Prison Abolition

• Involves not just closing the prisons, but also establishing a support system to resolve inequalities and provide the resources people need before they commit a crime

• Prisons began as a humane reformation system but have evolved to dehumanize and violate humans rights

  • Do they even discourage crime and increase public safety?

• The US has over 2 million people incarcerated, majority of them are poor black or brown citizens

• “The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.”

• Many prison reforms have not actually helped the system

  • Ex. death penalty abolished in many states, but replaced with life without parole, a death sentence in a different way

• Stopping prison construction and closing prisons and jails one at a time

• “You imagine a world without prisons, and then you work and try to build that world” - James Forman Jr., author of 2017 Pulitzer prize winner “Locking Up Our Own”

• ACLU smart justice campaign is trying to reduce prison population by 50%

  • Defund the prison system and reinvest in communities

• In the last decade prison pop shrunk by 7%, 40% of which is due to CA (mandated in 2011 by supreme court to solve overcrowding)

• “War on crime” by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1960s

  • Generate millions of new jobs, combat employment discrimination, desegregate schools, broaden the social safety net and build new housing

• Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) has prevented the construction of over 140,000 new jail and prison beds (CA has 200,000 right now, so almost doubled)

• Cannot target prisons directly, have to organize smaller groups to change minds and make change one step at a time

• Despite common beliefs, private prisons are not the founding problem of mass incarceration (92% held in public)

• Money goes to state and county jails and prisons for mental health services instead of public health

• Prisons are made to separate people from society (15.5 billion dollars goes to corrections, 40% of that to staff)

• Prison was not inevitable for black and brown people

  • As more prisons were built, the state became better at filling them even though crime rates dropped

• “The state did not wake up one morning and say, ‘Let’s be mean to black people.’ All these other things had to happen that made it turn out like this. It didn’t have to turn out like this.” - Ruth Wilson Gilmore

• Building more prisons will never solve violence

• Prisons do not provide programs and resources that allow people to succeed when they are released

• Prison abolition is not about closing prisons, but a theory of change

• Abolition targets the source as well

• Treating criminalization as the only option for deterrence is why no one tries to help kids and teenagers who exhibit violent tendencies

• Providing social services, mental healthcare and support systems

• Use money from prisons to establish an education system, living accommodations for the homeless, drug rehabilitation, and training of crisis intervention teams and violence interrupters

What is Prison Abolition?

• Eliminating and replacing imprisonment, policing and surveillance with lasting beneficial alternatives

Does prison abolition mean tearing all prisons down at once?

• No! Abolitionists focus on the small steps, wanting to change the system one part at a time. (Closing one prison at a time)

What about violent offenders (murderers, rapists, etc.)?

• Before prisons can close, the sources of violence must be targeted.

• Billions of dollars every year are used to fund the prison system, so defunding the PIC (prison industrial complex) and using the extra money to build a new education system is the first step in creating a crime-free society.

  • Providing mental healthcare, living accommodations for the homeless, social services, drug rehabilitation, support systems, and training of crisis intervention teams and violence interrupters

Why do prisons even have to be abolished?

• The prison system does a lot more harm than help

• The US alone have over 2 million people incarcerated, with over 90% in public facilities (private ones are not the problem, contrary to popular belief)

• Racism is a huge part of the PIC today, as the majority of incarcerated people are black or brown, many of which are in prison for very small violations.

  • When more prisons were built, the US became better at filling them up despite plateaued crime rates, so many black or brown people were wrongfully convicted or overly sentenced.

Does building more prisons even discourage crime and increase public safety?

• • No (the majority of murderers and rapists are never caught or convicted)