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In 1971, Joseph Little survived what some scholars agree was the worst prison revolt in U.S. history. The bloody massacre resulted in an $8 million settlement in 2000. But in 1972, Little was released from the Attica Correctional Facility in Buffalo, New York – and he still had a lot of fight left in him.
“I’m not in favor of penitentiary reform,” Little announced that year. “I’m in favor of abolishing the whole penitentiary.” Years later, his words still ring true with modern-day prison abolition movements.
Not only did he make that bold statement, but he also questioned the intentions of prison itself.
"Just what constitutes rehabilitation? There is nothing wrong with me,” he said, denouncing the claim that we need prisons to rehabilitate ‘criminals.’ “What needs to be rehabilitated is the society we live in."
But his advice for the generations after him wasn’t to succumb to prison – but to think of creative ways to solve society’s problems without prisons at all.
Little passed in 2010, after years of advocating for the working class, prison abolition, and anti-war movements. But, even though his fight has ended, we can still follow his lead.
Joseph Little and other incarcerated survivors are a prime example of not accepting the conditions the system throws at us. Instead, we have the right to question them – and demand better!