Abolitionists' Goals: Examining the Case for Prison Abolition - Essay Sample

Critique of Prison Abolition Readings

Prison has been for a long time a dreaded place where people are taken to serve their sentences. During their time in prison, the prisoners are taken through a process of reformation where they change from their previous wrongful ways and adopt better ways of living with other people in the community. The prison abolition campaign has become popular over time where people feel that prisons are not a required facility in the community due to a variety of reasons mentioned in the three papers being critiqued.

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To begin with, I feel that change should begin with the local community. The people in the society can reduce the mass incarcerations made by finding ways to reduce crime rates. The first paper described the thoughts of Keller (2019) and began with an eye-catching question 'What Do Abolitionists Really Want?' Keller starts by giving a bit of history on how the prison abolition campaign began. The prison abolition campaign was aimed at changing the justice system. The process of change, by the abolitionists, was aimed at devolving public safety to the communities instead of the government and channeling the funding from the prisons to other sectors of development in the country. Pommerening (2016) echoes the thoughts of Angela Davis, a great campaigner of prison abolition, that for a prison less society to exist, the community should organize itself first. The issues in society that fuel crime include racism, xenophobia, sexism, gender discrimination, and capitalism, to mention a few (Pommerening, 2016). By eliminating these vices in the community, there will be increased public safety and, therefore, no need for prisons.

One hundred percent of prison abolition may also be challenging to achieve. There are some crimes whose punishment befits being put in prison for the time stipulated by their sentence. For those who end up in prison, they should find better prison conditions. According to Keller, the reformists are willing to build jails with better conditions contrary to abolishing the prisons. Further description of the poor conditions of prisons that make them undesirable and prone to the violation of some international human rights argues that these poor living conditions increase the weight on the prison abolition campaign. I find it ironical that Kilgore (2015) makes prison sound like a place that is not in any way as other scholars may put it. He brings out the positive side of being in prison where people are friends; there are high standards of hygiene, and how the prisoners get to enjoy little pleasures of life such as a massage or a burrito. All the same, I think prisons are different and the experiences of every inmate also differ significantly.

Support towards prison abolition by the public is dependent on their understanding of its significance and what they seek to gain from the abolition. Many people in public are against prison abolition, not because they do not sympathize with the incarcerated but because of the benefits that they gain from the prisons. Such people include those who supply items to the prisons. Kilgore mentions that there are companies that supply everything to prisons from toilet papers to food (Kilgore, 2015). Their daily bread relies on the sales they make to the prisons. Gilmore and Kilgore (2019) indicate that reformists claim that the public may not be in support of prison abolition since it presents unfamiliar struggles that they cannot relate to. Ambrose (2019) shows that the budgetary cuts on incarceration can go a long way when that money is used for other government functions. She indicates that the public supports the narrative especially through their politicians. Unfortunately, the politicians fail to fulfill their promises and the budget for incarceration continues rising (Ambrose, 2019).

Calathes (2017) links prison to slavery. There are more black people in the system compared to other races especially due to mass incarceration and drugs wars. After being released from the prisons, people look down upon them and pay them less for their labor (Calathes, 2017). Kilgore shares his experience when he said he had been in prison (Kilgore, 2015). The discrimination that is directed to the people who were previously in prison should also be a reason for the abolitionists to continue with their campaign. The abolitionists work to improve the conditions of paroling and probation so that the parolees cannot risk falling into prison again. In Minnesota, probation is preferred to imprisonment since Minnesota is recognized as a community corrections state (Byrd, 2016).

As he concludes, Keller shows that the prison abolition conversation is significant even though the chances of having the prisons abolished may be slim (Keller, 2019). Change in the justice system will take time, but it will help people realize that something should be done. Once the public realizes the importance of prison abolishment, they will join together and make efforts to keep their safety their responsibility.

References

Ambrose, R. H. (2019). Note Decarceration in a Mass Incarceration State: The Road to Prison Abolition. Mitchell Hamline Law Review, 45(3), 1. https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=mhlr

Byrd, R. M. (2016). "Punishment's Twin": Theorizing Prisoner Reentry for a Politics of Abolition. Social Justice, 1-22. https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/24096/Byrd_washington_0250E_11741.pdf?sequence=1

Calathes, W. (2017). Racial capitalism and punishment philosophy and practices: what stands in the way of prison abolition? Contemporary Justice Review, 20(4), 442-455. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William_Calathes/publication/320355868_Racial_capitalism_and_punishment_philosophy_and_practices_what_really_stands_in_the_way_of_prison_abolition/links/5be5ed4c4585150b2bab7bb1/Racial-capitalism-and-punishment-philosophy-and-practices-what-really-stands-in-the-way-of-prison abolition.pdf

Pommerening, A. M. (2016). The Time of Liberation: Angela Davis's Prison Abolition and Giorgio Agamben's Coming Community. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2024&context=open_access_dissertations