From now until April 15 Sylvia Ryerson’s award-winning documentary Calls from Home will be freely available for streaming at Inquest, in partnership with the Building Community Not Prisons coalition, which is fighting a proposed 1,408-bed federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky.
We encourage readers to share the short film widely and to consider hosting an in-person or virtual watch party. Below the film is a set of concrete actions we’re asking readers to take in order to help us stop this prison from being built.
Calls from Home documents WMMT-FM’s longstanding radio show that sends messages of love to people incarcerated across Central Appalachia. Right now, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is trying to build yet another prison, FCI–Letcher, within the range of WMMT-FM, in Letcher County, Kentucky.
We are at a critical moment in the campaign to stop FCI–Letcher from being built.
Building Community Not Prisons (BCNP) is a coalition led by local Kentuckians that is opposing the construction of FCI–Letcher. (The Institute to End Mass Incarceration, which publishes Inquest, is a member of the BCNP coalition.) BCNP is demanding better options for both the people of Letcher County and the communities of color that are most impacted by mass incarceration, and whose members would be incarcerated far from home if FCI-Letcher were to be built.
Until April 15, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is accepting public comments on whether the prison should be built. During this period, anyone in the United States can submit comments expressing their opposition. Letters can be short, and you can express opposition to the prison for any reason. BCNP is hoping to flood the BOP with letters asking that the prison be stopped.
You can submit your letter quickly and easily via this form set up by the coalition:
Want to support this work in other ways, too? There are so many opportunities to get involved. Here are just a few.
➜Share on Social Media
Use #NoNewLetcherPrison and #BuildingCommunityNotPrisons on social media to help spread the word about the campaign. On Instagram follow @nonewletcherprison and on X @NoNewBOPprison.
➜Stay Connected
Join BCNP’s mailing list to stay updated and learn about new ways to act.
Mailing List: bit.ly/BCNPactionalerts
➜Help Fund the Fight
Scan this QR code to make a donation to support the work! All funds will be used directly by the Building Community Not Prisons Coalition (BCNP) to support the fight against FCI–Letcher.
➜Recruit
Reach out to at least four friends and encourage them to submit a comment against the prison at https://bit.ly/NoNewPrisonEISComment.
And continue to follow coverage of the campaign that will appear on Inquest over the next month.