Incarceration in the United States
A guide for the course Unlocking Knowledge: Theorizing Prison from the Inside (Spring 2023).
Anthologies
Abolition for the people: the movement for a future without policing & prisons by ISBN: 9781595911162Publication Date: 2021-10-12Edited by activist and former San Francisco 49ers super bowl quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Abolition for the People is a manifesto calling for a world beyond prisons and policing. Abolition for the People brings together thirty essays representing a diversity of voices--political prisoners, grassroots organizers, scholars, and relatives of those killed by the anti-Black terrorism of policing and prisons. This collection presents readers with a moral choice: "Will you continue to be actively complicit in the perpetuation of these systems," Kaepernick asks in his introduction, "or will you take action to dismantle them for the benefit of a just future?" Powered by courageous hope and imagination, Abolition for the People provides a blueprint and vision for creating an abolitionist future where communities can be safe, valued, and truly free. "Another world is possible," Kaepernick writes, "a world grounded in love, justice, and accountability, a world grounded in safety and good health, a world grounded in meeting the needs of the people." The complexity of abolitionist concepts and the enormity of the task at hand can be overwhelming. To help readers on their journey toward a greater understanding, each essay in the collection is followed by a reader's guide that offers further provocations on the subject. Newcomers to these ideas might ask: Is the abolition of the prison industrial complex too drastic? Can we really get rid of prisons and policing altogether? As writes organizer and New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba, "The short answer: We can. We must. We are." Abolition for the People begins by uncovering the lethal anti-Black histories of policing and incarceration in the United States. Juxtaposing today's moment with 19th-century movements for the abolition of slavery, freedom fighter Angela Y. Davis writes "Just as we hear calls today for a more humane policing, people then called for a more humane slavery." Drawing on decades of scholarship and personal experience, each author deftly refutes the notion that police and prisons can be made fairer and more humane through piecemeal reformation. As Derecka Purnell argues, "reforms do not make the criminal legal system more just, but obscure its violence more efficiently." Blending rigorous analysis with first-person narratives, Abolition for the People definitively makes the case that the only political future worth building is one without and beyond police and prisons. You won't find all the answers here, but you will find the right questions--questions that open up radical possibilities for a future where all communities can thrive.
- Abolitionist Futures Reading ListsAbolitionist Futures is a collaboration of community organisers and activists in Britain and Ireland who are working together to build a future without prisons, police and punishment. We share information and resources to strengthen the network of existing and emerging abolitionist groups and allied organisations. Our aim is to support the flourishing of a diverse, vibrant and powerful abolitionist movement in the Britain and Ireland.
Self Study Guides
- Abolition Journal SyllabusWhat follows is a suggested design for a six-week study group. Each week is organized by theme; we recommend doing the readings/viewings/listening in the order listed. We have included materials that you can read and watch in under 5 hours each week. We hope that you will do what you can, but really, we hope that you’ll eventually study more than what we list here–because we know that radical study, often named “political education,” is one key to movement-building, and only we can do it for ourselves. Abolition is, in addition to being about dismantling and building, also about transforming things. And perhaps first and foremost, it is about transforming ourselves in concert with others. Sometimes this happens when we study together!
- The Prison Industry Curriculum from Worth RisesThe Curriculum is a free, self-guided, public education course based on our report, The Prison Industry: How it Started, How it Works, How it Harms. Through this course, we hope to relay a strong understanding of the prison industry and a framework to imagine the world without it.
Campus Abolitionist Groups
- Garland Sit-in and OccupationDocumentation of the JHU Garland Sit-in and occupation.
- Coalition Against Policing by HopkinsComprised of over a dozen community and university-based organizations demanding Johns Hopkins University unequivocally abandon plans for a private police force.
Special Collections
- Defend/Defund CatalogIn just over 100 full-color pages, this volume examines how communities have responded to the violence of white supremacy and carceral systems in the United States. Included in the text are materials from the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Young Lords in the 1960s and 70s, CopWatch and the Stolen Lives Project in the 1980s and 1990s, and contemporary material from the Movement for Black Lives, Project NIA, and INCITE!. The struggle to defund and demilitarize the police and refund our communities is as urgent as ever, and this publication shows how the modern Defund movement builds on past Black feminist and abolitionist movements and imagines alternatives to policing for community safety. In addition to full-color reproduction of archival materials, this narrative includes excerpts from interviews with activists, scholars and artists Mariame Kaba, Dread Scott, Dennis Flores, Dr. Joshua Myers, and Jawanza Williams. -- Publisher.
- Defend/Defund ExhibitDefend / Defund looks at resistance to policing and police brutality in the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States. This exhibition focuses on the work of Black organizers and the families of victims of police violence who have fought the often brutal occupation of their communities. It also looks at allies and co-conspirators in the movement including Indigenous, Asian American, Latinx, and queer organizers.