Today in Labor History March 29, 1935: French illegalist anarchist Clément Duval died. He was a major influence on other illegalist anarchists of the era, including members of the Bonnot Gang. In 1886, Duval robbed the mansion of a Parisian socialite. He was condemned to death, but his sentence was later commuted to hard labor on Devil's Island, French Guiana, setting for the novel Papillon. According to Paul Albert, "The story of Clement Duval was lifted and, shorn of all politics, turned into the bestseller Papillon." In a letter printed in the November 1886 issue of the anarchist paper Le Révolté, Duval famously declared: "Theft is but restitution carried out by an individual to his own benefit, being conscious of another's undue monopolization of collectively produced wealth."
Today In Labor History March 26, 1918: American anarchist Philip Grosser wrote about being tortured in the prison on Alcatraz Island, while serving time there for refusing to serve in World War I. By 1920, he was the only draft resistor still serving time at Alcatraz. Alexander Berkman referred to him as "one of [my] finest comrades."
Today in Labor History March 25, 1931: The authorities arrested the Scottsboro Boys in Alabama and charged them with rape. The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American youths, ages 13 to 20, falsely accused of raping two white women. A lynch mob tried to murder them before they had even been indicted. All-white juries convicted each of them. Several judges gave death sentences, a common practice in Alabama at the time for black men convicted of raping white women. The Communist Party and the NAACP fought to get the cases appealed and retried. Finally, after numerous retrials and years in harsh prisons, four of the Scottsboro Boys were acquitted and released. The other five were got sentences ranging from 75 years to death. All were released or escaped by 1946. Poet and playwright Langston Hughes wrote it in his work Scottsboro Limited. And Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son was influenced by the case.
Today in Labor History March 18, 1918: U.S. authorities arrested Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón under the Espionage Act. They charged him with hindering the American war effort and imprisoned him at Leavenworth, where he died under highly suspicious circumstances. The authorities claimed he died of a "heart attack," but Chicano inmates rioted after his death and killed the prison guard who they believed executed him. Magon published the periodical “Regeneracion” with his brother Jesus, and with Licenciado Antonio Horcasitas. The Magonostas later led a revolution in Baja California during the Mexican Revolution. Many American members of the IWW participated. During the uprising, they conquered and held Tijuana for several days. Lowell Blaisdell writes about it in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962). Dos Passos references in his “USA Trilogy.”
Today in Labor History March 11, 1850: French anarchist Clément Duval was born. His theory of individual reclamation, which justified theft, and other crimes, as both educational and legitimate ways to redistribute the wealth, influenced the Illegalists of the 1910s, including Jules Bonnot, of the Bonnot Gang. According to Paul Albert, "The story of Clement Duval was lifted and, shorn of all politics, turned into the bestseller Papillon."
Today in Labor History March 8, 1971: The Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI stole 1,000 documents from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. They later released the documents to newspapers, revealing the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, which harassed, imprisoned & murdered US political dissidents. According to Noam Chomsky, 40% of the documents were dedicated to political surveillance. James Ellroy wrote about the burglary in his 2009 novel, “Blood’s a Rover.”
Today in Labor History February 28, 1887: Clément Duval had his death sentence commuted to life in prison. He was a French anarchist and criminal whose ideas influenced the illegalist movement of the 1910s. The most famous illegalist was Jules Bonot, who orchestrated one of the world’s first bank heist utilizing a getaway car. According to Paul Albert, Duval’s story was the basis for the bestseller Papillon, about multiple escape attempts from Devil’s Island. In October 1886, Duval broke into the mansion of a Parisian socialite, stole 15,000 francs, and accidentally setting the house on fire. His trial drew crowds of supporters and ended in chaos when he was dragged from the court, shouting "Long live anarchy!"
Today in Labor History February 26, 1894: In France, Jean Grave was charged and sentenced to two years in prison for publishing the book “La société mourante et l'anarchie.” However, the trial only served to popularize the book, which was quickly translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Yiddish. Voltairine De Cleyre produced an English translation in 1899. Novelist Octave Mirbeau (“Torture Garden” and “Diary of a Chambermaid”) wrote the preface. Grave was born on October 16, 1854 and died in 1939. He was active in the international anarchist communism movement and was editor Le Révolté, La Révolte and Les Temps Nouveaux, and a number of important anarchist books.
Today in Labor History February 23, 1882: B. Traven was born on this date in Poznan, Poland. Traven’s real name was probably Ret Marut. He was active in the Bavarian uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919. When the German state quashed the Republic and started arresting and executing activists, he fled to Mexico, where he began writing novels. Traven was a brilliant satirist and wrote novels sympathetic to workers and peasants, including the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The Death Ship,” “The White Rose,” as well as his Jungle Series of novel depicting the plight of Indigenous campesinos in Mexico.
Today in Labor History February 7, 1917: A court wrongly convicted labor organizer Tom Mooney for the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916. The governor finally granted him an unconditional pardon after 22.5 years of incarceration. 10 people died in the bombing and 40 were injured. A jury convicted two labor leaders, Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, based on false testimony. Both were pardoned in 1939. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper. They also threatened to arrest Berkman.
In 1931, while they were still in prison, I. J. Golden persuaded the Provincetown Theater to produce his play, “Precedent,” about the Mooney and Billings case. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote, “By sparing the heroics and confining himself chiefly to a temperate exposition of his case [Golden] has made “Precedent” the most engrossing political drama since the Sacco-Vanzetti play entitled Gods of the Lightening… Friends of Tom Mooney will rejoice to have his case told so crisply and vividly.”
Today in Labor History January 26, 1808: Soldiers took over New South Wales, Australia, during the Rum Rebellion. It was Australia’s only military coup. At the time, NSW was a British penal colony. William Bligh was governor of the territory. This was the same William Bligh who was an officer under Captain Cook when he attempted to kidnap the King of Hawai’i. He was also the same William Bligh who was overthrown in the Mutiny on the Bounty, in 1789. It is questionable why the British thought he’d do better in charge of a bunch of prisoners and unruly soldiers, than he did with a bunch of sailors. Perhaps they were just desperate. One of Bligh’s commissions was to reign in the Rum Corps, which held a monopoly on the illegal rum trade in Australia. They also controlled the sale of other commodities. Bligh started to enforce penalties for the illegal sale and importation of liquor. He also tried to provide relief to farmers, suffering from recent flooding and price-gouging by the Rum Corps, by providing provisions from the colony’s stores. The monopolists didn’t like his looting of the stores, from which they were profiting handsomely, nor his enforcement of the liquor laws. So, they arrested him and deported him to Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land. The military remained in control of NSW until 1810.
Today in Labor History January 17, 1536: Francois Rabelais was absolved of apostasy by Pope Paul III and allowed to resume his medical practice. Rabelais was a physician, writer, Catholic monk and Greek scholar. He published “Pantagruel” in 1532. He later incorporated it into his larger work, “Gargantua and Pantagruel,” which satirized the nobility, the church, the legal system, explorers, machismo and pretty much all that was sacred to the French ruling elite. Consequently, he was persecuted much of his life. His last will stated: “I have nothing. I owe a great deal. The rest I leave to the poor.”
One of my favorite passages: The FURREED Law-Cats are most terrible and dreadful monsters; they devour little children, and trample over marble stones. Pray tell me, noble topers, do they not deserve to have their snouts slit? The hair of their hides doesn’t grow outward, but inwards… They have claws so very strong, long, and sharp that nothing can get from ‘em what is once fast between their clutches... Among ‘em reigns the sixth essence; by the means of which they gripe all, devour all, burn all, draw all, hang all, quarter all, behead all, murder all, imprison all, waste all and ruin all, without the least notice of right and wrong; for among them vice is called virtue; wickedness, piety; treason, loyalty; robbery, justice. Plunder is their motto, and all this they do because they dare; their authority is sovereign and irrefragable.
“A child is a fire to be lit, not a vase to be filled” –Rabelais
Today in Labor History January 13, 1898: Émile Zola's J'accuse…! exposed the Dreyfus affair. The scandal began in 1894 when the state convicted Captain Alfred Dreyfus of treason. He was a 35-year-old French artillery officer of Jewish descent, falsely convicted for espionage and imprisoned in Devil’s Island in French Guiana. Émile Zola’s open letter “J’Accuse” helped build a movement of support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France, retried and convicted again, but was pardoned and released.
Emile Zola was French novelist, journalist, playwright. He was an important part of the literary school of naturalism. He was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prizes in Literature in 1901 and 1902. He published over 30 works, the most well-known being “Germinal,” about a coal miners’ strike in northern France in the 1860s. He influenced many modern writers like Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, and Truman Capote. “Germinal” influenced my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.”
Today in Labor History January 9, 1905: French anarchist Louise Michel died from wounds after an assassin shot her in the ear. Michel was a leader in the Paris Commune and cofounder of the Women’s Battalion. She also cofounded the journal “Le Libertaire,” with Sebastien Faure. 100,000 mourners attended her funeral. Before the Commune, she was a school teacher. After the Commune, while in prison, she wrote children’s books.
Today in Labor History January 8, 1933: Anarchist uprisings began in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia. While the northern uprisings were quickly suppressed, another anarchist uprising broke out in the Andalusian town of Casas Viejas on January 11, led by members of the anarchosyndicalist CNT union. The Civil Guards ultimately quashed it, too, slaughtering 24 people. For more on the Casas Viejas incident, read the detailed history in, “The Anarchists of Casas Viejas,” by Jerome R Mintz.
Today in Labor History January 8, 1892: 500-600 anarchist peasants led a revolt in Andalusia, taking over the town of Jerez and demanding the release of prisoners and economic relief. The authorities quickly quashed the uprising, killing three. They captured and tortured the leaders, executing four of them on February 10. They sentenced another 14 to life imprisonment. The Cadiz labor movement had to go underground because the general repression was so severe. But the Cadiz anarchist movement continued, culminating with the 1933 uprising at Casas Viejas, and subsequent massacre by soldiers. The press condemned the government’s response. Protests erupted in many parts of Spain and other parts of Europe. Activists clashed with police at Spanish consulates throughout Europe. Anarchists set off numerous bombs in retaliation. Anarchist Paulí Pallàs tried to assassinate Catalonia Captain General Arsenio Martínez Campos for his role in the Jerez uprising's repression and executions. Pallas was executed for this. Jerome Mintz wrote about this history in his classic, “The Anarchists of Casas Viejas,” (1982).
Today in Labor History December 21, 1911: The Bonnot Gang, a group of anarchist bandits, pulled off one of the first bank robberies known to have used an automobile as a getaway car. They did it in broad daylight, in the midst of a populous Paris district. They were also among the first to use repeating rifles, technology that the French police did not yet have. They successfully robbed several banks before being caught and executed. The gang members were anarchist individualists, of the Max Stirner school. They were connected with the anarchist periodical, “L’Anarchie,” edited by Victor Serge, who later participated in the Russian Revolution. Serge was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and, while in prison, wrote his most famous novel, “Birth of Our Power.” You can read more about the Bonnot Gang in Richard Parry’s book “The Bonnot Gang.”
Today in Labor History December 19, 1900: French parliament gave to amnesty everyone who participated in the scandalous army treason trial known as the Dreyfus affair. The scandal began in 1894 when the state convicted Captain Alfred Dreyfus of treason. He was a 35-year-old French artillery officer of Jewish descent, falsely convicted for espionage and imprisoned in Devil's Island in French Guiana. Émile Zola's open letter “J'Accuse” helped build a movement of support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France, retried and convicted again, but was pardoned and released. They eventually reinstated him as a major and he served during the World War I. Roman Polanski made a film about the affair called “J’Accuse,” after the Zola letter. However, much of Europe and the U.S. banned screenings of the film due to Polanski’s U.S. rape conviction.
TITLE: Correctional Psych: Links to 15 Articles on Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Justice-Involved Individuals in Custody & the Community
Thank you Dr. Pope.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Correctional Psych: Links to 15 Articles on Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Justice-Involved Individuals in Custody & the Community
Psychiatric Services issued the following announcement about a curated collection of articles:
Correctional Psychiatry: Addressing the Mental Health Needs of
Justice-Involved Individuals in Custody and the Community
/Editor’s Choice provides essential curated collections from recent issues of Psychiatric Services/.
The legal aims of the correctional system are to protect the community and to punish, deter, and offer rehabilitation to the offender. These goals may be at odds with the aims of psychiatric providers working in such settings. Consequently, jails and prisons can be challenging settings for the provision of mental health services for patients, providers, and the correctional staff. Even so, encounters with the criminal justice system can create opportunities for individuals with a severe mental illness, a substance use disorder, or both to obtain needed treatment that may otherwise be unavailable or difficult to access or that an individual would not choose to pursue in the community. With the development of diversion models and community-based forensic programs, such patients now have access to unique treatment strategies addressing concomitant legal and mental health needs.
This collection provides an update regarding correctional mental health care. The provision of mental health services within correctional environments continues to pose unique challenges, such as limited access to medications that are readily available in the community. Diversion programs that transition justice-involved individuals with mental illness from traditional criminal justice pathways toward treatment may reduce the burden of severe mental illness within correctional facilities and the risks to patients in such settings. At the same time, patients may be hesitant to engage in systems that they perceive to be coercive or overbearing. Innovations in meeting the mental health needs of incarcerated and justice-involved patients remain vital due to the ongoing high prevalence of mental illness and barriers to care faced by these populations. /Brian Holoyda, M.D., M.P.H./ /Jacqueline Landess, J.D., M.D./ /Lisa B. Dixon, M.D., M.P.H. /
Dramatic wage & price fluctuations influenced the hierarchies of well-being & working conditions in French prison workshops 1900-1940, according to Elsa Genard (Harvard) at the 2023 SSHA conference in Washington DC https://ssha2023.ssha.org/sessions/177
Today in Labor History November 9, 1851: Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. They took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape. Fairbank was an activist on the Underground Railroad. He spent over 17 years in prison and was lashed 35,000 times. He was pardoned in 1864. He was believed to have helped at least 47 people escape slavery. Fairbank wrote a memoir in 1890 called “Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times: How He "Fought the Good Fight" to Prepare "the Way." He died in near-poverty, in Angelica, New York, in 1898, at the age of 81.
Today in Labor History November 4, 1839: The Newport Rising began. It was the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain. It began when approximately 4,000 Chartists, led by John Frost, marched on the town of Newport. When several were arrested, other Chartists, including coal miners, many armed with homemade weapons, marched on the Westgate Hotel (where they were held) to liberate them. Up to 24 were killed when soldiers were ordered to open fire on them. The Chartists were fighting for the adoption of the People’s Charter, which called for universal suffrage, the secret ballot, and the right of regular working people to serve in the House of Commons. Three leaders of the uprising were sentenced to death, but popular protests got their sentences commuted to Transportation for Life, probably to Australia or Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania). America’s first cop, Allan Pinkerton, supposedly participated in this rebellion. He was a known Chartist in those days, a physical force man who loved to battle cops and Tory thugs. Because of his history of street violence and vandalism, he had to flee Britain in the dark of the night, ultimately settling in Illinois, where he eventually set up the private detective agency that would go on to murder numerous union organizers, and set up hundreds more for long prison stints through the use of agents provocateur and perjured testimonies.
The riots were depicted in the following novels: “Sir Cosmo Digby,” by James Augustus St John (1843), “Rape of the Fair Country,” by Alexander Cordell (1959) and “Children of Rebecca,” by Vivien Annis Bailey (1995).