officer - something that to this day Abu-Jamal proclaims his innocence...

In Prison My Whole Life is not a documentary about someone who was born in prison as I first assumed, stupidly, but it's a documentary narrated by William Francome, someone who throughout his whole life has been reminded by his mother, that the day of his birth was significant for more than just the beginning of his life; for the 9th December 1981, the day that John Lennon was shot dead, was also the day that Black Panther activist Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia.

As Francome takes us through the documentary, his relationship towards this case gets stronger - it feels as though he truly does have a connection to the guy who has not seen the light of day since the early eighties. Francome takes us through the history of the Black Panther Movement of which Abu-Jamal was a part of; the racial struggle that black people faced against institutional racism that existed not just in the police force, but the whole judiciary system in America's first alleged 'Police State,' Philadelphia.

The Black Panther movement was an uprising against the treatment of black people in America at the time - a large peaceful movement in the beginning, and one which was resisted heavily by the police at the time. Anyone who was at the G20 protests may have felt the police were heavy-handed, which they were, but in Philadelphia at this time, it was simply on another level for those caught in the cross-fire between corporate bullies and freedom fighters - toddlers were being treated in the same regard as protesters, death tolls were clocking up, and in one instance, there is a video shown in the documentary of a police helicopter dropping a bomb on a block of flats full of Black Panther protesters, resulting in 11 deaths. It wasn’t protests, but war on the streets.

In Abu-Jamal's case, he was eventually arrested for the murder after he arrived at a scene where his brother was being attacked by a police officer. While he does not deny being at the scene, he strongly denies that he killed the officer. Francome takes us through a CSI style investigation of his own, firstly uncovering that the key witnesses that sent Abu-Jamal down were a prostitute and a police informant. Using evidence that was not used in the court, including eye-witness reports, exclusive photos and accusations of a subjective judge/jury. Francome tears apart the original investigation and puts a great case together for reasonable doubt.

Mos Def and Snoop Dogg also feature, speaking about their support for Abu-Jamal who communicates beyond his cell using his 15 minutes per week phone calls to broadcast his voice over a web radio show. Mos Def and Snoop adamantly claim that the police force that operated in the 80s are not too different to now - the overall feeling is that people are still persecuted because of their race or class, and in fact people are persecuted even more for standing up against the systems that hold them down.

Any thoughts you may have on the contrary are dashed at the end of the film, when Francome confrims that despite the reasonable doubt, and the revelation that the key witnesses were bent, and the fact that the judge and jury were subjective, and the fact that the forensics didn’t match up - Mumia Abu-Jamal’s latest appeal was turned down and as a result he is due to be executed in the near future.

For the record there are currently 3,350 people on death row in America...I wonder how many of them are victims of similar circumstances.

In Prison My Whole Life is available at:

<a href="http://www.inprisonmywholelife.com/dvd">http://www.inprisonmywholelife.com/dvd</a>

WE HAVE 2 FREE SIGNED COPIES TO GIVE AWAY, EMAIL 'IN PRISON MY WHOLE LIFE'TO: WITH YOUR NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS BY MIDDAY ON FRIDAY 26TH JUNE 2009.

Words: Ben Anderson