Like most U.S. prisoners, I've never worked on a chain gang. As more draconian punishments are being brought back into use, that could change. The prison commission in Alabama plans to put 400 inmates in chains to work 12-hour shifts along the roadside in a state whose summer heat can be murder.

This will be forced labor in the strongest meaning of the word. Guards armed with shot guns and orders to shoot escapees will oversee the men chained together and dragging leg irons. Here in Iowa the Senate passed a bill recently establishing chain gangs, although they will be renamed "highly secured work groups."

Whatever they are called, the effect is the same: to humiliate, degrade, and brutalize those in prison. But the real target of this "anti-crime" campaign is not just prison inmates and law-breakers. The number of prisoners who actually end up slinging a weed sickle will be just a fraction of the prison population due to security, logistics, costs, and the need for most inmate labor to keep the kitchens, laundries, and building maintenance going.

Fueling the fires of resentment by showcasing a growing number of humans labeled as "beasts" is an indispensable ingredient for a big political project. That project is to deepen divisions among working people and heighten the panic level in the middle class. The ruling class hopes to use resentment of "criminals," "welfare cheats," immigrants, and others as a vaccine against working-class solidarity.

Politicians and media commentators are quite openly spreading the resentment against anyone they think "deserves it." Crack down, exact a harsh cost, instill discipline, quit mollycoddling them. And who is "them?" Not just prisoners, but all kinds of workers, farmers, and students who've supposedly "got it too easy."

These so-called freeloaders are the producers of the wealth our capitalist masters own. Any successes we've had in keeping a slightly bigger chunk of that wealth for ourselves, like Social Security, welfare benefits, unemployment insurance, Medicare, pensions, etc. is deeply resented by the bosses. They know they'll have an easier time taking it away if they narrow our democratic rights and have us fighting among ourselves over who does and doesn't deserve these rights and entitlements.

It is interesting that the crime debate has now moved to the question of forced and degraded prison labor. Up until the 1930s prisoners were leased out to the bosses for work in farm fields and coal mines. In Alabama, hundreds died digging coal in the worst imaginable conditions. The great labor upsurge of the 1930s saw workers organize the first industrial unions through huge and bloody conflicts. One victory was forcing the government to ban the practice of slave labor. Like Social Security and the other many victories of the 1930s, this is now being chipped away.

Advocates of hard-labor chain gangs say that work will do the inmates good. Work will do you good, but what kind of labor is being discussed here? Being chained up is one of the most inhuman of all experiences. I've worn all kinds of iron in my six plus years of incarceration: handcuffs, leg shackles, belly chains, "black boxes" that immobilize the wrists, and stainless steel links dangling between the legs. In my current lockup status just going to the shower requires being handcuffed behind my back for the 30-foot walk.

Chain gangs on display will not only tear up the bodies of the men in iron but also bring the working class down a notch in our humanity. The fight against such barbarism by our own capitalist masters must be a fight of the whole labor movement.  
 
 
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