Prison abolition movement
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The aim of the prison abolition movement is to eliminate prisons, jails, immigration detention centers, and prisoner of war camps by alternatives which they argue are more useful and more humane. Prison abolitionists present a broad critique of the criminal justice system in the West, which they feel is racist, classist, and ineffectual at “reforming” criminals, decreasing crime, or reconciling the victims of crime. Many people involved in the prison abolition movement are also involved in struggles against other forms of social control and "oppression," such as the institutionalization of the insane, and for this reason the struggle has been associated with anarchism and anti-authoritarians.
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[edit] Advocates for prison abolition
Historically, Quakers were among the first advocates for alternatives to prison.
Anarchist groups such as Anarchist Black Cross have played a significant part in the prison abolition movement and this trend continues today. Anarchists wish to eliminate all forms of state control, of which imprisonment is one of its more obvious examples. Anarchists also oppose prisons because they house non-violent offenders, incarcerate mainly poor people or people of color, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse.
[edit] Prison reforms and alternatives
In place of prisons, anarchism proposes community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies to control the problem of social crime. They argue that with the destruction of capitalism, and the self-management of production by workers and communities, property crimes would largely vanish.
Tactics differ significantly depending on the political beliefs behind them, and include:
- Penal system reforms
- Substituting incarceration with supervised release, probation, restitution to victims, or community work.
- Decreasing terms of imprisonment by abolishing mandatory minimum sentencing
- Prison condition reforms
- Crime prevention rather than punishment
- Stopping of specific government programs that increase prison population (e.g. War on Drugs)
- Education programs
- Decreasing ethnic disparity in prison populations
- Fighting individual cases of wrongful conviction
- Educating people who have never been in prison about the problems
- Increased use of capital punishment
[edit] Arguments for prison abolition
- Prisons are less effective at discouraging crime and/or compensating victims than other forms of punishment.
- In the United States of America, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not abolish slavery, but limited it to cases where it is a "punishment for the crime". In some countries prisons are nothing more than institutionalized slavery.
- Judicial outcome depends on the financial resources of the accused.
- Legislature is biased towards profiting one segment of the population over another. In most countries tobacco is legal, while marijuana is not, because large corporations control the former, while the latter will be impossible to control and tax.
- Police and prisons alienate people from their communities.
- The criminal justice systems in the West overwhelmingly target people of color and from the lower class.
- Prisons are not proven to make people less violent, in fact often they promote violence in individuals by surrounding them with other violent criminals and providing them no means of love, care and emotional support.
[edit] See also
[edit] List of organizations supporting prison abolition
- Anarchist Black Cross
- Anarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid Network
- Critical Resistance
- Justice Now
- Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC)
[edit] List of other relevant organizations
- American Civil Liberties Union
- American Friends Service Committee
- Books to Prisoners
- Families Against Mandatory Minimums
- NAACP
- November Coalition
[edit] Relevant topics
- Angela Davis
- incarceration
- judicial system
- prison reform
- prison
- prison education
- prison labor
- prisoner of war
- private prison
- probation
