Recently I participated in a conversation on here about prison abolition. I'm trying to form my thoughts around it. The convo was mostly useless. But my goal was to try to get a sense for how people think about the purpose of prisons. I want to share a few initial thoughts.
I went into this already understanding that this is a difficult topic. Talking about prisons means talking about the many ways that people may have been victimized. It immediately brings up a lot of powerful feelings for people. Which also means it is hard to discuss things.
When you talk about prisons, almost everybody has the same initial question.
"What about heinous crimes like murder or sexual assault? We can't let those people go free."
It's a legitimate question. And at the same time, I feel it's not that useful to discuss.
"What about heinous crimes like murder or sexual assault? We can't let those people go free."
It's a legitimate question. And at the same time, I feel it's not that useful to discuss.
In my current readings on prison abolition, I don't think we have a good answer on what to do with the worst offenders. I don't think the answer will be simple. But I think there is plenty that we can and should do without needing to answer that question.
The vast majority of people in American prisons are not violent offenders. And as soon as you think about it, you realize how ridiculous it is that those people are subject to the same punishment as that of the most violent offenders.
But when I started to have this conversation, something else happened that I was a little surprised by. There are man, many Americans who don't even think about what happens to people who are *not* murderers or sexual predators.
The whole conversation turns around what happens to these worst offenders. All of the tropes are there. They are "irredeemable". They "deserve to rot". When you ask people about everybody else they say "oh of course they don't deserve this. That's obvious."
The word "obvious" was used literally. Many times. And that's telling. Because these people don't actually plan to do anything about the reality that every criminal is subject to the same prison. They just accept that as a thing that happens.
I don't think I am a person who is naturally inclined to take up causes. It took a long time for me to be radicalized, and I tend to overthink it. So I had to ask myself why it matters to take up the cause of trying to get people out of prison.
I've talked a lot about how American culture is punitive. Our morality centers around punishment in many different ways. We are a bloodthirsty people. We are conditioned from very young to *want* to see people suffer. That's what we Americans call justice.
Several people in this convo invoked the analogy of spanking children. "That's why you spank children. To teach them to do the right thing." This was said in the same conversation as what to do about murderers. It was wild to me. That's what I mean when I say it's cultural.
So from this I came away with some connecting thoughts. Our institutions are often organized to maximize dolling out punishment in lieu of justice. That's what they're for because that's what our culture demands.
The problem is that we abdicate our responsibility to make sure we know who gets punished, how severely, and for what transgressions. Prison is a blunt instrument. Not only does it punish all equally. The punishment is then compounded by throwing everyone in together.
Not only is a petty thief receive the same punishment as a murderer, they are also forced into the same space as that violence. They are asked to survive in close proximity to the same people we want to be locked away *forever* due to how heinous we believe them to be.
A prison cannot serve the purposes of deterrence or penance when we do not seek to match the severity of the crime. Not only does it fail at produces these desired outcomes, it produces people who are *more* likely to victimize others when they are released.
Prison fails at almost every single thing that we say we want it to do. Setting aside whether some of these things are even appropriate. It doesn't deter crimes. It doesn't punish people appropriately. It doesn't rehabilitate. It *does* increase victimization and recidivism.
Prison does only one thing that people want. Just one. It is a solution for taking people deemed unworthy to live in free society with the rest of us and warehouses them away. That is the only thing it does. And the downsides of the way we do that are tremendous. Incalculable.
Once you give those in power a blunt tool like a prison, it will be used to enact any and every form of bias that we can imagine. Everyone who is on the wrong side of power will be subject to that same blunt instrument.
And we know this is true when we look at what white supremacy has done to black and brown people. As long as we accept that prison is an appropriate form of punishment, it will be disproportionately used to punish us for existing.
So what should we do today? What's an appropriate first step? That's what I've been thinking about.
I believe the right stance to take today is to do everything we can to de-emphasize prison as the default punishment for anything America calls a crime.
I believe the right stance to take today is to do everything we can to de-emphasize prison as the default punishment for anything America calls a crime.
I believe our goal should be that people convicted of non-violent crimes should never set foot in a prison or a jail. And everyone currently in a prison for non-violent crimes be set free. Period.
This isn't "simple". It isn't "easy". We have make a lot of decisions about what to do instead. But the impact that this would have on our society would be immeasurable.
