Description

Guest Editor’s Interview

In this interview, Frank (Big Black) Smith and Akil Al-Jundi were asked to account for the degeneration of prisoner values and attitudes. Big Black and Akil were asked about their lives since 1971, about prisons today, and about their hopes and dreams for social justice. As Minister of Information for the Attica Brothers, Akil was designated as their official public spokesperson after the rebellion. Both believe that, in part, the younger, shorter-term convict has taken for granted many of the hard-fought reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, short-termers simply had less incentive to comply with prison norms favored by the long-term convict.

prison activism, prison riots, Attica

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 18, No. 3 (1991): 85-91