If you’re new to actions with an arrest risk and you don’t have experienced protestors with you, there’s stuff you can find online about having a legal team, writing the name of a lawyer on your body, saying NOTHING to the cops except the name of your lawyer, etc. That’s all good advice.
But let me give you a bit of advice that is just as essential as all that:
If one of your comrades gets arrested, and you know they can be held for 6, 9, 12 hours, depending on where you are, you get a group of people together and you wait outside the police station.
You may be tired, you may be stressed, it may be freezing, you may need to take turns, but you take whoever can still physically and mentally bear it and you go to that police station and you wait for your comrade. You can spend the time taking care of each other, drinking hot drinks, doing whatever gets you through, but you wait.
And when your comrade gets out, you make sure they do not walk home alone in the dark thinking about the fucked up experience they just had, you make sure there’s a big fucking crowd of their comrades there to greet them with hugs and hot drinks and a cigarette if they smoke.
And whether the arrested comrade that just got out is happy or sad or pissed off, you take that for what it is and give that space and you support that. And you get them a hot meal and you hang out with them and you offer to let them stay at your place or you stay with them so they don’t have to spend that night alone with their thoughts.
You do this every damn time, regardless of whether you really like that comrade and regardless of how you feel about the thing your comrade got arrested for, regardless of how often they’ve been arrested. Because you never know how shitty their experience is going to be in there this time.
Trust me. This is absolutely essential. Once you’ve been arrested and have felt the difference between walking home alone or having your friends waiting for you, you’ll understand.
Be good comrades
I can’t stress how important this is. When my father and I were arrested in Seattle some years back for agitating for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, we were greeted outside the jail by the event’s organisers. They cheered us, had cokes and munchies for us. They drove us to our car and, during the drive, asked if we wanted to stay the night in Seattle with one of the organisers, they filled us in on what had happened after our arrests, they asked about and listened intently to what we experienced from arrest to release. They did so much so well that when another call went out for potential arrestees, we were amongst the first to raise our proverbial hands.
Read the post. Re-read the post. Remember it. And, when the chance comes, do it.
When I was arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest a few years ago, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice were doing Jail Support when I was finally let out of One Police Plaza at around 6am.
They had gotten a klezmer band to stand along the hill you have to go up to leave the jail, and as I walked to where the volunteer lawyers were waiting (they were there to make sure all 200+ people who were arrested that night would be represented at their later hearings. They also were surrounded by volunteers who had food, phone chargers, directions to all the nearby subway stops, and one of them let me borrow her phone to call my mom when I got frustrated with how slowly my phone was charging) the band played music, cheered and applauded.
Honestly? That band playing klezmer for me as I left jail, cheering me on and making me laugh… it’s a memory I really treasure.
It’s also one of my mother’s favorite stories. Before I told her about that band, she got so upset and agitated whenever anything reminded her of my arrest. She’d freak out, cry, start fussing over me, and so forth. After I told her about the klezmer band though? It became something she’d tell her friends about, over and over again, laughing each time. She stopped calling me to beg me not to go and protest every time she knew a big one was happening, and instead would call to make a joke about how if I want to listen to klezmer she has some CDs I can borrow.
When I think about that night, rather than any of the many many terrible things that happened from the moment the cops grabbed me onward, the first thing I remember is the klezmer, and how it made me laugh, and the popcorn someone gave me as I gave the lawyers my name and info, and the kindness of strangers.
After the dehumanization of even a few hours in police custody, those volunteers made me smile, and gave the night a new fun and funny angle to be remembered from. I actually laugh when I think about that night, thanks to them.
Jail Support is a beyond vital part of protesting. It really really is.
Could this be something I can do?
I don’t know you, but I can give you some hints:
- Are you good at waiting? Can you calmly sit outside for 2, 3, 6 hours without knowing when the people who have been arrested come out?
- Does your health allow you to do that when it’s very cold or very hot?
- Can you manage feelings of powerlessness that are likely to come up if you know that your friends are in there and there is nothing you can do until they come out?
- Can you help the other people of the jail support manage their feelings of powerlessness and take care of each other while you wait?
- Once the arrested person comes out, can you prioritize what they need, not what you think they should need? The people in there have had a stressful time. They may not want a hug. They may need to be able to shout and be angry for a bit. They may want to get drunk as fast as possible. That’s not the healthiest choice but this is not the right moment to give them a lecture on that.
If your answer to all of the above is ‘YES’, you’re a perfect Jail Support person. If you answered ‘NO’ a few times in there, that’s totally okay. The good thing about being in a Jail Support things is that you can also support each other. You can do shifts to deal with long waits. If you’re not good at giving emotional support, you can be in charge of bringing everyone hot coffee or being in that awesome band. If you can’t be out in the cold but you do have a car you can drive people home. And so on.
I might write a little more ‘Jail Support do-and-don’ts’ later, but if you do go to do Jail Support you’re also very likely to meet great people who can introduce you to it.
Finally: like with any task, there are people for whom Jail Support is not a good task. For example if any amount of waiting makes you extremely restless and if you act on that restlessness in a way that stresses out everyone else. Or if you’re frequently so in your own head that putting other people’s emotional needs first is not possible. Or if being near police stations is a bigger trigger for you than you can deal with right now. That’s okay.
In some cases you might still be able to do specific Jail Support, like playing in a band as described above. But in the end we don’t all need to do jail support. Everyone has stuff they can do and stuff that’s difficult for them and we don’t all need to be doing the same work.
QueerAnarchism 