Inside the Neo-Nazi Prison Magazine Radicalizing Americans in Their Cells

A new far-right newspaper, the White Prison Newsletter (or WPN), has recently been gaining traction in extremist circles. Its publication was first announced on The American Futurist, an accelerationist site founded by former members of the Atomwaffen Division—a thankfully now-defunct neo-Nazi organization linked to a number of murders and terror attack plots.

As sharper readers will have already deduced, the WPN aims to reach far-right prison inmates in their cells, either digitally or in print.

In the WPN, the avowed neo-Nazi or simply fascism-curious jailbird will find all manner of features, including recommended reading lists, opinion pieces written by prisoners (often using pseudonyms), and even a crossword.

According to the WPN channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, one of its key contributors is Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell, who was also involved in the highly influential and proscribed Terrorgram Collective digital propaganda network. Russell is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for plotting to blow up the Baltimore power grid along with his girlfriend, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, who is serving 18 years. 

Understandably, Russell has spent a fair chunk of his life behind bars, and he has a history of using the copious free time to push his warped agenda. In 2018, after being imprisoned for federal explosives charges, he recorded a video thanking friends for their “undying loyalty and courage,” while issuing threats to those who’d betrayed the Atomwaffen Division.

Clendaniel has also contributed at least one op-ed to WPN. In a piece for the third issue, she argues that it’s the duty of women to serve and inspire the neo-Nazi men in their lives.

While the first two issues of WPN cover a range of topics, the third focuses heavily on far-right accelerationism. An anti-semitic ideology promoting the belief that modern society is irreparably broken and controlled by nefarious figures who force white people to “race mix,” accelerationism advocates for the collapse of that society through terror attacks. Over half of issue three is devoted to a single essay that, though framed in abstract language which avoids direct calls to violence, seeks to explain and promote accelerationist ideology.

WPN‘s tone appears designed to avoid being flagged by prison authorities by the skin of its teeth. For example, one opinion piece submitted by an “Anonymous NS Federal Prisoner” discusses the environmental damage caused by chemical companies, suggests that perhaps the executives of said companies ought to face some fairly Old Testament forms of justice, but pull ups just short of imploring the reader to enact that justice themselves. (Though the piece was published anonymously, Brandon Russell’s eco-fascist beliefs are well known.)

Significantly, the publication appears to be endorsed by leading figures within the far right. A recent post on its Telegram channel showed a screenshot of a message from white supremacist Robert Bowers, who’s currently on death row for killing 11 wor­ship­ers at a Pittsburgh syn­a­gogue in October 2018. In the reply, he commends the quality of the newspaper. It also seems that the WPN tapped him to contribute, since Bowers remarks that he is “not much of a writer.”

While its scope may seem limited, given it’s aimed at the incarcerated, the WPN is making waves in neo-Nazi Telegram, functioning as a radicalization tool in the U.S. prison system, and is at the very least on the radar of some of the most extreme figures in American society.

In a digital age where children as young as 12 are being recruited into neo-Nazi groups via messaging apps, forums, and online gaming, it’s important to note the dangers still posed by more analog forms of propaganda—even those that have their own puzzle sections.

Find more of Michael Corech’s reporting at his Substack, Red Pill Reversal.