MKE Lit Supply Empowers Prisoners to Share their Stories

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Milwaukee Lit Supply logo

MKE Lit Supply is an abolitionist initiative to provide zines for prisoners at shows and community events. The project was started in 2019, distributing zines to prisoners at no cost, regardless of their financial status. While those zines touch on a variety of subject matter written by current and former prisoners, their primary areas of focus are prison abolition and prisoner resistance.

One of their organizers, Tai Renfrow, explains that many MKE Lit Supply comrades are also involved in the prison abolition organization ABOLISHmke.

“They’re like sister projects,” they said. “We started ABOLISHmke to be able to report on the things we hear within the DOC (Wisconsin Department of Corrections). Lit Supply is a very narrow project that we established to be long-term and function with expanding and contracting levels of volunteer support. With Lit Supply we aren’t able to respond to requests for help from prisoners, but we’ve been able to empower prisoners to share their news amongst themselves; we encourage them to write articles and hone their literary skills. The two projects feed into each other. There’s very few ways prisoners feel like they have control or power over what’s happening to them, so these are just a couple ways we can enable them to do something.”

Locked-Down System

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MKE Lit Supply banner

Renfrow shares why they personally got involved. “I’ve worked with people within the DOC for almost a decade now, and one of the major problems that I’ve experienced in this line of work has been the lack of education in terms of the way that people can engage in direct action. Wisconsin has a very locked-down system and they’re very good at suppressing resistance within. I really love working with prisoners and my dream would be to see them all freed.

“That’s not something that one person can do alone and we need the support of the prisoners themselves. In order to really push for a radical transformation of the system, we have to start with bringing people up to speed on what’s been done and what’s possible in terms of people taking their power back.”

Milwaukee has some of the highest incarceration rates in the country, disproportionately affecting Black, Brown and Indigenous people. Milwaukeean prisoners are often taken to correctional centers up north, where they are forced to cope with abusive conditions.

Renfrow said, “I think that the most pertinent obstacle that Lit Supply is dealing with has been the change with the mail system. The DOC is difficult at every aspect whether it’s in terms of poor nutrition or lack of exercise or lack of resources. But when we think about what’s really important for prisoners, we think of them maintaining communication with their family and friends and having contact with the outside world … those things are really important for a prisoner's rehabilitation and well-being.

“This year the Wisconsin DOC moved over to another mailing system with their public reason for doing so being to reduce the level of contraband coming through the mail, which is definitely not the way contraband finds its way into prisons. In the past, you used to be able to send a letter to a prisoner at the prison address and that letter would be opened and reviewed by the mail room, and then delivered to the prisoner.

“Now the current process is that you have to use the TextBehind app to type your letter and send it through their system. There’s a fee associated with that, and a page limit. You *can* still mail physical letters to prisoners but it has to be mailed to a singular address in Maryland where the TextBehind office is located. Having a third party read and review your mail is not private and that system is a struggle in itself.

“Another issue with it is how when you are entered into the DOC system in Dodge County, you sign a bunch of paperwork including an authorization to have the DOC deliver mail to you. When the DOC made this change with the TextBehind system, they told prisoners that if they wanted to continue receiving mail then they would have to resubmit this authorization, which is not available at the prisons—it’s only available at the intake facility. We had more than a month of down-time because prisoners couldn’t receive anything from us and they couldn’t even access the form to authorize receiving mail. That’s just one example of something that should be a right for every American, yet that right is challenged for people where they are incarcerated.”

Spreading the Word

Renfrow also runs their podcast on Channel Zero Network. “We started it a little over a year ago; we do a monthly episode, and each one features a discussion on a specific zine in our catalog. We’ll bring on one of our volunteers or a guest and I talk with them about the zine’s concept, generally staying within an anarchist framework.”

They share what MKE Lit Supply have worked on in the past year. “The biggest thing that we spearheaded was the SHUTEMDOWN 2021 campaign that was called by a national organization called Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. We answered that call here in Milwaukee and hosted a number of events over a three-week period starting on August 21, which is a memorable date because it’s the date of George Jackson’s death—one of the things that spurred the Attica Uprising. This past year the action was to build outside support for prisoners with the intention of this year committing to direct action within institutions.”

To learn more about MKE Lit Supply, visit their website as well as their Patreon. Folks can get involved both locally and remotely. They accept donations via Paypal @mkelitsupply. Prisoners can email them via CorrLinks at mkeliteraturesupply@protonmail.com. Currently, MKE Lit Supply is mailing from Woodland Pattern Book Center, which prisoners can write to for zines at 720 E Locust St, Milwaukee, WI 53212.