{{Short description|Movement to end incarceration}} {{Criminology and penology|penology}}
The '''prison abolition movement''' is a network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation and education that do not focus on punishment and government institutionalization.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shaw |first1=Robin Ferguson |title=Angela Y. Davis and the prison abolition movement, Part II |journal=Contemporary Justice Review |date=March 2009 |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=101–104 |doi=10.1080/10282580802685452 |s2cid=143896668 }}</ref> The prison abolitionist movement is distinct from conventional prison reform, which is intended to improve conditions inside prisons.<ref>{{cite book|title=Handbook of basic principles and promising practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment|publisher=United Nations|date=April 2007|url=http://www.unodc.org/pdf/criminal_justice/Handbook_of_Basic_Principles_and_Promising_Practices_on_Alternatives_to_Imprisonment.pdf|isbn=978-92-1-148220-1|access-date=2013-01-31|archive-date=2020-04-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200408175152/https://www.unodc.org/pdf/criminal_justice/Handbook_of_Basic_Principles_and_Promising_Practices_on_Alternatives_to_Imprisonment.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|3}}
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 and prison abolition also work to end solitary confinement, the death penalty, and the construction of new prisons through non-reformist reforms.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/shawngude/2013/02/non-reformist-reforms-defined/|title=Non-reformist reforms defined|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171111193712/http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/shawngude/2013/02/non-reformist-reforms-defined/|archive-date=2017-11-11|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181107062209/https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:45v7WbHjnlgJ:https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-b-ab|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 7, 2018|title=What Abolitionsts Do|last1=Berger|first1=Dan|last2=Kaba|first2=Mariame|date=August 24, 2017|website=Jacobin|access-date=March 23, 2018|last3=Stein|first3=David}}</ref> Others support books-to-prisoner projects and defend prisoners' right to access information and library services. Some organizations, such as the Anarchist Black Cross, seek the total abolishment of the prison system without any intention to replace it with other government-controlled systems.
== Definition == Scholar Dorothy Roberts takes the prison abolition movement in the United States to endorse three basic theses:{{sfn|Roberts|2019|p=7–8}}
# "[T]oday’s carceral punishment system can be traced back to slavery and the racial capitalist regime it relied on and sustained." # "[T]he expanding criminal punishment system functions to oppress black people and other politically marginalized groups in order to maintain a racial capitalist regime." # "[W]e 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, who developed the concept of racial capitalism,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Robinson|first=Cedric|title=Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=9780807876121|location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina|publication-date=2011|pages=2, 10|year=1983}}</ref>{{sfn|Roberts|2019|p=14}} 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.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Sep 2 |first1=The Prison Abolition Issue editorial collective |last2=Share |first2=2021 11 min read |title=How the Prison Abolition Issue came to be |url=https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/how-the-prison-abolition-issue-came-to-be |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=briarpatchmagazine.com |language=en |archive-date=2023-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230221205740/https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/how-the-prison-abolition-issue-came-to-be |url-status=live }}</ref>
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."{{sfn|McLeod|2015|p=1161}} 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 and improved welfare provision.{{sfn|McLeod|2015|p=1161}}
Like Roberts, McLeod sees the contemporary theory of prison abolition as linked to theories regarding the abolition of slavery. McLeod notes that W. E. B. Du Bois—particularly in his ''Black Reconstruction in America''—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.{{sfn|McLeod|2015|p=1162}} (Angela Davis explicitly took inspiration from Du Bois's concept of "abolition democracy" in her book ''Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Davis|first=Angela Y.|title=Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture|publisher=Seven Stories Press|year=2011|isbn=9781609801038|location=New York|pages=73}}</ref>) Similarly, on McLeod's view, prison abolition implies broad changes to social institutions: "[a]n 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."{{sfn|McLeod|2015|p=1164}}
The abolition of prisons is not only about the closure of prisons.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ben-Moshe |first=Liat |title=Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abilition |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2020 |location=Minneapolis |pages=116}}</ref> Abolitionist views is also a way to counter the hegemonic discourse, and gives an alternative ways of thinking.<ref name=":0" /> It is a way to reconceptualize basic notions like crime, innocence, punishment etc.<ref name=":0" />
== Historical development ==
=== Anarchism and prison abolition === Many anarchist organizations believe that the best form of justice arises naturally out of social contracts, restorative justice, or transformative justice.
Anarchist opposition to incarceration can be found in articles written as early as 1851,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/pierre-joseph-proudhon-the-general-idea-of-the-revolution-in-the-19th-century |title=The General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century |language=en |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205831/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/pierre-joseph-proudhon-the-general-idea-of-the-revolution-in-the-19th-century |url-status=live }}</ref> and is elucidated by major anarchist thinkers such as Proudhon,<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anthony-j-nocella-ii-mark-seis-and-jeff-shantz-classic-writings-in-anarchist-criminology |title=Classic Writings in Anarchist Criminology |language=en |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205826/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anthony-j-nocella-ii-mark-seis-and-jeff-shantz-classic-writings-in-anarchist-criminology |url-status=live }}</ref> Bakunin,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-statism-and-anarchy |title=Statism and Anarchy |language=en |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205827/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-statism-and-anarchy |url-status=live }}</ref> Berkman,<ref name=":5"/> Goldman,<ref name=":5"/> Malatesta,<ref name=":5"/> Bonanno,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-locked-up |title=Locked Up |language=en |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205832/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-locked-up |url-status=live }}</ref> and Kropotkin.<ref name=":5"/>
Personal experiences in prison because of revolutionary activity prompted many anarchists who were “deeply affected by their experiences” to publish their criticisms.<ref name=":5" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/keith-rosenthal-lucy-parsons-more-dangerous-than-a-thousand-rioters |title=Lucy Parsons: "More Dangerous Than a Thousand Rioters" |language=en |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205827/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/keith-rosenthal-lucy-parsons-more-dangerous-than-a-thousand-rioters |url-status=live }}</ref> A single rally in Havana, Cuba, to support the families of the eight accused anarchists raised nearly $1000.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Haymarket Widows |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/carolyn-ashbaugh-haymarket-widows |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205828/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/carolyn-ashbaugh-haymarket-widows |url-status=live }}</ref> Speaking at his trial, in a widely disseminated speech, one of the co-accused, August Spies, stated: <blockquote>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?"<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lucy-e-parsons-famous-speeches-of-the-eight-chicago-anarchists |title=The Famous Speeches of the Eight Chicago Anarchists in Court |language=en |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205830/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lucy-e-parsons-famous-speeches-of-the-eight-chicago-anarchists |url-status=live }}</ref></blockquote>The Anarchist Red Cross, a prisoner support group and the precursor to the Anarchist Black Cross, was founded roughly in 1906.<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org">{{Cite web |title=Yalensky's Fable: A History of the Anarchist Black Cross |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/matthew-hart-yalensky-s-fable-a-history-of-the-anarchist-black-cross |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205828/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/matthew-hart-yalensky-s-fable-a-history-of-the-anarchist-black-cross |url-status=live }}</ref> By that year, groups existed in Kiev, Odessa, Bialystok, and trials of its members, led to its spread across Europe and North America.<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org"/> 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."<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://files.libcom.org/files/ABC-Zine-Pages-High-Res.pdf |title=Starting an Anarchist Black Cross Group: A Guide |pages=3 |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2022-06-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220613214714/https://files.libcom.org/files/ABC-Zine-Pages-High-Res.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 1917, the Anarchist Red Cross would disband and members joined the revolution in Russia.<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org"/> Following the February revolution, political prisoners were released from Russian jails, in a massive wave of amnesties.<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org"/> The Anarchist Red Cross reorganised in 1919 as the Anarchist Black Cross, with some members joining the anarchist insurgent, Nestor Makhno.<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org"/>
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.<ref name="Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack">{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexandre-skirda-nestor-makhno-anarchy-s-cossack |title=Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack |language=en |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205830/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexandre-skirda-nestor-makhno-anarchy-s-cossack |url-status=live }}</ref> Upon taking control of a town, Makhnovists would destroy “all remnants and symbols of slavery: prisons, police and gendarmerie posts were blown up with dynamite or put to the torch.”<ref name="Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack"/> Prisoners in battle who were not officers were typically welcomed into the ranks of Makhnovists or freed.<ref name="Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack"/> The Makhnovist revolutionary insurgent army adopted a declaration in 1919, stating <blockquote>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, 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.<ref name="Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack"/></blockquote>The Anarchist Black Cross was reconstituted in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War 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.”<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org"/> Alternative groups, such as the Alexander Berkman Aid Fund and the Society to Aid Anarchist Prisoners in Russia would take their place.<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org"/> 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.<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org"/><ref>{{Cite web |title=Black Panther Radical Factionalization and the Development of Black Anarchism |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/dana-williams-black-panther-radical |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205828/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/dana-williams-black-panther-radical |url-status=live }}</ref>
Anarchists agitation against prisons in Canada has included Bulldozer, an anti-prison anarchist project founded in Toronto in 1980.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://prisonfreepress.org/docs/A_Brief_History_of_Prisons_%26_Resistance_to_them_in_so-called_Canada_%282018%29.pdf |title=A Brief History of Prisons and Resistance to them in so-called Canada |publisher=Its Going Down |year=2018 |pages=13–16 |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205830/https://prisonfreepress.org/docs/A_Brief_History_of_Prisons_%26_Resistance_to_them_in_so-called_Canada_%282018%29.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Jun 25 |first1=Jon Milton |last2=Share |first2=2019 11 min read |title=This is a prison, no matter what you call it |url=https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/this-is-a-prison-no-matter-what-you-call-it |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=briarpatchmagazine.com |language=en |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205827/https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/this-is-a-prison-no-matter-what-you-call-it |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-05-19 |title=Anti-construction Crew Releases Thousands of Crickets into Immigration Prison Architecture Headquarters » Montréal Counter-information |url=https://mtlcounterinfo.org/anti-construction-crew-releases-thousands-of-crickets-into-immigration-prison-architecture-headquarters/ |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=mtlcounterinfo.org |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205828/https://mtlcounterinfo.org/anti-construction-crew-releases-thousands-of-crickets-into-immigration-prison-architecture-headquarters/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Collective |first=CrimethInc Ex-Workers |title=CrimethInc. : June 11: The History of a Day of Anarchist Prisoner Solidarity : Including a Chronology of Events 2004-2017 |url=https://crimethinc.com/2017/06/07/june-11-the-history-of-a-day-of-solidarity-strategizing-to-support-long-term-anarchist-prisoners |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=CrimethInc. |date=7 June 2017 |language=en |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205827/https://crimethinc.com/2017/06/07/june-11-the-history-of-a-day-of-solidarity-strategizing-to-support-long-term-anarchist-prisoners |url-status=live }}</ref> 2022's week of solidarity included actions in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Uruguay, Greece, the UK, and other countries.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Thanks for your Solidarity for WOSWAP 2022 – Till all are free |url=https://solidarity.international/index.php/2022/09/29/thanks-for-your-solidarity-for-woswap-2022/ |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=solidarity.international |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205846/https://solidarity.international/index.php/2022/09/29/thanks-for-your-solidarity-for-woswap-2022/ |url-status=live }}</ref> 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."<ref name="itsgoingdown.org">{{Cite web |date=2023-02-04 |title=Who is Alfredo Cospito, and What is 41bis? |url=https://itsgoingdown.org/who-is-alfredo-cospito-and-what-is-41bis/ |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=It's Going Down |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205826/https://itsgoingdown.org/who-is-alfredo-cospito-and-what-is-41bis/ |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.<ref name="itsgoingdown.org"/>
The Rojavan Revolution, which many have considered illustrative of, and rooted in, anarchist theory,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michael-knapp-anja-flach-and-ercan-ayboga-revolution-in-rojava |title=Revolution in Rojava |language=en |chapter=Foreword by David Graeber |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205829/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michael-knapp-anja-flach-and-ercan-ayboga-revolution-in-rojava |url-status=live }}</ref> involved the mass liquidation of prisons and freeing of political prisoners and nonviolent offenders.<ref name="Revolution in Rojava">{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michael-knapp-anja-flach-and-ercan-ayboga-revolution-in-rojava |title=Revolution in Rojava |language=en |chapter=The New Justice System Consensus Is Key |access-date=2023-03-07 |archive-date=2023-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307205829/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michael-knapp-anja-flach-and-ercan-ayboga-revolution-in-rojava |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.<ref name="Revolution in Rojava"/>
=== The Prisoners Movement === Emerging in the 1960s, engaging with traditions of abolitionist thought, The Prisoners' Movement was a nationwide struggle of incarcerated people against both institutions and ontologies of punishment culture in the United States. Growing alongside the anger and the activism of the Civil Rights Movement and soon Black Power, attention was drawn to an identified political economy that privileged racial hierarchies vis-à-vis the constructed identity of ‘whiteness’ through the subjugation of Black and Brown people.<ref>Colley, Zoe. “War without Terms: George Jackson, Black Power and the American Radical Prison Rights Movement, 1941-1971.” ''History (London)'' (HOBOKEN) 101, no. 345 (April 2016): 269.</ref> Prisoners, especially Black inmates who faced the greatest oppression, increasingly began to politicize their own status as inmates, reviving abolitionist discourse; challenging not only prison establishments, but also called for the dismantling of greater systems of surveillance, policing, and economic subjugation facilitated by racial capitalism.<ref>Colley, Zoe. “War without Terms: George Jackson, Black Power and the American Radical Prison Rights Movement, 1941-1971.” ''History (London)'' (HOBOKEN) 101, no. 345 (April 2016): 269.</ref> This framework of critique would later emerge to be identified along terminology of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC).
At first, one of the most prominent ways prisoners challenged the status-quo was through legal pathways and in court. Many of the initial cases in the early 60s related to prison conditions and infringements on rights, especially around religion and freedom of speech of Black Muslim inmates.<ref name=":12">Williams , Tiana Alexandria. Locked down: The hidden history of the prisoners’ rights movement. Accessed May 15, 2026. <nowiki>https://mcnair.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk476/files/inline-files/2020%20McNair%20Journal%20XVIII%20Version%20Tiana%20Williams.pdf</nowiki>.</ref> One of the most prominent cases of the decade, Supreme Court ruling of Cooper v. Pate in 1964, was spearheaded by the Nation of Islam and obtained the legal right to address their grievances before the court.<ref name=":12" /> News of this case was soon circulated widely and utilized in hundreds of following court cases, serving to increase prisoners' access to legal counsel, end of brutal conditions, and outside literature.<ref name=":12" /> While the Nation of Islam was not overtly abolitionist in the traditional sense, their messaging of Black nationality, rejection of White Christianism, and solidarity was fundamental not only to increasing unity and awareness, but also became deeply threatening to the state.<ref name=":02">COLLEY, ZOE. “Erasing Minds: Behavioral Modification, the Prison Rights Movement, and Psychological Experimentation in America’s Prisons, 1962–1983.” ''Journal of American Studies'' (Cambridge, UK) 57, no. 1 (February 2023): 60. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875822000123</nowiki>.</ref> From New York to California, authorities began to complain of the 'disruptive force' the Nation of Islam was causing within correctional facilities, stating that the potential of African American's allegiance could destabilized the "entire penal system."<ref name=":02" /> Soon, as the Nation of Islam was viewed as the greatest threat in the early-mid 60s, the emergence and politics of the Black Panther would grow the internal movement only further.<ref name=":02" />
By the end of the 1960s, militant dissent became a more prominent tactic of the movement. One of the most known was the emergence of the infamous 'Soledad Brothers' in 1970 following the false accusation against George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Cluthcette for the murder of a correctional officer following a political uprising in California’s Soledad Correctional Training Facility.<ref>Zoe Colley. “War without Terms: George Jackson, Black Power and the American Radical Prison Rights Movement, 1941-1971.” ''History (London)'' (HOBOKEN) 101, no. 345 (April 2016): 265–86. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.12228</nowiki>.</ref> Under the slogan ''Save the Soledad Brothers from Legal Lynching'' spearheaded by figures like Angela Davis,<ref>Davis, Angela Y, author Soledad Brothers, National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, Ruchell Magee, Bettina Aptheker, and Julian Bond. ''If They Come in the Morning : Voices of Resistance / Angela Y. Davis, Ruchell Magee, the Soledad Brothers and Other Political Prisoners ; Foreword by Julian Bond.'' New York, N.Y: The Third Press, 1972: 2-3.</ref> their case received magnification due to one of the accused, leftist writer and Black Panther, George Jackson. Celebrated within the prisoners' movement, Jackson had developed his analysis of the state alongside Marxist theory, basing his foundations of theory on the belief that black inequality existed as the linchpin of American capitalism insofar as capitalistic economic carceral slavery had replaced chattel slavery.<ref>Colley, Zoe. “War without Terms: George Jackson, Black Power and the American Radical Prison Rights Movement, 1941-1971.” ''History (London)'' (HOBOKEN) 101, no. 345 (April 2016): 272.</ref> He further emphasizes the detriment of racial capitalism, a system of slavery, genocide, and violence, solidified through racial hierarchies, central to the founding of the United States, and continuously upheld though morphing naturalized economic and social systems of punishment and control.<ref>Calathes, William. “Racial Capitalism and Punishment Philosophy and Practices: What Really Stands in the Way of Prison Abolition.” ''Contemporary Justice Review : CJR'' (Abingdon) 20, no. 4 (October 2017): 443 & 447.</ref>
The events at Soledad emerging at the end of the 60s would only be followed by a series of other nominal uprisings, such as in Walpole 1973.
==== 1973 Walpole Prison uprising ==== {{main|Walpole prison strike}}
In 1973, two years after the Attica Prison uprising, the inmates of Walpole prison, in Massachusetts, 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.{{citationneeded|date=July 2025}}
The union also created a general truce within the prison and race-related violence sharply declined. During the Kwanzaa 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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gelderloos|first=Peter|title=Anarchy Works|year=2010}}</ref>
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 anarchist community where recidivism 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.{{citationneeded|date=July 2025}}
==== The Prisoners' Movement and it's implications ==== Other intellectuals, such as Liz Samuels, have 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. As popularized abolitionist theory began to denaturalize the prison system within the greater consciousness of Americans; the Civil Rights movement began to dissolve tensions between poor working-class black and white people; and the American economy began to fall from the apex of its ‘golden age’ of capitalism and the Keyneisan welfare state, what is now understood as the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) began to emerge as state crisis response.<ref>Calathes, William. “Racial Capitalism and Punishment Philosophy and Practices: What Really Stands in the Way of Prison Abolition.” ''Contemporary Justice Review : CJR'' (Abingdon) 20, no. 4 (October 2017): 447.</ref> Many traditional historiographies commonly paint Soledad as the end of the prisoners' rights movement before being crushed by the wave of mass incarceration and Reaganomics.<ref>Chase, Robert T. “We Are Not Slaves: Rethinking the Rise of Carceral States through the Lens of the Prisoners’ Rights Movement.” ''The Journal of American History (Bloomington, Ind.)'' (CARY) 102, no. 1 (June 2015): 74.</ref> While this account holds certain truths and revolutionary praxis dwindled, the fight continued. Especially in the courtroom, similar to the beginning, gaining greater recognition and support from institutions such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union.<ref>Chase, Robert T. “We Are Not Slaves: Rethinking the Rise of Carceral States through the Lens of the Prisoners’ Rights Movement.” ''The Journal of American History (Bloomington, Ind.)'' (CARY) 102, no. 1 (June 2015): 74.</ref> The emerging prisoners' movement, in tandem with the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, thus began to build upon the ever-evolving long tradition of abolitionist dialogue in relation to sociopolitical and economic stations of the time.
=== Prison abolition and the New Left === The New Left, emerging hand in hand with the Prisoners' Movement, was heavily influenced by the politics of inmates. People such as Eduardo Bautista Duran and Jonathan Simon 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.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1017/9781108354721.005 |chapter=Police Abolitionist Discourse? Why It Has Been Missing (And Why It Matters) |title=The Cambridge Handbook of Policing in the United States |year=2019 |last1=Duran |first1=Eduardo Bautista |last2=Simon |first2=Jonathan |pages=85–103 |isbn=978-1-108-35472-1 |s2cid=202437734 }}</ref>
Angela Davis 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.{{sfn|Davis|Rodríguez|2000|p=215}} She also cites activist Fay Honey Knopp's 1976 work ''Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists'' as significant in the movement.{{Sfn|Davis|Rodríguez|2000|p=215}}
=== BLM and abolition === During the 2010s, there was a revitalization of abolition discourse and a (re)politicization of the carceral state. Antecedent to the greater revival of the movement were social responses to the killing of Oscar Grant in Oakland and the concurrent rise of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 nationwide (expressing popular rejection of socioeconomic inequality and corporate prioritization by the state).<ref name="kurti2023"/> Four years later, the killing of Trayvon Martin would galvanize the people once more towards a new generation of Black Power through Black Lives Matter, who confronted police brutality.<ref name="kurti2023"/> However, with the specific uncertainty and disillusionment of the neoliberal carceral state that occurred amidst COVID-19, where racialized austerity politics, privatized medicine, and harsh cuts to public spending made Black Americans more vulnerable, underlying conditions of the state were exposed, inciting feelings that ''everything'' must change.<ref name="kurti2023"/> Thereby, coupled with the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide protests that occurred, abolition became mainstream, and militancy even became legitimized in the masses. Abolitionist dialogue even overtook reformist discourse whereby people on a much large scale began to imagine a world police, jails, and a social order that sought to protect and empower.<ref name="kurti2023">{{cite journal |last1=Kurti |first1=Zhandarka |last2=Brown |first2=Michelle |title=Carceral Reckoning and Twenty-First Century US Abolition Movements: Generational Struggles in the Fight against Prisons |journal=Punishment & Society |date=2023 |volume=25 |issue=5 |page=1363 |doi=10.1177/14624745231171364 |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745231171364 }}</ref>
== Advocates of prison abolition == thumb|Anarchist banner in Melbourne Australia, on 16 June 2017
Angela Davis 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."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Davis|first=Angela|url=http://www.colorlines.com/articles/masked-racism-reflections-prison-industrial-complex|title=Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex|date=1998-09-10|newspaper=Colorlines|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2019-10-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191022065553/https://www.colorlines.com/articles/masked-racism-reflections-prison-industrial-complex|url-status=live}}</ref>
In 1997, Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore co-founded Critical Resistance, 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."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://criticalresistance.org/about/|title=About|website=Critical Resistance|language=en-US|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2012-07-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120705003137/http://criticalresistance.org/about|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Kushner|first=Rachel|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html|title=Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind|date=2019-04-17|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-04-24|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=2023-09-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230924230726/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Other similarly motivated groups such as the Prison Activist Resource Center (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,"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.prisonactivist.org/about|title=About PARC {{!}} Prison Activist Resource Center|website=www.prisonactivist.org|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2019-08-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190819221233/https://www.prisonactivist.org/about|url-status=live}}</ref> and Black & Pink, an abolitionist organization that focuses around LGBTQ rights, all broadly advocate for prison abolition.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.blackandpink.org/purpose-analysis/#family|title=Purpose and Analysis {{!}} black and pink|website=www.blackandpink.org|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161128133857/http://www.blackandpink.org/purpose-analysis/#family|archive-date=2016-11-28|url-status=dead}}</ref> Furthermore, the Human Rights Coalition, a 2001 group based in the city of Philadelphia that aims to abolish prisons,<ref>{{Cite web |title=HOME |url=https://www.hrcoalition.org/ |access-date=2024-02-04 |website=HumanRightsCoalition |language=en |archive-date=2024-02-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240204022157/https://www.hrcoalition.org/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://decarceratepa.info/content/organizational-spotlight-human-rights-coalition|title=Organizational Spotlight: the Human Rights Coalition {{!}} Decarcerate PA|website=decarceratepa.info|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2018-08-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180808043426/http://decarceratepa.info/content/organizational-spotlight-human-rights-coalition|url-status=live}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite web |title=ABOUT |url=https://www.hrcoalition.org/about |access-date=2024-02-04 |website=HumanRightsCoalition |language=en |archive-date=2024-02-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240202224557/https://www.hrcoalition.org/about |url-status=live }}</ref> In addition, the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a grassroots organization dedicated to dismantling the PIC,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://womenprisoners.org/|title=California Coalition for Women Prisoners|website=womenprisoners.org|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2019-05-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190519063308/http://womenprisoners.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> can all be added to the long list of organizations that desire a different form of justice system.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.realcostofprisons.org/links.html|title=The Real Cost of Prisons Project|website=www.realcostofprisons.org|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2019-05-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190513134013/http://realcostofprisons.org/links.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
Activist Adrienne Maree Brown wrote in support of the prison abolition movement in her book ''We Will Not Cancel Us.''<ref>{{Cite web |date=1990 |title=We Will Not Cancel Us |url=https://www.akpress.org/we-will-not-cancel-us.html |access-date=March 30, 2026 |website=AK Press}}</ref> Published in 2020, the book is an expansion of a blog post of the same title<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Adrienne Maree |date=May 10, 2018 |title=we will not cancel us |url=https://adriennemareebrown.net/2018/05/10/we-will-not-cancel-us/ |access-date=March 30, 2026 |website=adrienne maree brown}}</ref> that Brown posted on her [https://adriennemareebrown.net website]<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Adrienne Maree |date=2026 |title=Home Page |url=https://adriennemareebrown.net |access-date=March 30, 2026 |website=adrienne maree brown}}</ref> in 2018. Her book expands the blog posts theme of transformative justice and the connection between cancel culture and the prison system. She wrote an article for ''YES!'' magazine about the dream of a world without prisons and policing. <ref>{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Adrienne Maree |date=March 29, 2022 |title=Murmurations: Realizing Our Abolitionist Dreams |url=https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/03/29/accountability-abolition-adrienne-maree-brown |access-date=March 30, 2026 |website=YES! Magazine}}</ref> Brown was celebrated by the Women's Prison Association <ref>{{Cite web |date=2025 |title=Home Page |url=https://www.wpaonline.org |access-date=March 30, 2026 |website=Women's Prison Association}}</ref> among other Black female advocates for prison abolition, <ref>{{Cite web |last=Jordan |first=Eliza |date=March 30, 2026 |title=5 Black Female Leaders in the Criminal Justice Reform Movement |url=https://www.wpaonline.org/black-female-leaders-in-the-criminal-justice-reform-movement/ |access-date=March 30, 2026 |website=Women's Prison Association}}</ref> including Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore.
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."<ref>{{Cite web |title=About Us |url=https://project-nia.org/mission-history |access-date=2024-02-04 |website=Project NIA |language=en |archive-date=2023-12-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231226234448/https://project-nia.org/mission-history |url-status=live }}</ref>
Since 1983,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Levinson|first=David|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofcr0004unse|title=Encyclopedia of crime and punishment. Volume 1, Volume 1|date=2002-01-01|publisher=Sage Publications|isbn=978-0761922582|location=Thousand Oaks, Ca.|language=en|oclc=51883999|url-access=registration}}</ref> 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),"<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.actionicopa.org/|title=actionICOPA :: The International Conference on Penal Abolition|website=www.actionicopa.org|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2019-04-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190421100248/http://www.actionicopa.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Piché |first1=Justin |last2=Larsen |first2=Mike |title=The moving targets of penal abolitionism: ICOPA, past, present and future |journal=Contemporary Justice Review |date=December 2010 |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=391–410 |doi=10.1080/10282580.2010.517964 |s2cid=143501655 }}</ref>
Anarchists wish to eliminate all forms of state control, of which imprisonment 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, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse.<ref>National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (US). A National Strategy to Reduce Crime. [https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/54466NCJRS.pdf National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170121002557/https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/54466NCJRS.pdf |date=2017-01-21 }}, 1973. p. 358</ref>
In October 2015, members at a plenary session of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) released and adopted a resolution in favor of prison abolition.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nlg.org/nlg-adopts-resolution-supporting-prison-abolition/|title=NLG Adopts Resolution Supporting Prison Abolition|date=2015-12-17|newspaper=National Lawyers Guild|access-date=2016-11-28|language=en-US|archive-date=2016-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161128133851/https://www.nlg.org/nlg-adopts-resolution-supporting-prison-abolition/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://commons.commondreams.org/t/national-lawyers-guild-adopts-resolution-supporting-prison-abolition/16567|title=National Lawyers Guild Adopts Resolution Supporting Prison Abolition|date=2015-12-17|website=The Commons {{!}} Common Dreams|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2016-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161128134124/http://commons.commondreams.org/t/national-lawyers-guild-adopts-resolution-supporting-prison-abolition/16567|url-status=live}}</ref>
In Canada, a number of organizations support prison abolition, which includes the Saskatchewan Manitoba Alberta Abolition Organization (SMAAC) or the Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SMAAC |url=https://smaac.org/ |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=SMAAC |language=en |archive-date=2023-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230221205738/https://smaac.org/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Toronto Prisoners' Rights Project |url=https://www.torontoprisonersrightsproject.org/ |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=Toronto Prisoners' Rights Project |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230221205738/https://www.torontoprisonersrightsproject.org/ |url-status=live }}</ref> 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 and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
== Disability, mental illness and prison == {{Further|Mentally ill people in United States jails and prisons}} 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:<ref name="def">{{cite journal |last1=Pustilnik |first1=Amanda C. |title=Prisons of the Mind: Social Value and Economic Inefficiency in the Criminal Justice Response to Mental Illness |journal=The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology |date=2005 |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=217–266 |id={{Gale|A143871807}} {{ProQuest|218437454}} |jstor=30038029 |ssrn=785367 }}</ref> <blockquote> 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? </blockquote>
In the United States, there are more people with mental illness in prisons than in psychiatric hospitals.<ref name="def" /> In Canada, mental health issues are 2 to 3 times more prevalent in prisons than in the general population.<ref>{{Cite web |last=John Howard Society |title=Broken Record: The Continued Criminalization of Mental Health Issues |url=https://johnhoward.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Broken-Record.pdf |access-date=2023-02-21 |archive-date=2023-03-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310145341/http://johnhoward.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Broken-Record.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
Prison abolitionists contend that prisons violate the Constitutional rights (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.<ref name="def" /><ref name="ment">{{cite journal |last1=Rollin |first1=Henry R. |title=The mentally ill should be in hospital, not in jail |journal=Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology |date=June 2006 |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=326–329 |doi=10.1080/14789940500497875 |s2cid=145468549 }}</ref><ref name="harvard">{{cite journal |date=February 2008 |title=Developments in the Law: The Law of Mental Illness |journal=Harvard Law Review |volume=121 |issue=4 |pages=1114–1191 |pmid=18354871 |url=http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Volume_121_DEVO_08.pdf |access-date=2021-05-06 |archive-date=2015-01-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150101063738/http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Volume_121_DEVO_08.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> 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.<ref name="sui">{{cite journal |last1=Senior |first1=Jane |last2=Hayes |first2=Adrian J. |last3=Pratt |first3=Daniel |last4=Thomas |first4=Stuart D. |last5=Fahy |first5=Tom |last6=Leese |first6=Morven |last7=Bowen |first7=Andy |last8=Taylor |first8=Greg |last9=Lever-Green |first9=Gillian |last10=Graham |first10=Tanya |last11=Pearson |first11=Anna |last12=Ahmed |first12=Mukhtar |last13=Shaw |first13=Jenny J. |title=The identification and management of suicide risk in local prisons |journal=Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology |date=September 2007 |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=368–380 |doi=10.1080/14789940701470218 |s2cid=53611921 |url=https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-identification-and-management-of-suicide-risk-in-local-prisons(5564e38b-7953-4106-9273-646656ccd6be).html |access-date=2021-06-04 |archive-date=2022-03-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311055649/https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-identification-and-management-of-suicide-risk-in-local-prisons(5564e38b-7953-4106-9273-646656ccd6be).html |url-status=live }}</ref>
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 transformative justice 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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ben-Moshe |first=Liat |title=Decarcerating disability: deinstitutionalization and prison abolition |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2020 |location=Minneapolis |pages=278 |language=English}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ben-Moshe |first=Liat |title=Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2020 |location=Minneapolis |pages=123–125}}</ref>
== 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.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Ben-Moshe |first=Liat |title=Decarcerating disability: deinstitutionalization and prison abolition |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2020 |location=Minneapolis |pages=8 |language=English}}</ref> Prolonged sentencing policies have resulted in an increased aging population in prisons as well as the harsh conditions of imprisonment.<ref name=":2" /> A number of reasons can contribute to older adult's risk for illness while in prison.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Halley |first=Catherine |date=2019-07-17 |title=What Should We Do about Our Aging Prison Population? |url=https://daily.jstor.org/what-should-we-do-about-our-aging-prison-population/ |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=JSTOR Daily |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230221205738/https://daily.jstor.org/what-should-we-do-about-our-aging-prison-population/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Prisons are not intended to be used as nursing homes, hospice or long-term care facilities for the aging prison population.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Government of Canada |first=Office of the Correctional Investigator |date=2020-04-16 |title=Aging and Dying in Prison: An Investigation into the Experiences of Older Individuals in Federal Custody - February 28, 2019 - Office of the Correctional Investigator |url=https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20190228-eng.aspx#_Toc536691319 |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=www.oci-bec.gc.ca |archive-date=2023-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230221205738/https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20190228-eng.aspx#_Toc536691319 |url-status=live }}</ref> Despite this, prison hospice does exist.<ref name="Neumann 2016 h550">{{cite web | last=Neumann | first=Ann | title=What Dying Looks Like in America's Prisons | website=The Atlantic | date=16 Feb 2016 | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/hospice-care-in-prison/462660/ | access-date=3 Apr 2024}}</ref><ref name="National Prison Hospice Association 2011 w233">{{cite web | title=About NPHA | website=National Prison Hospice Association | date=29 Nov 2011 | url=https://npha.org/about/ | access-date=3 Apr 2024}}</ref>
In Canada, individuals 50 years of age and older in federal custody account for 25% of the federal prison population.<ref name=":3" /> 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.<ref name=":3" /> The conditions of confinement of older individuals jeopardize the protection of their human rights.<ref name=":3" /> The conditions of the aging population in Canada has been denounced by persons who are incarcerated.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Sep 2 |first1=Christophe Lewis |last2=Share |first2=2021 8 min read |title=Death by a thousand cuts: Aging in Canadian prisons |url=https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-aging-in-canadian-prisons |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=briarpatchmagazine.com |language=en |archive-date=2023-02-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230221205738/https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-aging-in-canadian-prisons |url-status=live }}</ref>
== Proposed reforms and alternatives == [[File:Presxs a la calle.jpg|thumb|2022 Spanish-language graffiti in Vallcarca i els Penitents (Barcelona) advocating for the freeing of prisoners]] [[File:La presó és tortura.jpg|thumb|2022 Catalan-language graffiti in Vallcarca i els Penitents (Barcelona) deeming prisons as torture]] 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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Morris|first=Mark|title=Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists|publisher=Prison Research Education Action Project|year=1976|url=https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/instead_of_prisons/|access-date=2021-04-16|archive-date=2021-04-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416232436/https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/instead_of_prisons/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news|last=Washington|first=John|date=2018-07-31|title=What Is Prison Abolition?|journal=The Nation|language=en-US|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-is-prison-abolition/|access-date=2021-04-16|issn=0027-8378|archive-date=2021-04-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416034246/https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-is-prison-abolition/|url-status=live}}</ref> Proposals and tactics often include:<ref name=":1" />
* Penal system reforms: ** Substituting, for incarceration, supervised release, probation, restitution 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 (e.g., the American war on drugs) and prohibition of prostitution. * Education programs to inform people who have never been in prison about its problems * Fighting individual cases of wrongful conviction
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published a series of handbooks on criminal justice. Among them is [http://www.unodc.org/pdf/criminal_justice/Handbook_of_Basic_Principles_and_Promising_Practices_on_Alternatives_to_Imprisonment.pdf 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 often look to Scandinavian countries Sweden and Norway for guidance in regard to successful prison reform because both countries have an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ucsdguardian.org/2013/12/02/the-breakthrough-of-students-against-mass-incarceration/|title=The Breakthrough of Students Against Mass Incarceration|work=UCSD Guardian|date=2 December 2013|access-date=2016-11-28|archive-date=2019-04-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414093841/http://ucsdguardian.org/2013/12/02/the-breakthrough-of-students-against-mass-incarceration/|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/26/prison-sweden-not-punishment-nils-oberg|title=Prison is not for punishment in Sweden. We get people into better shape|newspaper=The Guardian|last1=James|first1=Erwin|access-date=15 November 2016|date=2014-11-26|archive-date=2019-10-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191021175924/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/26/prison-sweden-not-punishment-nils-oberg|url-status=live}}</ref> This focus on rehabilitation includes an emphasis on promoting normalcy for inmates, a charge led by experienced criminologists and psychologists.<ref name="The Atlantic">{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/|title=Why Scandinavian Prisons Are Superior|website=The Atlantic|last1=Larson|first1=Doran|access-date=15 November 2016|date=2013-09-24|archive-date=2013-09-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130925172137/http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/|url-status=live}}</ref> In Norway a focus on preparation for societal re-entry has yielded "one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%, [while] the US has one of the highest: 76.6% of [American] prisoners are re-arrested within five years".<ref name="Business Insider">{{cite web|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12|title=Why Norway's prison system is so successful|website=Business Insider|last1=Sterbenz|first1=Christina|access-date=15 November 2016|archive-date=13 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200313165514/https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12|url-status=live}}</ref> The Swedish incarceration rate decreased by 6% between 2011 and 2012.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/01/why-sweden-closing-prisons|title=Why is Sweden closing its prisons?|newspaper=The Guardian|last1=James|first1=Erwin|access-date=15 November 2016|date=December 2013|archive-date=1 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191001183051/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/01/why-sweden-closing-prisons|url-status=live}}</ref>
=== Abolitionist views === Many prison reform organizations and abolitionists in the United States advocate community accountability practices, such as community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies as an alternative to the criminal justice system.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.blackandpink.org/purpose-analysis/|title=Purpose and Analysis – black and pink|access-date=2015-04-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161128133857/http://www.blackandpink.org/purpose-analysis/|archive-date=2016-11-28|url-status=dead}}</ref>
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 offenses 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shelby |first=Tommie |title=The Idea of Prison Abilition |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2022 |isbn=9780691229775 |location=Princeton |pages=166}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation|last=Richie|first=Beth E.|publisher=New York University Press|year=2012|location=New York, NY|pages=17}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rojas Durazo|first=Ana Clarissa|date=2010|title=In Our Hands: Community Accountability as Pedagogical Strategy|journal=Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order|volume=37|issue=4 |issn=1043-1578 |id={{EBSCOhost|75348155}} |pages=76–100}}</ref> 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, formerly known as Correction Corporation of America (CCA).<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/mar/03/prison-population-titan-jails|title=George Monbiot: This revolting trade in human lives is an incentive to lock people up|last=Monbiot|first=George|date=2009-03-03|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-10-18|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077|archive-date=2019-09-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190918105648/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/mar/03/prison-population-titan-jails|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.4135/9781412959193.n11 |chapter=Anarchist Criminology |title=Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory |year=2010 |last1=Ferrell |first1=Jeff |isbn=978-1-4129-5918-6 }}</ref>
==== Queer Abolitionist Thought ==== Issues related to prison abolition have attracted the attention of several prominent queer studies scholars who wish to draw attention to the intersection of queerness and the carceral system. As a social justice issue, queer scholars are concerned about the inhumane conditions of the U.S. carceral system and the ways it specifically punishes LGBTQ+ populations. Sarah Lamble, a professor at Birkbeck, University of London, notes how queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming people of color are "over-policed, over-criminalized, and over-represented in the prison system".<ref name=":8">Lamble, S. 2011. “Transforming Carceral Logics: Ten Reasons to Dismantle the Prison Industrial Complex through Queer/Trans Analysis and Action.” In ''Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex'', edited by Stanley, Eric A. and Smith, Nat, 235–65. Oakland, CA: AK.</ref> For example, transgender women and two spirit people are much more likely to be placed in solitary confinement.<ref name=":4">Peck, S. (2022). The Criminal Justice System and the LGBTQ Community: An Anti-Queer Regime. ''Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science'', ''10''(1).</ref> Queer abolitionist scholars analyze how “... gender, sex, and sexuality have been deployed within larger political, economic, and social processes driving mass incarceration in the United States”.<ref name=":6">Stanley, E. A., Spade, D., & (In)Justice, Q. (2012). Queering Prison Abolition, Now? ''American Quarterly'', ''64''(1), 115–127.</ref> Some scholars have also identified the U.S. carceral system as functioning as an “anti-queer regime” in its punishments of LGBTQ+ populations.<ref name=":4" />
Eric A. Stanley, a professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley, and Dean Spade, a law professor and transgender activist, argue that queerness and the prison abolition movement have been intertwined since before the term “abolition” gained popularity in academic and activist spaces.<ref name=":6" /> In ''Queering Prison Abolition, Now?'', Stanley and Spade talk about how early queer and transgender activism against state violence built the foundation of modern abolitionist frameworks.<ref name=":6" /> They cite the works of activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.<ref name=":6" /> Scholar Regina Kunzel writes how the gay and lesbian activism of the 1970s brought to attention the enforcement of heteronormativity and a gender binary.<ref>Kunzel, R. (2008). Lessons in Being Gay: Queer Encounters in Gay and Lesbian Prison Activism. ''Radical History Review'', ''2008''(100), 11–37.</ref>
LGBTQ+ youth and young adults (primarily of color) experience high rates of arrest and incarceration to the extent that “...some data [indicates] that up to 85% of incarcerated LGBTQ+ youth are people of color”.<ref name=":7">Hereth, J., & Bouris, A. (2020). Queering Smart Decarceration: Centering the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Young People to Imagine a World Without Prisons. ''Affilia'', ''35''(3), 358–375.</ref> Queer and trans youth of color face higher rates of homelessness, unemployment, school bullying, street harassment, alienation from family, and sexual violence; all of which lead to an increase chance of being incarcerated.<ref name=":8" /> Scholars, Jane Hereth and Anna Bouris, identify school discipline issues and the child welfare system as “...pathways to funnel LGBTQ+ youth into the criminal legal system”.<ref name=":7" /> The "school-to-prison-pipeline" disproportionately affects queer trans and youth.<ref name=":8" /> Hereth & Bouris call within the social work discipline to implement abolitionist praxis to prevent the incarceration of LGBTQ+ youth.
Queer studies scholars have also critiqued the ideas of gender-responsive prisons. Joshua Janak views gender responsive prisons as an “excuse to expand carceral power by building new prisons”.<ref>Janak, J. (2025). “Performing Abolition in the Hold: Gender-Responsive Prisons, Black Trans Subjectivities, and the Possibility of Abolitionist Prison Education.” ''Liminalities (Tampa, United States) 21, no. 4 (2025): 1–18.''</ref> These scholars note that reforms, like gender-responsive prisons, reproduce the same carceral logic that abolitionists seek to dismantle.<ref name=":6" />
Scholars like Janak write on how art forms like literature, film, and music can be used as tools to further build on abolitionist worlds and Black trans futures. In Janak’s essay, ''(Trans)gendering Abolition'', Black trans people are simultaneously hypervisible and hyperinvisible.<ref name=":9">Janak, J. (2022). (Trans)gendering Abolition: Black Trans Geographies, Art, and the Problem of Visibility. ''GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies'', ''28''(2), 259–276. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-9608175</nowiki></ref> Black trans people are under constant surveillance and scrutiny by the criminal justice system while simultaneously having their identities and experiences erased in the general media.<ref name=":9" /> Janak names ''Free CeCe!'' (a documentary following the lived experiences of CeCe McDonald), ''Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More'' (a memoir on Janet Mock’s life), and Jay-Marie Hill’s ''Past Time (In Conversation with Lamia Beard)'' as artworks that construct black trans geographies based in an abolitionist framework.<ref name=":9" />
==== “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:<ref>{{cite book |title=Instead of prisons: a handbook for abolitionists |date=2005 |editor=Mark Morris |publisher=Critical Resistance |location=Oakland, CA |isbn=978-0-9767070-1-1 |edition=Republished with a new foreword}}</ref>
* '''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.
== List of Prison abolition organizations in the United States == {{div col|colwidth=28em}} * Abolitionist Law Center * Black & Pink * California Coalition for Women Prisoners * Critical Resistance * Freedom for Immigrants * Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC) * Project NIA{{div col end}}
== See also == {{div col|colwidth=28em}} * Prison abolition * Abolition feminism * Criminal justice reform * Police abolition * Exile * LGBTQ people in prison * Louk Hulsman * Nils Christie * Penal labor * Convict leasing, abolished by Presidential order in 1942 * Prison-industrial complex * Pacifism * School-to-prison pipeline {{div col end}}
== References ==
=== Further reading ===
* {{Cite book |last=Davis |first=Angela Y. |url=https://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Are_Prisons_Obsolete_Angela_Davis.pdf |title=Are prisons obsolete? |date=2003 |isbn=1-58322-581-1 |publisher=Seven Stories Press|location=New York |oclc=52832083}} * {{cite journal |last1=Bagaric |first1=Mirko |last2=Hunter |first2=Dan |last3=Svilar |first3=Jennifer |date=Spring 2021 |title=Prison Abolition: From Naive Idealism to Technological Pragmatism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/48614943 |journal=Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology |volume=111 |issue=2 |pages=351–407 |jstor=48614943}} * {{cite book |editor1-last=Herivel |editor-first=Tara |editor2-last=Wright |editor2-first=Paul |title=Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor |date=2003 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-93538-8 }} * {{Cite book |url=http://www.nap.edu/catalog/18613 |title=The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences |date=2014-04-24 |publisher=National Academies Press |isbn=978-0-309-29801-8 |location=Washington, D.C. |doi=10.17226/18613|bibcode=2014nap..book18613N |s2cid=155470810 }}
=== Sources === * {{cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Angela Y. |last2=Rodríguez |first2=Dylan |title=The Challenge of Prison Abolition: A Conversation |journal=Social Justice |date=2000 |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=212–218 |id={{ProQuest|231912167}} |jstor=29767244 }} * {{cite book|editor1-last=Ferrari|editor1-first=Livio|location=Capel Dewi, Aberystwyth, Wales|editor2-last=Pavarini|editor2-first=Massimo|title=No Prison|date=2018|publisher=European Group Press|isbn=978-1-911439-13-4}} * {{cite journal |last1=McLeod |first1=Allegra |year=2015 |title=Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice |journal=UCLA Law Review |volume=62 |issue=5 |pages=1156–1239 |url=https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1490/ |ssrn=2625217 }} * {{cite journal|last=Roberts|first=Dorothy|author-link=Dorothy Roberts|date=November 2019|title=The Supreme Court 2018 Term — Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism|url=https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/1-122_Online.pdf|journal=Harvard Law Review|volume=133|issue=1|pages=1–122}}
=== Notes === {{Reflist|30em}}
{{Incarceration|state=collapsed}} {{Authority control}}
Category:Prison abolition movement Category:Criminal justice reform Category:Penal imprisonment