Album Notes

The Prison Industrial Complex has more than 2.1 million Americans incarcerated, with the vast majority sold into modern day slave labor. Millions of people on both sides of the razor wire form a modern day prison abolitionist movement- an integral element in the global struggle for human rights.
The DEF SENTENCE project has come about to create new avenues for raising awareness as well as raising funds for prison activism nationwide. In 2005, over fifty artists, emcees, poets, producers, speakers, musicians, and activists converged to build a mixtape to benefit Books to Prisoners programs nationwide. The result is a 25 track compilation that gets your speakers bumping and your synapses firing, featuring fierce Hip Hop and Spoken Word from artists such as SANTOTZIN, HUNGRY MOB, dRED I MOVEMENT, ROCHELLE HART, RESIDENT ANTI-HERO and MUCH MORE!!!

WHO WE ARE:
Books To Prisoners groups are all-volunteer collectives in cities all over Amerikkka working to distribute books free of charge to prisoners. We are dedicated to offering people behind bars the opportunities for self-empowerment, education, and entertainment that reading provides.

WHAT WE DO:
Incarcerated prisoners send us their requests for books directly. We attempt to furnish the requested materials from our stock of donated books. Prison libraries tend to be very limited and access to them is often highly restricted, so outside sources for prisoners is often necessary.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
At most prisons there are very few books available, and often what is there consists mainly of low quality pulp fiction like romance novels and action thrillers. People are in prison for many reasons, but the vast majority are imprisoned for nonviolent drug possession and property crimes. The US currently has over 2 million people incarcerated in state and federal prisons, two-thirds of whom are people of color ( source www.cccr.org ).
Recidivism, or repeated incareration is a factor a program like this addresses; Sadly, the majority of prisoners in the U.S.A. will be unable to find work once they leave prison, having gained no marketable skills on the inside. When the resulting poverty leads to crime, that ex-con may once again be locked away. By providing inmates with educational opportunities that are otherwise unavailable, they may return to outside society more literate, aware, and confident- and much less likely to return to prison.

A BRIEF HISTORY LESSON:
Amendment XIII, Section 1 of the United States Constitution states:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
So, yes, my friends... even the US Constitution says that slavery is ok. Remember, this amendment was passed following the Civil War and was supposed to end slavery; however, it gave the green light for slavery to continue in its present form (most notably, the prison system).

The Prison Industrial Complex is an enormously unjust system which must be challenged, changed, and abolished!
Learn more about prison activism here:
(www.criticalresistance.org)
(www.prisonsucks.com)
(www.prisonactivist.org)