Prison abolition movement
Encyclopedia
The prison abolition movement seeks to abolish prisons and the prison system. The movement advocates for the abolition of prisons and the prison system on the basis of it being ineffective. Prison abolitionists present a broad critique of the modern criminal justice system, which they believe to be racist, sexist, and classist. They also see Prisons and the prison system as an ineffectual way to reform criminals, decrease crime
, and reconcile the victims of crime.
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 seen as one of the more obvious examples. Anarchists also oppose prisons because they house non-violent offenders (e.g., thieves and swindlers instead of just murderers and rapists), incarcerate mainly poor people and ethnic minorities, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse. As a result, the prison abolition movement often is associated with humanistic socialism, anarchism
and anti-authoritarian
ism.
“Eighty percent of people accused of crimes are unable to afford a lawyer to defend them.” The Supreme Court held in 1963 that a poor person facing felony charges “cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” “Long Term Neglect and underfunding of indigent defense have created a crisis of extra ordinary proportions in many states throughout the country.”
(2005) "The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails. Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses."
“The so-called drug war was started in the 1980s and it was aimed directly at the black population. None of this has anything to do with drugs. It has to do with controlling and criminalizing dangerous populations.”“Blacks are 12.3 percent of the U.S. population,(2001) but they comprise fully half of the roughly 2 million Americans currently behind Bars. On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males aged 20- 29 are “under correctional supervision.” Blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison.
“Each Prisoner represents an economic asset that has been removed from that community and placed elsewhere. As an economic being, the person would spend money at or near his or her area of residence- typically, an inner city. Imprisonment displaces that economic activity: Instead of buying snacks in a local deli, the prisoner makes those purchases in a prison commissary. The removal may represent a loss of economic value to the home community, but it is a boon to the prison [host] community. Each prisoner represents as much as $25,000 in income for the community in which the prison is located, not to mention the value of constructing the prison facility in the first place. This can be a massive transfer of value: a young male worth a few thousand dollars of support to children and local purchases is transformed into a $25,000 financial asset to a rural prison community. The economy of the rural community is artificially amplified, the local city economy is artificially deflated.”
Unfortunately, there are no definitive national statistics on the employment status of ex-felons. But both anecdotal evidence and fragmentary data confirm what common sense would predict: individuals who have been incarcerated have great difficulty securing employment when they return to society. Except for a short period in the late 1990s, when the labor market was so tight that the Wall Street Journal reported on employer efforts to reach out to ex-felons, those leaving prison have faced formidable obstacles to employment. Some of these difficulties are related to company policies or procedures and others are the result of employer perceptions of ex-felons’ job skills or trustworthiness. Ex-felons are also barred from public employment in a number of states, including three with a high proportion of African American residents (Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina). Occupations that are licensed by states also have restrictions on allowing ex- felons to work in them.
Opponents of the abolition argue that none of the above arguments addresses the protection of non-criminal population from the effects of crime, and from particularly violent criminals.
, as of 2007, the number of women incarcerated in prisons has more than doubled the rate of their male counterparts since 1985
Many prison abolitionist view women's entry and exit from prison as a reflection of women's status in the general populations’ society, This view is further highlighted with statistics offered by The Sentencing Project
on women's incarceration. As of 2007, the most statistically significant results discussed by The Sentencing Project
include:
The above list is just a fraction of the gender disparities, noted in anti-prison literature, seen between male and female inmates who are in prison. Some of the disparities are attributed to the high percentage of males in charge of the justice and correctional systems and sexism
. As seen in the statistics presented above sexism
is an argument many prison abolitionist take on as a reason to abolish prisons. Prisons for women, according to the statistics and prison abolition movement, are sexist and therefore inherently violate their rights to due process
. This argument is seen often in the claims for women who are in prison for killing an abusive partner The disparities seen in mental health and drug convictions also follow this trend and are also important arguments used by the prison abolition movement.
. Crack is a drug that is cheap and is derived from cocaine
. Crack has been the focus of many debates in relation to the harshness of prison sentences because the penalty of being caught with crack is much greater than with cocaine
. The ramification of these harsh sentences is that it affects the street peddler instead of the drug lords and kingpins. In the eyes of many abolitionists the system also places too much fault with these lower-level trafficking individuals instead of targeting the whole complex hierarchy within the trade. A problem with targeting lower-level individuals in the drug market is that it presents a racial bias and provides another reason for the abolition of prisons. According to The Sentencing Project
, 2/3 of the users of crack cocaine in the U.S. are Hispanic and/or White. While their lower level distributors are from the same racial/ethnic background, the majority of the those being locked up are people of color; in 2006, 81.8% of the defendants in crack cases were African American. In recent months the prison abolitionist have obtained some very important, though unintended, supporters. President Barack Obama
of the U.S. has “declared that ‘the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.’” Recently, the American Medical Association
(AMA) stated that marijuana should be classified as a lesser class of narcotic because of its invaluable medicinal properties. These are seen as very important steps in reducing the strain on society by wrongful incarceration and provide support for prison abolitionist claims.
This question is often one of the major pieces of evidence that prison abolitionist claim highlights the depravity of the penal system. Many of these prison abolitionists often state that mentally ill offenders, violent and non-violent, should be treated in mental hospitals not prisons. By keeping the mentally ill in prisons they claim that rehabilitation cannot occur because prisons are not the correct environment to deal with deep seated psychological problems and facilitate rehabilitative practices. Individuals with mental illnesses that have led them to commit any crime have a much higher chance of committing suicide while in prison because of the lack of proper medical attention. The increased risk of suicide is said to be because there is much stigma around mental illness and lack of adequate treatments within hospitals. The whole point of the penal system is to rehabilitate and reform individuals who have willingly transgressed on the law. According to many prison abolitionists however, when mentally ill persons, often for reasons outside of their cognitive control, commit illegal acts prisons are not the best place for them to receive the help necessary for their rehabilitation. For many prison abolitionist, if for no other reason than the fact that mentally ill individuals will not be receiving the same potential for rehabilitation as the non-mentally ill prison population, prisons are considered to be unjust and therefore violate their Sixth Amendment
and Fifth Amendment
Rights, in the U.S., and their chance to rehabilitate and function outside of the prison., By violating individual’s rights to rehabilitation prison abolitionist see no reason for prisons to exist and offers just one more reason people with the movement demand for the abolition of prisons., In America, by violating an individual's rights as a citizen prison abolitionist see no reason for prisons to exist and, again, offers another reason people within the movement demand for the abolition of prisons.
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
, and reconcile the victims of crime.
Advocates for prison abolition
Historically, Quakers were among the first advocates for alternatives to prison.Anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
groups such as Anarchist Black Cross
Anarchist Black Cross
The Anarchist Black Cross is an anarchist politics support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organises material and legal support for class struggle prisoners worldwide...
have played a significant part in the prison abolition movement and this trend continues today. Anarchists wish to eliminate all forms of state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
control, of which imprisonment is seen as one of the more obvious examples. Anarchists also oppose prisons because they house non-violent offenders (e.g., thieves and swindlers instead of just murderers and rapists), incarcerate mainly poor people and ethnic minorities, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse. As a result, the prison abolition movement often is associated with humanistic socialism, anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
and anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism." Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil...
ism.
Prison reforms and alternatives
Proposals for prison reform and proposed alternatives to prisons differ significantly depending on the political beliefs behind them. Proposals and tactics often include:- Penal system reforms:
- Substituting incarceration with supervised release, probationProbationProbation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
, restitutionRestitutionThe law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery. It is to be contrasted with the law of compensation, which is the law of loss-based recovery. Obligations to make restitution and obligations to pay compensation are each a type of legal response to events in the real world. When a court...
to victims, or community work. - Decreasing terms of imprisonment by abolishing mandatory minimum sentencingMandatory sentencingA mandatory sentence is a court decision setting where judicial discretion is limited by law. Typically, people convicted of certain crimes must be punished with at least a minimum number of years in prison...
- Decreasing ethnic disparity in prison populations
- Substituting incarceration with supervised release, probation
- Prison condition reforms
- Crime prevention rather than punishment
- Abolition of specific programs which increase prison population, such as the prohibition of drugsProhibition (drugs)The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent drug use. Prohibition of drugs has existed at various levels of government or other authority from the Middle Ages to the present....
(e.g. War on DrugsWar on DrugsThe War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
), gun controlGun controlGun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
, prohibition of prostitutionProstitutionProstitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, and alcohol restrictions. - Education programs to inform people who have never been in prison about the problems
- Fighting individual cases of wrongful conviction
Abolitionist views
In place of prisons, some abolitionists propose 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. A large part of the problem, according to some, is the way the judicial systems deals with prisoners, people and capital. They argue that there would be fewer prisoners if society treated people more fairly, regardless of gender, color, ethnic background, sexual preference, education, etc.Arguments made for prison abolition
- Lack of proper legal representation
“Eighty percent of people accused of crimes are unable to afford a lawyer to defend them.” The Supreme Court held in 1963 that a poor person facing felony charges “cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” “Long Term Neglect and underfunding of indigent defense have created a crisis of extra ordinary proportions in many states throughout the country.”
- War on drugs conceals racial tension
(2005) "The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails. Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses."
“The so-called drug war was started in the 1980s and it was aimed directly at the black population. None of this has anything to do with drugs. It has to do with controlling and criminalizing dangerous populations.”“Blacks are 12.3 percent of the U.S. population,(2001) but they comprise fully half of the roughly 2 million Americans currently behind Bars. On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males aged 20- 29 are “under correctional supervision.” Blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison.
- Incarceration is socially and economically crippling to the convicted and the community.
“Each Prisoner represents an economic asset that has been removed from that community and placed elsewhere. As an economic being, the person would spend money at or near his or her area of residence- typically, an inner city. Imprisonment displaces that economic activity: Instead of buying snacks in a local deli, the prisoner makes those purchases in a prison commissary. The removal may represent a loss of economic value to the home community, but it is a boon to the prison [host] community. Each prisoner represents as much as $25,000 in income for the community in which the prison is located, not to mention the value of constructing the prison facility in the first place. This can be a massive transfer of value: a young male worth a few thousand dollars of support to children and local purchases is transformed into a $25,000 financial asset to a rural prison community. The economy of the rural community is artificially amplified, the local city economy is artificially deflated.”
Unfortunately, there are no definitive national statistics on the employment status of ex-felons. But both anecdotal evidence and fragmentary data confirm what common sense would predict: individuals who have been incarcerated have great difficulty securing employment when they return to society. Except for a short period in the late 1990s, when the labor market was so tight that the Wall Street Journal reported on employer efforts to reach out to ex-felons, those leaving prison have faced formidable obstacles to employment. Some of these difficulties are related to company policies or procedures and others are the result of employer perceptions of ex-felons’ job skills or trustworthiness. Ex-felons are also barred from public employment in a number of states, including three with a high proportion of African American residents (Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina). Occupations that are licensed by states also have restrictions on allowing ex- felons to work in them.
- Prisons may be less effective at discouraging crimes and/or compensating victims than other forms of punishment.
- Degree and quality of access to justice depends on the financial resources of the accused.
- Prisons alienateSocial alienationThe term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
people from their communitiesCommunityThe term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
. - In the U.S., people of color and from the lower classProletariatThe proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
are much more likely to be imprisoned than people of European descent or people who are wealthy. - People who are put in prison for what are arguably crimes motivated by need, such as some minor theft (food, etc.) or prostitution, find it much harder to obtain legal employment once convicted of a crime. Arguably, this difficulty makes it more likely they will find themselves back in the prison system, having had few other options or resources available to support themselves and/or their families. Many prison abolitionists argue that we should "legalize survival" and provide help to those who need it instead of making it even harder to find work and perpetuating the non-violent crimes.
- Prisons are not proven to make people less violent. In fact, there is evidence that they may instead promote violence in individuals by surrounding them with other violent criminals, which can lead to predictable negative/violent results.
- Drug-related offenders are being ushered in and out of the prison system like a revolving door. Rather than educate, and rehabilitate the offender to a clean path of sobriety and increased stature, the state ignores them.
Opponents of the abolition argue that none of the above arguments addresses the protection of non-criminal population from the effects of crime, and from particularly violent criminals.
Women and prison
According to The Sentencing ProjectSentencing Project
The Sentencing Project, based in Washington, D.C., promotes "more effective and humane" alternatives to prison for criminal offenders. It has produced several influential reports on inequalities in the U.S...
, as of 2007, the number of women incarcerated in prisons has more than doubled the rate of their male counterparts since 1985
Many prison abolitionist view women's entry and exit from prison as a reflection of women's status in the general populations’ society, This view is further highlighted with statistics offered by The Sentencing Project
Sentencing Project
The Sentencing Project, based in Washington, D.C., promotes "more effective and humane" alternatives to prison for criminal offenders. It has produced several influential reports on inequalities in the U.S...
on women's incarceration. As of 2007, the most statistically significant results discussed by The Sentencing Project
Sentencing Project
The Sentencing Project, based in Washington, D.C., promotes "more effective and humane" alternatives to prison for criminal offenders. It has produced several influential reports on inequalities in the U.S...
include:
- 59 % of women who are incarcerated in prison were convicted of a property or drug crime, while only 40% of men incarcerated in prison were convicted a property or drug crime.
- 35 % of women incarcerated in prisons were convicted of violent offenses, while 53% of men were convicted
- Women are twice as likely as men to victimize someone they know.
- Between the years 1986 and 1996 drug offenses counted for 49% of the women in prisons.
- While the rate women used drugs declined in the years from 1986 to 1996 the number of women in prison for drug offenses increased by 888%, while the other non-drug offenses only rose 129% during the same time period.
- 33% of women, in 1998, stated they committed the crime they were in jail for in order to obtain money to buy drugs.
- 40% of women in prison for the year of 1998 reported using drugs at the time they were put in prison, while only 32% of men claimed this.
- In the year 2005, 73.1% of women in prison had a mental health problem, 55% of their male counterparts had a mental health problem.
- 57% of women who were in prison claimed to have experienced physical abuse or sexual abuse prior to their incarceration.
- 68% of prison physicians stated that women prisoners in their prison had access to elective abortions.
The above list is just a fraction of the gender disparities, noted in anti-prison literature, seen between male and female inmates who are in prison. Some of the disparities are attributed to the high percentage of males in charge of the justice and correctional systems and sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
. As seen in the statistics presented above sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
is an argument many prison abolitionist take on as a reason to abolish prisons. Prisons for women, according to the statistics and prison abolition movement, are sexist and therefore inherently violate their rights to due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
. This argument is seen often in the claims for women who are in prison for killing an abusive partner The disparities seen in mental health and drug convictions also follow this trend and are also important arguments used by the prison abolition movement.
Illicit drugs and prison
One of the major issues that many prison abolitionists have with prisons is the significant increase in the number of people incarcerated due to mandatory sentencing and penalties for individuals involved in the drug trade. Many claim the fact that the rise from 41,000 to 500,000 people in prison since 1980 for drug related charges shows the ineffective nature of prisons. The supposed ineffective nature of prisons in this instance provides those within the movement an explanation as to why prisons should be abolished. The majority of these charges are due to what many in the anti-prison movement term unreasonable mandatory penalties that “impose a ‘one size fits all’ sentencing structure [which] fails to account for the individual circumstances of the offender and the offense.” One of the major drugs that prison abolitionist target as a prime example for why prisons are ineffective is crackCrack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
. Crack is a drug that is cheap and is derived from cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
. Crack has been the focus of many debates in relation to the harshness of prison sentences because the penalty of being caught with crack is much greater than with cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
. The ramification of these harsh sentences is that it affects the street peddler instead of the drug lords and kingpins. In the eyes of many abolitionists the system also places too much fault with these lower-level trafficking individuals instead of targeting the whole complex hierarchy within the trade. A problem with targeting lower-level individuals in the drug market is that it presents a racial bias and provides another reason for the abolition of prisons. According to The Sentencing Project
Sentencing Project
The Sentencing Project, based in Washington, D.C., promotes "more effective and humane" alternatives to prison for criminal offenders. It has produced several influential reports on inequalities in the U.S...
, 2/3 of the users of crack cocaine in the U.S. are Hispanic and/or White. While their lower level distributors are from the same racial/ethnic background, the majority of the those being locked up are people of color; in 2006, 81.8% of the defendants in crack cases were African American. In recent months the prison abolitionist have obtained some very important, though unintended, supporters. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
of the U.S. has “declared that ‘the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.’” Recently, the American Medical Association
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
(AMA) stated that marijuana should be classified as a lesser class of narcotic because of its invaluable medicinal properties. These are seen as very important steps in reducing the strain on society by wrongful incarceration and provide support for prison abolitionist claims.
Mental illness and prison
Many prison abolitionists take issue with the fact that prisons are used as a “default asylum” for many individuals with mental illness. Somewhere between 30 to 40 % of mentally ill individuals in jail and in prison have had no criminal charges placed. One question that is often asked by some prison abolitionists is:
“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?”
This question is often one of the major pieces of evidence that prison abolitionist claim highlights the depravity of the penal system. Many of these prison abolitionists often state that mentally ill offenders, violent and non-violent, should be treated in mental hospitals not prisons. By keeping the mentally ill in prisons they claim that rehabilitation cannot occur because prisons are not the correct environment to deal with deep seated psychological problems and facilitate rehabilitative practices. Individuals with mental illnesses that have led them to commit any crime have a much higher chance of committing suicide while in prison because of the lack of proper medical attention. The increased risk of suicide is said to be because there is much stigma around mental illness and lack of adequate treatments within hospitals. The whole point of the penal system is to rehabilitate and reform individuals who have willingly transgressed on the law. According to many prison abolitionists however, when mentally ill persons, often for reasons outside of their cognitive control, commit illegal acts prisons are not the best place for them to receive the help necessary for their rehabilitation. For many prison abolitionist, if for no other reason than the fact that mentally ill individuals will not be receiving the same potential for rehabilitation as the non-mentally ill prison population, prisons are considered to be unjust and therefore violate their Sixth Amendment
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions...
and Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
Rights, in the U.S., and their chance to rehabilitate and function outside of the prison., By violating individual’s rights to rehabilitation prison abolitionist see no reason for prisons to exist and offers just one more reason people with the movement demand for the abolition of prisons., In America, by violating an individual's rights as a citizen prison abolitionist see no reason for prisons to exist and, again, offers another reason people within the movement demand for the abolition of prisons.
List of organizations supporting prison abolition
- Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry SocietiesCanadian Association of Elizabeth Fry SocietiesThe Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies is an association of groups operating under the Elizabeth Fry Society banner. The groups work on issues affecting women and girls in the justice system. The societies take their name from prison reformer Elizabeth Fry.The organization was started...
- Anarchist Black CrossAnarchist Black CrossThe Anarchist Black Cross is an anarchist politics support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organises material and legal support for class struggle prisoners worldwide...
- Anarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid NetworkAnarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid NetworkThe Anarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid Network is an Anarchist organization that provides legal aid to known anarchist prisoners and publishes the newsletter We Never Sleep. According to APLAN, many imprisoned anarchists are subject to abuse, partly due to their beliefs....
- Critical ResistanceCritical ResistanceCritical Resistance is a national, member-based grassroots organization that works to build a mass movement to dismantle the prison-industrial complex...
- ICOPA: International Conference on Penal Abolition
- International Socialist OrganizationInternational Socialist OrganizationThe International Socialist Organization is a revolutionary socialist organization in the United States that identifies with the politics of International Socialism, a current of Trotskyism, and the Marxist political tradition that American socialist writer and activist Hal Draper called...
- Journal of Prisoners on PrisonsJournal of Prisoners on PrisonsThe Journal of Prisoners on Prisons is a peer-reviewed academic journal, which gives a voice to prisoners. Using collections of essays, each issue brings to light new ideas, emotions, and descriptions of life inside minimum-to-maximum security institutions. The journal seeks to promote thought on...
- Justice Now
- Libertarian International Organization
- Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and SocialismCommittees of Correspondence for Democracy and SocialismThe Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism is a democratic socialist group in the United States which originated in 1991 as the Committees of Correspondence, a moderate, reformist wing of the Communist Party USA...
- Socialist ResistanceSocialist ResistanceSocialist Resistance is a Trotskyist and ecosocialist organisation in Britain which publishes a Marxist periodical of the same name. In July 2009 the International Socialist Group merged into it, making SR the British Section of the Fourth International.-Origins:It was launched on 8 September...
- Prison Activist Resource CenterPrison Activist Resource CenterPrison Activist Resource Center is an all volunteer prison activist organization located at 1904 Franklin St. #515, Oakland, California....
(PARC)
List of other relevant organizations
- American Civil Liberties UnionAmerican Civil Liberties UnionThe American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
- American Friends Service CommitteeAmerican Friends Service CommitteeThe American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
- Books to PrisonersBooks to PrisonersBooks to Prisoners is an umbrella term for several projects and organizations that mail free reading material to prison inmates. The first Books to Prisoners project was founded in Seattle, Washington, USA in 1973. There are approximately twenty similar projects in the United States and Canada...
- Families Against Mandatory MinimumsFamilies Against Mandatory MinimumsFamilies Against Mandatory Minimums is a USA nonprofit organization founded in 1991 to challenge what they believe to be the inflexible and excessive penalties required by mandatory sentencing laws...
- NAACP
- November CoalitionNovember CoalitionThe November Coalition is a non-profit grassroots organization, founded in 1997, which fights against the War on Drugs and for the rights of the prisoners incarcerated as the effect of that war. It publishes a bulletin called Razor Wire.-Tyrone Brown:...
Relevant people and topics
- Michel FoucaultDiscipline and PunishDiscipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a book by philosopher Michel Foucault. Originally published in 1975 in France under the title Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la Prison, it was translated into English in 1977. It is an interrogation of the social and theoretical mechanisms behind...
- Angela DavisAngela DavisAngela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
- IncarcerationIncarcerationIncarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of...
- Judicial system
- NonviolenceNonviolenceNonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
- Prison reformPrison reformPrison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-History:Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last couple of centuries...
- Prison educationPrison educationPrison education, by Daryl Kuissi also known as Inmate Education and Correctional Education, is a very broad term that encompasses any number of educational activities occurring inside a prison. These educational activities include both vocational training and academic education...
- Prison labor
- Prisoner of warPrisoner of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
- Private prisonPrivate prisonA private prison, jail, or detention center is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned by a third party that is contracted by a government agency...
- Nils ChristieNils ChristieNils Christie is a Norwegian sociologist and criminologist. He is a professor of criminology at the University of Oslo since 1966. Among his books is Pinens begrensning from 1981, which has been translated into eleven languages. He has received an honorary degree at the University of Copenhagen...
- RacismRacismRacism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
External links
- Prisons.Biz, Prison Abolition Website
- European abolitionists on "future of abolitionism"
- Prison abolition & alternatives
- ZNet article on Prison Abolition
- Prison Abolition pamphlet
- Radical Alternatives to Prison
- Howard League for Penal Reform
- Article calling for abolition of prisons by conservative author Gary North
- IWW General Defense Committee
- Australian Prisons
- NSW Prisons
- The Punishment is the Crime
- Publik
- NSW Community News Archive