Some renewed conversations about #PrisonAbolition on here this morning, which is encouraging.
A few things I'd like to interject into the conversation, as someone who's been a part of hashing these conversations many times over:
#PrisonAbolition is not a utopian vision. Prison abolitionists aren't theorists removed from real implications of policing and incarceration, they are folks doing the most proactive and strategic work to address injustice:
jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison…
To those who say #PrisonAbolition offers no concrete solutions for what comes after, it is most often those making that statement (the wealthy and the white) who already live in communities devoid of prisons and policing:
radfag.com/2017/03/24/you…
To quote Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "Abolition is a presence, not an absence." The social services and supports lavished on communities of privilege is exactly what makes prisons unnecessary. #PrisonAbolition means demanding the same supports for oppressed communities.
And lastly, when we ask, "What about the bad people?" we are assuming all people inside prisons have done something harmful (many haven't) and all people on the outside have caused no harm (many, many of us have):
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
#PrisonAbolition is about fundamentally questioning criminality, since many crimes are not harmful (having no home, smoking weed, having an addiction) while many harms result in no criminal charges (dumping toxic waste, sexually assaulting women, giving poor ppl bad loans, etc.)
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