The Chicago PIC Teaching Collective is proud to share several new resources that we have developed.

First, we are extremely proud to share the CURRICULUM for our PIC 101 workshop with interested parties.

In creating the workshop pieces, Collective members utilized previous knowledge and knowledge gained at the PIC Communiversity, from research, and from other Collective members. In November and December 2010, portions of the curriculum were presented to the entire Collective to test for feasibility, accuracy, and fit with the overall vision of the Collective. From there, parts of the workshop were further developed, adjusted, and refined to work in conjunction with all other parts. Over the next several months, all parts of the workshop were compiled into a curriculum, appendices were added, and introductions and conclusions were developed to create a complete workshop.

In April, June, and October 2011, Collective members piloted the workshop with people outside the Collective. The attendees of these pilot workshops varied in terms of previous knowledge of or experience with the PIC; workshop participants included former prisoners and family members of prisoners, prison reform and abolition activists, and people working within the PIC, as well as people who knew very little about the PIC but were eager to learn more. Based on feedback from these sessions, the curriculum was adjusted with sections deleted and replaced with something else, options were included to help facilitate according to the participants’ interests and experience, and the final touches were added.

The PIC Teaching Collective is proud to present this curriculum, knowing that it was developed by dedicated volunteers who are interested in teaching others about the Prison Industrial Complex. We are pleased with our finished product and invite you to use it to inspire others to action against the PIC. We welcome your feedback, and would love to hear how you are using the curriculum.

In addition, we encourage you to visit the RESOURCES section of our website to find new additions including a prison solidarity activity, a Historical Timeline of Policing in the U.S. and a workshop template for discussing gender in the PIC using visual art. We sincerely hope that these resources will prove useful to your work. We offer them in the spirit of movement-building and in the hope of contributing to dismantling the prison industrial complex.