this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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Abolition of police and prisons
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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.
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I hate to be a jerk, but those are useless links for the subject matter. They don't really explain anything about what alternatives would be in place for people that commit violent crimes of any kind, which (since that's part of the title of your post), means they aren't good links.
I'm in favor of extreme reforms of the prison systems, and have opinions about alternatives, and still couldn't find anything in those links that would be useful to me, much less someone that's on the fence regarding the issue, and anyone actually asking the question in the title would absolutely quit reading after there were no answers to the real question.
The last link is essentially a screed on what the writer thinks is the cause of rape, and myths about rape, which has only the most tangential connection to actual reform of a criminal justice system as a whole.
Again, I have to be a jerk, but those sources suck.
It's like any subject of reform or reconstruction. If you can't provide clear, simple plans for the obvious objections, it isn't happening
Come on, Instead of Prisons is like 500 pages long. Just admit you don't have the patience to read.
Abolition is complex. Simple plans are for fascists who can attract any simpleton with sophistry. The violence of policing and incarceration are both very simple plans for the causes of harm. We address criminalization by abolishing the police and prisons. We address future harms through addressing their root causes. We address present harms through harm reduction. We address harms already done through restorative and transformative justice. None of this is simple, clear, or obvious. The work of abolition is always harder than the status quo.
Jfc, now I wish I had been more of a jerk.
That is such a vacuous and empty response to the problem.
It's really not, though. Terms like "restorative justice" are not generic positive adjective pablum - they are specific terms with specific meanings. If you don't know the meanings and don't care to research them, that's on you.
People don't bother to read comments fully, apparently.
I'll also add-on this section which answered one of my questions and possibly the commenters question:
Breaking the cycle of violence
Not all sex offenders must be restrained during their re‑education/resocialization process. Current alternatives to prison are proving this point and providing needed models. But many more community programs for sex offenders must be developed before belief in non-incarcerative alternatives is accepted.
For those sexual violents who do require temporary separation from society‑repetitive rapists, those who physically brutalize or psychologically terrorize and men who repeatedly sexually assault children‑places of restraint are needed while reeducation occurs. Unless these alternatives are developed, there may be no other choice but the prison or the asylum. Hence the urgency for abolitionists to create programs similar to those we shall cite.
Unfortunately, some worthy programs for sex offenders continue to use the language of the “medical model.” For instance, re‑education and resocialization processes are often referred to as “treatment.” Despite the language orientation, these programs are consistent with abolitionist beliefs. Essentially they are rooted in the concept that sexual behavior and relationships are learned thru the process of socialization, and that new behavior patterns can be acquired. Responsibility rests with the individual to overcome cultural and social conditioning in sexual violence until those causal factors are changed.