abolition 102
The Prison Abolition movement began in the 1980s as a response to the War on Drugs which increased the U.S. prison population from 500,000 in 1980,to 1.3 million in 1990, and over 2 million by 2000. The term “Prison Abolition” comes from the first conference organized by Critical Resistance in 1997, “Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex”. Critical Resistance was founded by Angela Davis, Ruthie Gilmore, and Rose Braz.
Abolition is committed to ending cycles of harm. The natural world deeply informs the tenants of abolition. From the gardens we learn profound lessons in patience, interdependence, care and mutual aid. We learn to imagine different relationships and boundaries. Plants teach us to be better people. The current criminal punishment system has failed humans and the planet. By committing to an abolitionist lens, lifestyle, and pedagogy, we fortify our commitment to defining justice on behalf of a more sustainable world for all.
Abolition asks us to nurture our connection to each other and the environment in order to evolve into our fullest human potential. Abolition begins with eye contact. This work demands we look into all the systems we are complicit with and connect to in order to shift our cultural responses to crime.
Historically, safety has been defined for us by systems of punishment and control. A homogenous, one-size-fits-all definition for safety is not only an insult to our imaginations, but to the diverse interdependent population it alleges to serve. Rarely are we asked to imagine or define our own notions of justice or safety.
WHY ABOLITION?
Because slavery did not end, it merely evolved into other systems of oppression and control, such as the school-to-prison pipeline, and the prison industrial complex.
The ubiquity of prisons in the United States is a fairly recent development—in the 1980’s, the US invested in the biggest prison building project in the history of the world (CR). If we constructed it, we have the power to dismantle it.
Our modern prison system is built of the reforms of chattel slavery. The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution includes a strategic exception to the abolition of slavery for those “duly convicted of a crime.”
Prisons in the United States are filled with people of color “duly convicted of a crime” at a rate almost eight times higher than whites. Thus, conversations surrounding prison abolition and racial capitalism are required in order to facilitate authentic possibilities for a non-racist, non-exploitative, non-hierarchical democratic order.