School of Abolition Workshops

Across the project we worked closely with a range of community and cultural partners including Sisco, Communities Against Prison Expansion, Solidarity Apothecary, Glasgow Zine Library, and Glasgow Prisoner Solidarity Network to explore the links between austerity, divestment, and carceral logic and their enduring effects of on communities living in the North of the city. These workshops were an opportunity to come together to share stories, experiences, knowledges, and ideas and hopes for the future.

It's not what you say It's what you do

It's not what you say It's what you do was created during a Zine making workshop in September 2021 between Sisco members, School of Abolition, Glasgow Zine Library, and Glasgow Prisoner Solidarity.

The zine explores the core principles of Sisco, trust, integrity, honesty and healthy relationships. The workshop was an opportunity to reflect on the various support structures that people need in order to live happy, healthy and prosperous lives. It gave those who had direct experience with addiction, trauma and the criminal justice system a platform to tell their stories in the hopes of helping others. 

How to Stop a Mega Prison

Plans have been approved to build a new mega-prison HMP Glasgow in Glasgow North East by 2025 at the cost of £100 million. We all want to live in a safe community free from harm, but creating a mega-prison will not bring about the change we need. Instead, we believe harm could be better prevented by continued investment in communities, such as secure housing, education, healthcare, and opportunity for all.  

In spite of these government plans, we have the collective power to halt mega-prison development. Communities have already stopped mega-prison development in Port Talbot and Wigan and stopped an immigration removal centre being built near Heathrow. Strong efforts continue to resist prison construction in East Yorkshire and for the total closure of the infamous Morton Hall.

This workshop was an opportunity for activists and communities in Glasgow to share skills and knowledge with people who have been involved in these successful campaigns and to learn how prison expansion has been challenged across the UK.

Solidarity Apothecary

Anarchist organiser, ex-prisoner, and herbalist Nicole Rose came to Glasgow to lead a series of practical sessions based on her book Prisoner’s Herbal. The book shares her experiences of using plants in prison as a means of circumventing medical neglect and the dehumanising effects of being separated from wild spaces. The book is widely distributed to prisoners and solidarity projects around the world.

Nicole led a workshop at Sisco which introduced the group to some of the plants from her book. Nicole gave an introduction to practical DIY medicine making skills while holding space for conversations connecting plants and abolition. The session provided a space for the group to share their own experiences of incarceration and what role herbs can play in healing from state violence, PTSD, and addiction.

Nicole also led a guided walk through the Hamiltonhill Claypits Local Nature Reserve in collaboration with artist Mitch Miller which focused on the use and stories of edible and medicinal common place plants, how to use them and what health challenges they can support. Throughout the walk, Nicole and Mitch reflected on the importance of inner-city green spaces as sites of healing, respite and recreation for working class communities. We ended the session with a tea tasting as one example of the different ways we can prepare plant medicines.