This doctoral thesis will identify strategic patterns in the response to Black political expression in US prisons, and in particular the penal techniques employed to prevent political organisation. This will seek to fill a distinct gap in literature regarding the suppression of Black imprisoned people's political voices, an issue that remains as prevalent today as at the start of this study. The prison has long been recognised as a significant space for political expression, however historical research has thus far neglected to examine the systematic response of authorities to this. I hypothesize that the state's repression of imprisoned political activists adapted to respond to changes in the methods and focus of protests. State interventions will be traced over the period from 1964-2020, utilising a mixed method approach, beginning with a quantitative analysis of penal techniques and prison demographies, combined with qualitative research using archival and published sources.