A Crime Called Freedom

by Wolfi Landstreicher

Writings of Os Cangaceiros Vol. 1 OS CANGACEIROS was a group of delinquents with nothing but contempt for the self-sacrificial ideology practiced by "specialists in armed struggle". This uncontrollable band of social rebels wreaked havoc on the French state by attacking the infrastructures of oppression, supporting popular revolts, stealing and releasing secret blueprints for high-tech prisons, raiding the offices of corporate collaborators, and creating their lives in complete opposition to the world based on work. This volume, translated by Wolfi Landstreicher, is the first collection of the writings of Os Cangaceiros in English. It was originally published by the great Eberhardt Press and has been out of print for years. Wolfi Landstreicher is the editor of the insurrectionary anarchist journal Willful Disobedience and publisher of Venomous Butterfly Publications. He has translated works by Renzo Novatore, Alfredo Bonanno, and many other Italian-language anarchist publications. We would be a shadow of what we are if it were not for his work. Millenarian Rebels is a companion book.

157 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Stephanie McGarrah · Rating 5 out of 5]

You probably haven't heard of Os cangaceiros, or at least this French anti-prison group who took their name from the banditry of Northeast Brazil. How many more statistics and charts do we need stating what we already know; that prisons are merely poor warehouses, and that the US has the highest number of prisoners in the world. They are used as slave labor making everything from clothes to electronics {some of which will inevitably be used for National defense) for less than 50 cents an hour. Well at least they are made in America. A prison doesn't need to have chain gangs anymore (though some still do), most of the labor happens inside so prisoners don't even get the luxury of working in the open air.

Prisoners don't just make material goods, their labor is also used in many other ways including but not limited to fighting wildfires, various forms of community service, entertainment, and training service dogs that will eventually go out in the world to help people. All of these things are seen as good from the public's point of view. That's part of so-called rehabilitation. In the immortal words of Biggie if you don't know, now you know.

A Crime Called Freedom tracks the evolution of prisons from the factories, drawing the direct parallels. They despise the outside 'human rights' groups fighting for reforms, for good reason if you desire out and out rebellion inside the prisons, which can only be done by the prisoners themselves, with their own bodies, their own hearts and their own minds. The best we can do from the outside is build relationships and provide material support for people coming out, who leave the prisons with only what they came in with, sometimes less if the guards feel like pinching a few extra dollars. As labor unions do to workers movements on the outside in order to tame them, so prison abolitionist groups inadvertently do to rebellious convicts.

We need to be as bold and as creative as Os cangaceiros. They took to heart the old line 'The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses,' only for them it would be 'The prisons are being built, they are being built and those who are building them have names and addresses.' I love this book and am so happy it was translated.