The Prison Industrial Compex Is

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This is one of the group pieces that I heard at Louder Than a Bomb a few weeks ago (Chicago's youth poetry festival). The piece was presented in audio form because it was written by students in the Free Arts Jail Arts and Literacy Program at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. These poets could not be at Louder Than a Bomb, but their piece about the prison industrial complex being the modern extension of slavery in the United States. It was so powerful to hear their voices played over the speakers in the Auditorium Theater to a full house of high school students from around the city.