While claiming to defend freedom around the world, the U.S. has hundreds of political prisoners – and the majority are people of color

By James Patrick Jordan, Eduardo Garcia, Natalia Burdyńska Schuurman (Program Coordinators)

Racism is still the driving force behind U.S. political imprisonment

Political imprisonment in the United States exists primarily as a tool of racist repression. It’s aimed disproportionately at people of color as well as others engaged in anti-racist struggle. Whether in the fight against racism at home or against racist foreign policies, wars, occupation and colonialism, the overarching purpose of political imprisonment is to intimidate and try to crush militant forms of anti-racist struggle.

By treating U.S. political prisoners as “common criminals,” our criminal justice system individualizes and de-contextualizes these cases, ignoring root causes and impeding the development of political solutions to the underlying causes political prisoners have fought for.

Readers can discern for themselves what is revealed in the findings presented here and in the political prisoners list this article analyzes. The large number of people of color and others involved in the anti-racist struggle arrested and incarcerated for their activities is sadly predictable. Our entire history and political and economic establishment is founded and advanced squarely on the foundations of racism.

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See our December 2022 update of political prisoners in the U.S.

 TAKE ACTION: political prisoners in the United States require a political resolution! 

The United States currently homes at least 120 political prisoners. 67% are people of color, and 95% are in jail for anti-racist resistance, including at least 84 individuals incarcerated for their participation in the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2014 and 2020. It’s a mistake to treat any of these cases individually. They require a political solution.

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