On Giving Tuesday, support radical cross-wall analysis, strategy, organizing, and mutual aid!
The radical prisoner movement has long been integral to prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition and to CR's existence. Cages are a major frontline of struggle globally, and all our liberation movements must continue to uplift the organizing and analysis created from the people inside the walls.
Over the past year, CR has strengthened our prisoner solidarity organizing - through the practical organizing tools we create, the political relationships we build through our mail or phone correspondence programs, and the movement-wide strategy we aim to cohere.
CR has continued to publish and distribute biannual issues of The Abolitionist Newspaper, our longest-running political organizing tool. Our June 2025 issue was focused on censorship and repression, and demonstrates that censorship of imprisoned people’s writing, art, and organizing is one of the state’s key methods to undermine political leadership behind and across the walls.
You can read about some challenges that imprisoned organizers face in "Calculating Risks in the Belly of the Beast," by Stevie Wilson, an imprisoned organizer and regular columnist for The Abolitionist Newspaper. The movement for liberation must combat this rising censorship and repression, and CR continues to offer analysis and practical organizing tools to do so.
The Abolitionist newspaper is in its 20th year of publication! 🎉 Will you become a subscriber today and support necessary cross-wall organizing? We continue to distribute this resource to over 5,000 people in prisons, jails, and detention centers for free, thanks to the generosity and commitment of 500+ paid subscribers on the outside. Each paid subscription sponsors two free subscriptions for imprisoned people, embodying prisoner solidarity and mutual aid in a period when both are sorely needed.
Building on the findings and movement-wide need for interventions uplifted in Issue 43 of The Abolitionist Newspaper, CR convened over 30 organizations from across the US during Black August for a Cross-Wall Strategy & Power Building Retreat in Oakland, CA.
The purpose of the retreat was to sharpen the collective understanding of our organizations and movements about how to more effectively resist the intensification of prison censorship and repression in our current moment, generate concrete strategies for cross-wall organizing, and build abolitionist power to dismantle the PIC. Imprisoned people's analysis and voices were woven into the retreat sessions. We also featured both an in-person gallery of imprisoned people's art and writing, and a digital gallery of recorded audio statements.
The retreat was one of our crowning achievements this year, and it was made possible by your generous support. Now, and over the next year, we and our movement partners are getting in formation to undertake some of the recommendations that emerged from the retreat. Your contributions will allow CR to organize for liberation alongside our imprisoned comrades by continuing to drive movement-wide analysis and cohered action.
As part of our abolitionist praxis, CR offers mutual aid to support our communities struggling under the intensifying conditions of capitalism, crisis, and war-making. Much of this work has been through CR Oakland’s Zachary Project, a community fund named in honor of beloved former Oakland chapter member Zachary Ontiveros, who passed away in 2015.
Zachary was a dedicated anti-capitalist who always took on the thankless roles to support our community. He was also a longtime editor of The Abolitionist Newspaper and made the paper what it is today, and we work to carry his legacy in each issue.
The Zachary Project carries on his legacy to support community organizers in need by giving mutual aid to friends of CR Oakland. In 2025, CR redistributed almost $8,000 to over a dozen organizers across our movement and Bay Area-based network to helpcoverbasic living expenses, mental and physical health care, reentry support, and much more. This year marks the 10th anniversary of this fund! We offer sincere gratitude to all who have supported this project, and ask that you to help keep this project going strong for the next 10 years by making a donation today.
This year has been full of intensifying repression and criminalization of our communities, both inside and outside of cages. As abolitionist analysis teaches us, cages are the testing grounds for authoritarian practices — thus imprisoned people are often the first targets. Yet, despite worsening conditions inside, seeds of resistance are sown among imprisoned people. It is our duty as a movement to keep that organizing fertile - to amplify and generate analysis, to offer tools that facilitate information sharing, to cohere organizations and individuals on the outside, and more.
On Giving Tuesday, we ask that you contribute to CR's organizing to build movement power with and for imprisoned people, and that you support our offerings of relief to community organizers.
Deepen the impact and scope of CR's prisoner solidarity organizing - donate directly here, or volunteer through our chapter mail programs or prisoner solidarity phone lines.
Replenish The Zachary Project fund for 2026 - Make a one-time or monthly gift, or invite your networks to donate.You can donate directly at bit.ly/CR2025yearend and click “Apply My Donation To - Zachary Project."
Attend one of our prisoner solidarity postcard nights - details below!
CR exists in a vibrant movement ecosystem with lots of need. We understand resources of time, effort, and funds to be abundant, so we ask that you match or supplement your CR donations by supporting other movement comrades, including political prisoners, in this time and always. Here are just some of many!
Support direct aid for imprisoned people in your area!
Our prisoner solidarity and mutual aid work are some of the many ways Critical Resistance bolsters the movement to abolish the PIC. This year-end season, stay tuned for our series of weekly roundups about CR’s 2025 campaign and project organizing, movement building work, and more.
Thank you for your commitment to growing abolition.
For over 25 years, your contributions of time, effort, and funds have empowered CR to run campaigns against policing, imprisonment, and surveillance; create tools to strengthen abolitionist organizing and analysis; build and strengthen connections with movement partners across our interconnected fights; and more.
Keep CR strong over the next decades of abolitionist work! We invite you to become a monthly sustainer today and continue contributing to the long-term project of PIC abolition.
We appreciate donations of your time, effort, and funds to sustain our organizing, this year and the next!
Are you in Portland, New York City, Los Angeles, or Oakland? Come through to our chapters' annual Prisoner Solidarity mailing parties this week!
CR Portland, New York City, Los Angeles, and Oakland are all hosting CR's annual prisoner solidarity mailing parties. We come together with members, volunteers and partners to write messages of love and solidarity to all of CR's imprisoned comrades. Come through to a mailing party near you and join us!
Each chapter's mailing party is on a different day, so check for details for your chapter city with the links below, and make sure to RSVP:
Join us at our CR 2025 Community Report Back: a space for prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionists and supporters of anti-PIC organizing to come together, share what's keeping us going through moments of crisis, and strengthen the foundation of our movements through connection. Register here. We hope to see you soon!
Issue 44 will contain a fuller reportback and some learnings from the August 2025 Cross-Wall Strategy & Power Building Retreat, and much more. This is an issue you won't want to miss!
Give CR Merch: Call for holiday orders!
Another way to show you’re on "Team Abolition" is by wearing CR’s merch! Give the gift of abolition today by treating yourself or a loved one to CR’s variety of hoodies, crewnecks, shirts, and totes. If you want your CR merch to arrive before the holidays, please place your orders no later than Thursday, December 11th.
Job Opening: Capital Campaign Director for project in North Oakland
CR seeks a Capital Campaign Director to drive and staff Building People Power (BPP)’s multi-year capital campaign, leading strategy, fundraising, donor engagement, and ecosystem coordination to complete the remaining raise and bring a bold vision to life. Apply and learn more at bit.ly/CRCCDHiring
