incarceration on the move. austria

I would start with some obvious facts that struck me when I started working with the union and saw the list of the members– around half of them are not Austrians. This largely corresponds to the prison population of which more than 50% do not have Austrian citizenship. In spite of the absurd and racist claims of right-wing populists, this is obviously not due to a higher inclination to criminality of foreigners. Foreigners and, especially, PoC are frequently controlled and harassed by the police, are sent to prison for petty crimes which would not lead to a prison sentence for Austrians. They are frequently held in pre-trial prison as, allegedly, there is the danger of flight, they are less frequently released on probation and can only very rarely get out with an electronic shackle.

Apart from the evident racism, this means in practice that a lot of them shall be deported after they serve their sentence. Even if their loved ones legally reside here. It is already a huge problem of the prison system that it makes non-convicted people getting punished, as they also stripped the rights to see and communicate with the incarcerated person. But if you are not a EU citizen, the punishment goes past the sentence time due to the deportations and further residence restrictions. Not to mention that this happens even to the people who had been residing legally before the incarceration.

On the other hand some refugees reside illegally. Setting aside an obvious question, whether a living being can be illegal, I want to enunciate that such condition is absolutely preventable. State creates illegal immigrants not only by calling them so. Even taking this for granted, the process of legalising is very hard. Especially if you are a refugee then even getting minimal aid is extremely complicated. Meanwhile you are not really allowed to do anything to sustain and develop yourself. So you just have to live idly while your case is being decided by some bureaucrats, while you are left in quite inhumane conditions. This way leaving the refugee facility and starting reside elsewhere illegally becomes a very viable option, if you just want to live any sensible life. Dublin convention also makes it way harder, since typically the country you would enter EU and the country you would ask for the refuge do not coincide and again you are forced to live illegally if you do not want to go to the country in which you entered the EU. Again, this situation is pretty much preventable. On the larger scale the regulation is also absurd as, obviously, this means that most refugees should be accepted by a very few countries which are also poorer countries of the EU.

Prison-wise, the illegal residential status would make deportation in case of detention absolutely inevitable, with very slim chances to return to EU.

This strips away certain rights. For instance the democratic right to protest imperils. It is not nice to be pepper sprayed or even detained for a couple of weeks for anyone. But for an immigrant, any police encounter would raise their chances to be deported sometimes to a problematic country of origin, where the person can expect much more severe ramifications. I can speak here for myself as for me and the comrades from my country of origin, the deportation can mean a more serious prison sentence. And this is how police and prison violence exerts itself even without being direct. It basically threatens immigrants. As Simone Weil was defining force by something that makes one immovable, makes one a mere thing. As a person at gunpoint not being beaten directly is reduced to an object. The same way immigrants live under extended police force, even without being subject to the police directly.

This way I am really glad to speak here today. As it is important to keep in mind how police and prison fuels racism and violation of human rights in general; and that police violence and racism are mutually dependent, since the police and prison are the main force that makes racism systematic and this inherent racism show that police and prison cannot be reformed, they have to be abolished.

Felix, The Union for Prisoners' Rights
Commemoraction, Vienna, 6.1.2026

The Union was initiated by prisoners in prison. For obvious reasons it is virtually impossible to do any Union activities behind the bars. Hence, we are acting as the Solidarity Group consisting of extraordinary members, who can assist the prisoners from outside, with unfortunately quite limited means. We position ourselves as an abolitionist, anti-fascist, anti-racist organisation. Our work reaches from supporting prisoners in very concrete ways, like writing a complaint, to educating civil society about the conditions in prisoners. Furthermore, we engage in abolitionism which means that we organise and work towards a system without prisons. For us, it is important to mention that we support all prisoners, no matter of their offence, political belief and stance towards prison work and abolitionism. We support groups who only support political prisoners but for us, a distinction between prisoners who deserve support and those who don’t goes against our abolitionist principles.