Issued before the January 1972 Prison Action Conference, organized in the aftermath of the Attica and San Quentin uprisings. The conference sought to promote and assist organizing within prisons, and to discuss prison organizing as an element of anti-imperialist, anti-racist, feminist organizing.

Key speakers included Afeni Shakur, defendant in the Panther 21 trial in New York, and mother of Tupac Shakur; Fay Stender, Berkeley attorney with years of experience in the prison movement; and Frank Rundle, former chief psychiatrist at Soledad Prison.

 This pamphlet, illustrated throughout, analyzes the history and context of the prison reform movement, includes poetry by Bertolt Brecht, and promotes workshops such as "Women in Prison," "Prisoners' Organizations," and "Economics of Prisons."