Other Penpal/Letterwriting Projects
  • Bent Bars (UK) Bent Bars is a letter-writing project for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, gender-diverse, intersex, and queer (LGBTQ+) prisoners in Britain and Northern Ireland. The project includes people who are held in prisons, secure mental health units, and immigration detention.
  • Denver Anarchist Black Cross (US) The mission of the Denver Anarchist Black Cross is to contribute to the support of political prisoners and defense of local and global social movements, while working for liberation from colonial domination, and strengthening autonomy, mutual aid, and self-determination.
  • Montreal Prisoner Correspondence Project (Canada & US) Established in 2007 in Montreal, The Prisoner Correspondence Project (PCP) organizes to facilitate communication between LGBTQIA2S+ prisoners with individuals of their communities outside of prison. Run by a small group of volunteers, the Prisoner Correspondence Project collaborates with local and international rights oriented groups in solidarity with incarcerated peoples. They view their work as an opportunity to draw the wider LGBTQIA2S+ community into prison justice organizing and build upon gay liberation legacies and the larger prison justice movement.
  • Power Blossoms (Los Angeles, CA) Based in Southern California, Power Blossoms is an abolitionist organization bringing together queer and trans people on both sides of prison walls in the fight against hierarchies and State oppression.
     
    Books to Prisons Projects
     
    Other Prisoner Support/Solidarity
    • A.B.O. Comix A.B.O. Comix is a collective of creators and activists who work to amplify the voices of LGBTQ prisoners through art. 
    • Between the Bars A weblog platform for people in prison. Between the Bars shares letters to “provide a positive outlet for creativity, a tool to assist in the maintenance of social safety nets, an opportunity to forge connections between people inside and outside of prison, and a means to promote non-criminal identities and personal expression.”
    • California Coalition of Women Prisoners CCWP is a SF-based organization, with membership both inside and outside prison, that “challenges the institutional violence imposed on women, transgender people, and communities of color by the prison industrial complex (PIC).” CCWP facilitates a number of projects, including storytelling projects, visiting teams that provide advocacy and support, and participation in networks and coalitions like the Trans Advocacy Group and SF No More Jails Coalition.
    • Chicago Prison Industrial Complex Teaching Collective The Chicago PIC Teaching Collective is an initiative of Project NIA that aims to “inspire and motivate people to take positive action against the mass incarceration system and to build a base of individuals across the city who are committed to dismantling the PIC” by using popular education. There are amazing PIC education resources on the Teaching Collective blog from 2014 and earlier.
    • Critical Resistance Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the prison industrial complex (PIC) by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. CR is a national grassroots organization, with members and local chapters across the US.  
    • Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project TGI Justice Project “is a group of transgender, gender variant and intersex people—inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers—creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom.” TGIJP has a visitation team, provides legal advocacy support, publishes Stiletto Newsletter, and organizes with allied groups to build movements. Flying Over Walls helps out at TGIJP’s Trans Liberation Tuesday mail night!