[Intro]
Freedom is breathing the fresh air
And the feeling of rain on the face
As you came in this place
Yet shamed and disgraced
The plan was the state
Made sure she caught the blame in the case
Another number without a name or a face
2 million filling their prisons
Now they claimed it was safe
[Verse 1]
Prison bars start looking like bar codes
Freedom of soul
Case closed
By an arm in a dark robe banging a gavel
To send you traveling carloads
On gravel and stark roads
Like cargo
To a place where the heart grows cold
You hear another prison door slam shut
By hard-nosed politicians making commission
Off of starved souls and
Prisons monopolize the cash flow
Go directly to jail and do not pa** go
I'm bound to get locked down
Than in a gown, cap, and ta**el
Profiled the suspect
Handcuffed and shackled
The most attacked and ha**led
By the cops in the hood
Though you at the top of the hood
And in the back with the la**o/lahso
The apso's gotta fill their quota of stocked goods
I might get the axe like chopped wood
It's not looking good
When the 5-0, the P.O.s, the D.A.s
The C.O.s are in large with the CEOs
They business partners
[Hook]
Come out with your hands up
Put 'em in handcuffs
We got locked
You hear another prison door slams shut
The door to opportunity closes
As it grows, the net profit it grosses
Come out with your hands up
Put 'em in handcuffs
We got locked
You hear another prison door slams shut
The door to opportunity closes
And then another prison door slams shut
[Verse 2]
He used to beat her mercilessly
But they wasn't coming around when she called the emergency
They said the state couldn't intercede
Until she made him bleed
Then they charged her in the first degree
Another door to opportunity closes
She discloses that she had a felony charge
On an application for a job
Its determination
What's she gonna do to survive?
There's no public a**istance when you've got a drug conviction
Listen, you hear another prison door slam shut
Mandatory minimums
Can't ignore these are women
Living in unsanitary conditions
With strip searches by male guards
On cell blocks
Don't be shell-shocked
When I spit verses
The door to opportunity closes
When mothers lose custody
And nothing's for free
In the home of the brave
Where we get enslaved
If we don't behave
[Hook]
[Verse 3]
Who's the enemy?
The women we define as criminals?
Corporate crimes get a slap on the wrist
And defined as political
Say farewell to welfare
No one else hears
It falls upon deaf ears
Wage is minimal
Get down on (?)
The war on poor
Drugs, and terrorism
Is a war on the
Democracy we never had
Just look at Florida
Elections get obtained and extorted
Foreigners detained and deported
Over the border, facts distorted
Putting people in a cage
Judge 'em with your legal ways
Lethal injection is modern-day lynching
Ain't it a shame
We ain't taking preventative measures
Like building better schools
And starting a needle exchange
So when you locking people up
You imprison yourself
More than a prisoner who lives in a cell
Your fear of losing your false sense of security and material wealth
Got you a life sentence to a living hell
We tipping the scales
And then you hear a prison door open
We kicking down the door, now it's broken
We fighting for this freedom and hoping
Saying live from the D to Oakland
No more prisons in the '04!
No more prisons in the '04!
Say, no more prisons in the '04!
No more prisons in the '04!
[Outro: Angela Davis]
You know, the 13th amendment abolished slavery for all except those who are being punished for committing a crime
So in a lot of ways what we see in the penitentiary system in this country is the continuation of the system of slavery
But the question is creating some new institutions, institutions that really will speak to the problems that people have, who go to prison. Rather than this prison system, which continues to reproduce the problems for which people are sent to prison