The prison abolition movement is a network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate

prisons A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various cr ...

and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation and education that do not focus on punishment and government institutionalization. The prison abolitionist movement is distinct from conventional

prison reform Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, reduce recidivism or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are ...

, which is intended to improve conditions inside prisons. Supporters of prison abolitionism are a diverse group with differing ideas as to exactly how prisons should be abolished, and what, if anything, should replace them. Some supporters of

decarceration Decarceration in the United States involves government policies and community campaigns aimed at reducing the number of people held in custody or custodial supervision. Decarceration, the opposite of incarceration, also entails reducing the rate ...

and prison abolition also work to end

solitary confinement Solitary confinement (also shortened to solitary) is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single Prison cell, cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to ...

, the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

, and the construction of new prisons through non-reformist reforms. Others support books-to-prisoner projects and defend prisoners' right to access information and library services. Some organizations, such as the

Anarchist Black Cross The Anarchist Black Cross (ABC), formerly the Anarchist Red Cross, is an anarchist support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organizes material and legal support for c ...

, seek the total abolishment of the prison system without any intention to replace it with other government-controlled systems.

Definition

Scholar

Dorothy Roberts Dorothy E. Roberts (born March 8, 1956) is an American sociologist, law professor, and social justice advocate. She is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, George A. Weiss University Professor, and inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mos ...

takes the prison abolition movement in the United States to endorse three basic theses: # " day’s carceral punishment system can be traced back to

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

and the racial capitalist regime it relied on and sustained." # " e expanding criminal punishment system functions to oppress black people and other politically marginalized groups in order to maintain a racial capitalist regime." # " can imagine and build a more humane and democratic society that no longer relies on caging people to meet human needs and solve social problems." Thus, Roberts situates the theory of prison abolition within an intellectual tradition including scholars such as

Cedric Robinson Cedric James Robinson (November 5, 1940 – June 5, 2016) was an American professor in the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He headed the Department of Bla ...

, who developed the concept of racial capitalism, and characterizes the movement as a response to a long history of oppressive treatment of black people in the United States. In Canada, many abolitionists have called Canada's prisons the "new residential schools", which were designed as a cultural genocide of Indigenous people. Legal scholar Allegra McLeod notes that prison abolition is not merely a negative project of "opening … prison doors", but rather "may be understood instead as a gradual project of decarceration, in which radically different legal and institutional regulatory forms supplant criminal law enforcement." Prison abolition, in McLeod's view, involves a positive agenda that reimagines how societies might deal with social problems in the absence of prisons, using techniques such as

decriminalization Decriminalization or decriminalisation is the legislative process which removes prosecutions against an action so that the action remains illegal but has no criminal penalties or at most some civil fine. This reform is sometimes applied retroacti ...

and improved welfare provision. Like Roberts, McLeod sees the contemporary theory of prison abolition as linked to theories regarding the

abolition of slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. T ...

. McLeod notes that

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...

—particularly in his ''

Black Reconstruction in America ''Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880'' is a history of the Reconstruction Era, Reconstruction era by W. E. B. Du Bois, f ...

''—saw abolitionism not only as a movement to end the legal institution of property in human beings, but also as a means of bringing about a "different future" wherein former slaves could enjoy full participation in society. (

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of ...

explicitly took inspiration from Du Bois's concept of "abolition democracy" in her book ''Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture''.) Similarly, on McLeod's view, prison abolition implies broad changes to social institutions: " abolitionist framework", she writes, "requires positive forms of social integration and collective security that are not organized around criminal law enforcement, confinement, criminal surveillance, punitive policing, or punishment." The abolition of prisons is not only about the closure of prisons. Abolitionist views is also a way to counter the hegemonic discourse, and gives an alternative ways of thinking. It is a way to reconceptualize basic notions like crime, innocence, punishment etc.

Historical development

Anarchism and prison abolition

Many

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

organizations believe that the best form of justice arises naturally out of social contracts,

restorative justice Restorative justice is a community-based approach to justice that aims to repair the harm done to victims, offenders and communities. In doing so, restorative justice practitioners work to ensure that offenders take responsibility for their ac ...

, or

transformative justice Transformative justice is a spectrum of social, economic, legal, and political practices and philosophies that aim to focus on the structures and underlying conditions that perpetuate harm and injustice. Taking up and expanding on the goals of rest ...

. Anarchist opposition to incarceration can be found in articles written as early as 1851, and is elucidated by major anarchist thinkers such as

Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, ; ; 1809 – 19 January 1865) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to ca ...

Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin. ( ; – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, so ...

, Berkman, Goldman, Malatesta, Bonanno, and

Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later ...

. Personal experiences in prison because of revolutionary activity prompted many anarchists who were “deeply affected by their experiences” to publish their criticisms. In 1886, the trial of eight anarchists following the Haymarket riots brought state repression to public attention. Lucy Parsons, an anarchist and wife of one of the Haymarket eight, embarked on a speaking tour through 17 different states speaking to a total of almost 200,000 people. A single rally in

Havana, Cuba Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.August Spies, stated:

It is not likely that the honorable Bonfield and Grinnell can conceive of a social order not held intact by the policeman's club and pistol, nor of a free society without prisons, gallows, and State's attorneys. In such a society they probably fail to find a place for themselves. And is this the reason why Anarchism is such a "pernicious and damnable doctrine?"

The Anarchist Red Cross, a prisoner support group and the precursor to the

, was founded roughly in 1906. By that year, groups existed in Kiev, Odessa, Bialystok, and trials of its members, led to its spread across Europe and North America. A 2018 guide to starting an Anarchist Black Cross group states that "we need to destroy all the prisons, and free all the prisoners. Our position is an abolitionist stance against the state and it’s prisons." In 1917, the Anarchist Red Cross would disband and members joined the revolution in Russia. Following the February revolution, political prisoners were released from Russian jails, in a massive wave of amnesties. The Anarchist Red Cross reorganised in 1919 as the Anarchist Black Cross, with some members joining the anarchist insurgent,

Nestor Makhno Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (, ; 7 November 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ( , ), was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War o ...

. Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist who was freed in 1917 from a life sentence in prison, organised a revolutionary insurgent army along anarchist principles that would come to control a territory of seven-and-a-half million people. Upon taking control of a town, Makhnovists would destroy “all remnants and symbols of slavery: prisons, police and

gendarmerie A gendarmerie () is a paramilitary or military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (). In France and so ...

posts were blown up with dynamite or put to the torch.” Prisoners in battle who were not officers were typically welcomed into the ranks of Makhnovists or freed. The Makhnovist revolutionary insurgent army adopted a declaration in 1919, stating

we are against all rigid judicial and police machinery, against any legislative code prescribed once and for all time, for these involve gross violations of genuine justice and of the real protections of the population. These ought not to be organized but should be instead the living, free and creative act of the community. Which is why all obsolete forms of justice—court administration, revolutionary tribunals, repressive laws, police or militia,
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
, prisons and all other sterile and useless anachronisms—must disappear of themselves or be abolished from the very first breath of the free life, right from the very first steps of the free and living organization of society and the economy.

The Anarchist Black Cross was reconstituted in the aftermath of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

and Anarchist Revolution. The pressure from the number of anarchist prisoners in need of aid led to the closing of “most of the chapters in the United States and Europe.” Alternative groups, such as the

Alexander Berkman Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870June 28, 1936) was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing. Be ...

Aid Fund and the Society to Aid Anarchist Prisoners in Russia would take their place. Another resurgence was felt in 1967, and, again, in 1979 owing to the efforts of Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, whose writings on prison and anarchism are credited as having spread and been foundational to Black anarchism. Anarchists agitation against prisons in Canada has included Bulldozer, an anti-prison anarchist project founded in Toronto in 1980. Bulldozer was closed after being raided and charged with sedition. The End the Prison Industrial Complex (Epic) was formed in 2009, and Anarchist Black Cross projects emerged throughout the 2000s. Anarchists and abolitionists within Québec organise yearly noise demonstrations outside of prison facilities on New Year's Eve. A campaign to stop the construction of a migrant prison involved anarchists unloading thousands of crickets into the offices of an architectural firm in 2018. Campaigns to free anarchist prisoners have served as the basis for calling for freedom for all prisoners. June 11, 2011, international solidarity actions for anarchist prisoners Marie Mason and Eric McDavid triggered the start of an international day and week of solidarity with all anarchist prisoners in 2015. 2022's week of solidarity included actions in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Uruguay, Greece, the UK, and other countries. The 2022-2023 hunger strike of anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito led to police skirmishes with protesters in Rome, a Turin cell tower being lit on fire, and a letter with bullets was sent to a newspaper stating "if Alfredo Cospito dies judges will all be targets, two months without food, burn down the prisons." International actions to free Cospito, included the burning of a Strabag excavator in Germany. The Italian placed their embassies on "alert" in response to mobilizations. The Rojavan Revolution, which many have considered illustrative of, and rooted in, anarchist theory, involved the mass liquidation of prisons and freeing of political prisoners and nonviolent offenders. Neighbourhood based "peace committees," composed of elected community members with, largely, no formal legal education, were created to resolve conflicts using a model of consensus and restorative justice.

Prison abolition and the New Left

traces the roots of contemporary prison abolition theory at least to Thomas Mathiesen's 1974 book ''The Politics of Abolition'', which had been published in the wake of the Attica Prison uprising and unrest in European prisons around the same time. She also cites activist Fay Honey Knopp's 1976 work ''Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists'' as significant in the movement. Eduardo Bautista Duran and

Jonathan Simon Jonathan Simon is an American academic, the Lance Robbins Professor of Criminal Justice Law, and the former Associate Dean of the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Simon’s scholarship concerns the role ...

point out that George Jackson's 1970 text '' Soledad Brother'' drew global attention to the conditions of prisons in the United States and made prison abolition a tenet of the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer ...

. Liz Samuels has observed that, following the Attica Prison uprising, activists began to coalesce around a vision of abolition, whereas previously they had endorsed a program of reform.

1973 Walpole Prison uprising

In 1973, two years after the Attica Prison uprising, the inmates of Walpole prison, in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, formed a prisoners' union to protect themselves from guards, end behavioral modification programs, advocate for the prisoner's right for education and healthcare, gain more visitation rights, work assignments, and to be able to send money to their families. The union also created a general truce within the prison and race-related violence sharply declined. During the

Kwanzaa Kwanzaa () is an annual celebration of African-American culture from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a communal feast called ''Karamu'', usually on the sixth day. It was created by activist Maulana Karenga based on African harvest fe ...

celebration, black prisoners were placed under lockdown, angering the whole facility and leading to a general strike. Prisoners refused to work or leave their cells for three months, to which the guards responded by beating prisoners, putting prisoners in solitary confinement, and denying prisoners medical care and food. The strike ended in the prisoners' favour as the superintendent of the prison resigned. The prisoners were granted more visitation rights and work programs. Angered by this, the prison guards went on strike and abandoned the prison, hoping that this would create chaos and violence throughout the prison. But the prisoners were able to create an

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

where

recidivism Recidivism (; from 'recurring', derived from 'again' and 'to fall') is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been trained to Extinction (psycholo ...

dropped dramatically and murders and rapes fell to zero. Prisoners volunteered to cook meals. Vietnam veterans who had been trained as medics took charge of the pharmacy and distribution of medication. Decisions were made in community assemblies.

Advocates of prison abolition

writes: "Mass incarceration is not a solution to unemployment, nor is it a solution to the vast array of social problems that are hidden away in a rapidly growing network of prisons and jails. However, the great majority of people have been tricked into believing in the efficacy of imprisonment, even though the historical record clearly demonstrates that prisons do not work." In 1997, Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore co-founded

Critical Resistance Critical Resistance (CR) is a U.S. based organization with the stated goal of abolishing the prison-industrial complex (PIC). Critical Resistance's national office is in Oakland, California, with three additional chapters in New York City, Los ...

, which is an organization working to "build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe." Other similarly motivated groups such as the

Prison Activist Resource Center A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various crim ...

(PARC), a group "committed to exposing and challenging all forms of institutionalized racism, sexism, able-ism, heterosexism, and classism, specifically within the Prison Industrial Complex," and Black & Pink, an abolitionist organization that focuses around LGBTQ rights, all broadly advocate for prison abolition. Furthermore, the Human Rights Coalition, a 2001 group based in the city of Philadelphia that aims to abolish prisons, with their mission stating "to empower prisoners' families to be leaders in prison organizing and to teach them how to advocate on behalf of their loved ones in prison and expose the inhumane practices of the Department of Corrections." In addition, the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a grassroots organization dedicated to dismantling the PIC, can all be added to the long list of organizations that desire a different form of justice system. Project NIA, an organization founded in 2009 by Mariame Kaba, helps to end the incarceration of youth, as well as victims of violence "through community-based alternatives to the criminal legal process." Since 1983, the International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) gathers activists, academics, journalists, and "others from across the world who are working towards the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, carceral controls and the prison industrial complex (PIC)," to discuss three important questions surrounding the reality of prison abolition ICOPA was one of the first penal abolitionist conference movements, similar to Critical Resistance in America, but "with an explicitly international scope and agenda-setting ambition." Anarchists wish to eliminate all forms of

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

control, of which

imprisonment Imprisonment or incarceration is the restraint of a person's liberty for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is considered " false imprisonment". Impri ...

is seen as one of the more obvious examples. Anarchists also oppose prisons given that statistics show incarceration rates affect mainly poor people and

ethnic minorities The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority g ...

, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse. In October 2015, members at a plenary session of the

National Lawyers Guild The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 193 ...

(NLG) released and adopted a resolution in favor of prison abolition. In Canada, a number of organizations support prison abolition, which includes the Saskatchewan Manitoba Alberta Abolition Organization (SMAAC) or the Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project. These organizations collaborate and organize on issues of prison abolition and work towards prison abolition. Many large socialist organizations in the United States support police and prison abolition, including

Democratic Socialists of America The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a political organization in the United States and the country's largest Socialism, socialist organization. Sitting on the Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left of the politic ...

and the

Party for Socialism and Liberation The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a communist party, communist political party in the United States, political party in the United States. PSL formed in 2004, when its members split from the Workers World Party. PSL describes it ...

Disability, mental illness and prison

Prison abolitionists such as Amanda Pustilnik take issue with the fact that prisons are used as a "default asylum" for many individuals with mental illness:

Why do governmental units choose to spend billions of dollars a year to concentrate people with serious illnesses in a system designed to punish intentional lawbreaking, when doing so matches neither the putative purposes of that system nor most effectively addresses the issues posed by that population?

In the United States, there are more people with mental illness in prisons than in psychiatric hospitals. In Canada, mental health issues are 2 to 3 times more prevalent in prisons than in the general population. Prison abolitionists contend that prisons violate the

Constitutional right A constitutional right can be a prerogative or a duty, a power or a restraint of power, recognized and established by a sovereign state or union of states. Constitutional rights may be expressly stipulated in a national constitution, or they may ...

s (5th and 6th Amendment rights) of mentally ill prisoners on the grounds that these individuals will not be receiving the same potential for rehabilitation as the non-mentally ill prison population. This injustice is sufficient grounds to argue for the abolishment of prisons. Prisons were not designed to be used to house the mentally ill, and prison practices like solitary confinement are damaging to mental health. Additionally, individuals with mental illnesses have a much higher chance of dying by suicide while in prison. In response to the fear that prisons are needed for the most serious cases of mentally ill, Liat Ben-Mosh describe prison abolitionist's' view on the issue: "Many prison abolitionists advocate for

and healing practices in which no one will be restrained or segregated, while some, like PREAP, believe that there will always be a small percentage of those whose behavior is so unacceptable or harmful that they will need to be incapacitated, socially exiled, or restrained and that this should be done humanely, temporarily, and not in a carceral or punitive manner." Another point raised is that the current focus in criminal justice reform on nonviolent, nonserious and nonsexual offences shrinks the borders and understandings of innocence and guilt.

Aging in prison

The prison abolition movement and prison abolitionists like Liat Ben-Moshe have taken issue with the treatment of the aging population in prisons. Prolonged sentencing policies have resulted in an increased aging population in prisons as well as the harsh conditions of imprisonment. A number of reasons can contribute to older adult's risk for illness while in prison. Prisons are not intended to be used as nursing homes, hospice or long-term care facilities for the aging prison population. Despite this, prison

hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life b ...

does exist. In Canada, individuals 50 years of age and older in federal custody account for 25% of the federal prison population. Investigations into the Canadian federal penitentiary have found that there is a general failure of the Correctional Service of Canada to meet safe and humane custody and assisting in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders into the community. The conditions of confinement of older individuals jeopardize the protection of their human rights. The conditions of the aging population in Canada has been denounced by persons who are incarcerated.

Proposed reforms and alternatives

Proposals for prison reform and alternatives to prisons differ significantly depending on the political beliefs behind them. Often they fall in one of three categories from the "Attrition Model", a model proposed by the Prison Research Education Action Project in 1976: moratorium, decarceration, and excarceration. Proposals and tactics often include: * Penal system reforms: ** Substituting, for incarceration, supervised release,

probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offence (law), offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incar ...

restitution Restitution and unjust enrichment is the field of law relating to gains-based recovery. In contrast with damages (the law of compensation), restitution is a claim or remedy requiring a defendant to give up benefits wrongfully obtained. Liability ...

to victims, and/or community work. ** Decreasing terms of imprisonment by abolishing mandatory minimum sentencing ** Decreasing ethnic disparity in prison populations * Prison condition reforms * Crime prevention rather than punishment * Abolition of specific programs which increase prison population, such as the

prohibition of drugs The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. An area has a prohibition of drugs when its government uses the for ...

(e.g., the American War on Drugs) and prohibition of

prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...

. * Education programs to inform people who have never been in prison about its problems * Fighting individual cases of

wrongful conviction A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent ...

The

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC; French language, French: ''Office des Nations unies contre la drogue et le crime'') is a United Nations office that was established in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention ...

published a series of handbooks on criminal justice. Among them i
Alternatives to Imprisonment
which identifies how the overuse of imprisonment impacts fundamental human rights, especially those convicted for lesser crimes. Social justice and advocacy organizations such as Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI) at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

often look to Scandinavian countries

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

for guidance in regard to successful prison reform because both countries have an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment. According to Sweden's former Prison and Probation Service Director-General, Nils Öberg, this emphasis is popular among the Swedish because the act of imprisonment is considered punishment enough. This focus on rehabilitation includes an emphasis on promoting normalcy for inmates, a charge led by experienced criminologists and psychologists. In Norway a focus on preparation for societal re-entry has yielded "one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%,

hile Hile () is a hill town located in the Province of Nepal, 13 km north of the regional center of Dhankuta Bazar. At an elevation of 1948 meters, it is the main route to other hilly districts like Bhojpur and Sankhuwasabha. The shops and re ...

the US has one of the highest: 76.6% of

merican ''Merican'' is an Extended play, EP by the American punk rock band Descendents, released February 10, 2004. It was the band's first release for Fat Wreck Chords and served as a pre-release to their sixth studio album ''Cool to Be You'', released ...

prisoners are re-arrested within five years". The Swedish incarceration rate decreased by 6% between 2011 and 2012.

Abolitionist views

Many prison reform organizations and abolitionists in the United States advocate

community accountability {{More citations needed, date=October 2021 Community Accountability is a community-based strategy, rather than a police/prison-based strategy, to address violence including domestic violence, sexual violence, and child abuse. Community accountabili ...

practices, such as community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies as an alternative to the criminal justice system. Abolitionists like Angela Davis recommend four measures as a way to deal with violent and other serious crimes: (1) make mental health care available to all (2) everyone should have access to affordable treatment for substance use disorders (3) make a stronger effort to rehabilitate those who commit criminal offences and (4) employ reparative or restorative justice measures as an accountability tool to reconcile offenders with their victims and undo or compensate the harm done. Organizations such as INCITE! and Sista II Sista that support women of color who are survivors of interpersonal violence argue that the criminal justice system does not protect marginalized people who are victims in relationships. Instead, victims, especially those who are poor, minorities, transgender or gender non-conforming can experience additional violence at the hands of the state. Instead of relying on the criminal justice system, these organizations work to implement community accountability practices, which often involve collectively-run processes of intervention initiated by a survivor of violence to try to hold the person who committed violence accountable by working to meet a set of demands. For organizations outside the United States see, e.g. Justice Action, Australia. Some anarchists and socialists contend that a large part of the problem is the way the judicial system deals with prisoners, people, and capital. According to Marxists, in capitalist economies incentives are in place to expand the prison system and increase the prison population. This is evidenced by the creation of private prisons in America and corporations like

CoreCivic CoreCivic, Inc. formerly the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and operates others on a concession basis. Co-founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas W. B ...

, formerly known as Correction Corporation of America (CCA). Its shareholders benefit from the expansion of prisons and tougher laws on crime. More prisoners is seen as beneficial for business. Some anarchists contend that with the destruction of capitalism, and the development of social structures that would allow for the self-management of communities, property crimes would largely vanish. There would be fewer prisoners, they assert, if society treated people more fairly, regardless of gender, color, ethnic background, sexual orientation, education, etc. The demand for prison abolition is a feature of anarchist criminology, which argues that prisons encourage recidivism and should be replaced by efforts to rehabilitate offenders and reintegrate them into communities.

“Nine perspectives for prison abolitionists”

''Instead of prisons: a handbook for abolitionists'', republished by Critical Resistance in 2005, outlines what the organization identifies as the nine main perspectives for prison abolitionists: * Perspective 1 The imprisonment of a human being is inherently immoral, and while total abolition of the current prison system is not an easy task, it is possible. The first step towards abolition is admitting that prisons cannot be reformed, as a carceral system is founded on brutality and contempt for those imprisoned. Additionally, the current system works to disproportionally imprison poor and working-class people, so its abolition would ensure progress towards equality. Abolitionists see many similarities between today's carceral system and the slavery establishment of the past, and would in fact say that the current system is simply reformed enslavement which perpetuates the same oppressive and discriminatory patterns. But just as superficial reforms could not alter the brutality of the slave system, reforms cannot change a system rooted in racism. * Perspective 2 The abolitionist message requires changing our language and definitions of punishment “treatment” and “inmates”. In order to break away from the prison system, we must use honest language and take back the power of our vocabulary. * Perspective 3 Imprisonment is not a proper response to deviance. Abolitionists promote reconciliation rather than punishment, a perspective seeking to restore both the criminal and the victim while limiting the disruption of their lives in the process. * Perspective 4 Abolitionists advocate for changes beneficial to the prisoner but do so while remaining a non-member of the system. In a similar fashion, abolitionists respect the personhood of system managers but oppose their role in the perpetuation of an oppressive system. * Perspective 5 The abolitionist message extends farther than the traditional helping relationship; Abolitionists identify themselves as allies of the imprisoned, respecting their perspectives as well as the requirements for abolition. * Perspective 6 The empowerment of prisoners and ex-prisoners is crucial to the abolitionist movement. Programs and resources dedicated to reinstating that which has been stripped from them by the prison system are fundamental in putting power back in their own hands. * Perspective 7 Abolitionists believe that citizens are the true source of institutional power which can lead to the abolition of the prison system. Giving or limiting support from certain policies and practices will enable the progression of the abolitionist movement. * Perspective 8 Abolitionists believe that crime is a consequence of a broken society, and resources must be used towards social programs instead of the funding of prisons. They advocate for public solutions to public problems, producing effects which will benefit everyone in society. * Perspective 9 An emphasis is placed on the correction of society rather than the correction of an individual. It is only in a corrected or caring community that individual redemption and rehabilitation can be achieved. Thus, abolitionists see that the only adequate alternative to the prison system is building a kind of society which has no need for prisons.

Definition

Historical development

Anarchism and prison abolition

Prison abolition and the New Left

1973 Walpole Prison uprising

Advocates of prison abolition

Disability, mental illness and prison

Aging in prison

Proposed reforms and alternatives

Abolitionist views

“Nine perspectives for prison abolitionists”

See also

References

Further reading

Sources

Notes