Abolition of police and prisons

360 readers

1 users here now

Abolish is to flourish! Against the prison industrial complex and for transformative justice.

See Critical Resistance's definitions below:

The Prison Industrial Complex

The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.

Through its reach and impact, the PIC helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other privileges. There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant. This power is also maintained by earning huge profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces; helping earn political gains for "tough on crime" politicians; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination and reorganization of power in the US.

Abolition

PIC abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.

From where we are now, sometimes we can't really imagine what abolition is going to look like. Abolition isn't just about getting rid of buildings full of cages. It's also about undoing the society we live in because the PIC both feeds on and maintains oppression and inequalities through punishment, violence, and controls millions of people. Because the PIC is not an isolated system, abolition is a broad strategy. An abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives.

Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

mambabasa

Five

229

Locked away at 18, Robert DuBoise hugs his mom outside the prison after DNA freed him at 57 (slrpnk.net)

submitted 6 months ago by Five to c/abolition

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] activistPnk 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

As comprehensive as that report is, I can’t help but notice that it did not give the impression that the guy’s family did much to help. Poverty is limiting but IIRC his sister did not visit for a 3 year stretch or something like that. Pre-Warren, indeed the prosecutors stood as a barrier to freeing DuBoise. But IMO he could have be exonerated ~10-15 years sooner if his family had driven a relentless campaign.

what’s wrong with conservatives here?

Ron DeSantis will probably never experience the degree of shame that he should for dismantling the infrastructure to free innocent people. I struggle to understand this because I don’t think conservatives think of themselves as scumbags. But then how do conservatives reconcile their own introspection of themselves in a way that does not make them assholes? A friend turned conservative once told me a good system incarcerates innocent people in order to convict more baddies -- that it’s an acceptible colatteral damage for the greater good. The whole /innocent until proven guilty/ philosophy is lost on conservatives as they elect hard-ass judges every chance they get. Yet they do not seem to see themselves as assholes. Ron DeSantis is successful in taking power because of this. He represents republicans well for the assholes they are.

To try to be as fair as possible, we could try to see this as conservatives having compassion for the victim that triggers uncontrolled irrational behaviour. But at election time what separates liberal judges from the hard-ass judges is treatment of victimless crimes.