Originally published in the Winter/Spring 2025 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 76, printed March 26. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

Staff Report

Last December, prisoner-activist Kevin “Rashid” Johnson put out a call “to create a prisoner support network composed of people who genuinely care about prisoners and the conditions we live under and abuses we suffer, namely our loved ones.”

The original name, People Against Prison Abuse, has since evolved into UPROAR — Uniting Prisoners’ Relatives Organizing Against Repression — “a group of united and outraged loved ones whose lives are impacted by the suffering of those they love who are confined in these prisons.”

The organization lists its four core purposes as:

1 – Direct confrontation: we don’t just advocate, we organize, resist and apply pressure.
2 – Families as a force: this is a movement led by prisoners and their loved ones, not by detached NGOs, not-for-profits, or career activists.
3 – Inside-Outside-Unity: we connect the struggle inside to generate pressure outside, breaking the isolation prisons depend on.
4 – Material Resistance: we expose repression, mobilize communities, and dismantle systemic abuse, not just describe it.

For more information about UPROAR, visit this website or email them at uproar1966@prton.me.