A weekly roundup of news and action alerts about political prisoners, prison struggles, and organizing against the prison industrial complex (PIC), both nationally and internationally. If you’ve got something you’d like to see included, leave a comment or send me an email.

• A Los Angeles police officer was sentenced to 16 months in prison for kicking and striking a handcuffed woman who later died in the hospital.

• The Move organization is holding a community town hall on August 1 in Philadelphia and all are invited to attend. The occasion marks 37 years of imprisonment for the Move 9 and discussion will revolve around working to win parole for the Move 9.

• In an article on Truthout, author and activist Dan Berger looks at political prisoners in the U.S. in the context of ideas of guilt and innocence and the use of mass incarceration and solitary confinement.

• Two animal rights activists from Oakland, CA, were arrested on July 25 and are being charged as terrorists under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), for allegedly freeing mink from fur farms and vandalizing property. Joseph Buddenburg and Nicole Kissan face up to ten years in prison. Donation to their defense fund can be made here.

• A judge on Friday ordered the U.S. to release the immigrant children and their mothers it has been holding in privately-run detention centers, often for months on end. The judge said children were held in “widespread deplorable conditions” and that the government had “’wholly failed’ to provide the ‘safe and sanitary’ conditions required for children even in temporary cells.”