Paperback, 128 pages
English language
Published Sept. 6, 2003 by Seven Stories Press.
With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. In Are …
With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for “decarceration”, and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.
In a rare and welcome exception to Betteridge's Law, Davis convincingly walks us through the main reasons that the modern institution of prisons is unacceptable by any reasonable moral standard, and does not actually fulfill any social function. Well, apart from allowing corporations to appropriate public resources and enslave people for their labor. Fuck prisons, ACAB, restorative justice now.
This was brief and to the point! I like it.
War für mich ein guter Einstieg in die Prison-Abolishment-Bewegung. Leider fehlte das, nach dem ich gerade in Büchern dieses Genres suche, nämlich mehr praktische Beispiele. Aber die gibt dann vielleicht das nächste Buch her.
Was mir jedenfalls gefiel: Wie zugänglich und mit Beispielen Davis häufig schreibt. Was leider etwas anstrengte: Die ständigen Wiederholungen, obwohl das Buch an sich ja eh schon sehr kurz ist. Aber vielleicht war das so wie bei Marx: 100x das gleiche in leicht anderen Worten schreiben, damit es ankommt?
A must-read account of a question few seem willing to ask. Davis poses a number of questions and poses their answers using history, personal stories, and statistics. If you believe prisons are an essential feature of justice, you may become an abolitionist by reading this book.
My notes and highlights: anaulin.org/blog/book-notes-are-prisons-obsolete/
An important foundational text for understanding the case against the carceral "justice" system. Historical context for the development of imprisonment as the primary response to undesired behavior (as defined by the state) informs Davis's analysis of the popularization of the crime/punishment dichotomy in an effort to inure the population to, or at least publicly justify the criminalization of marginalized communities as the engine for increasing profits in an ever-expanding number of private sector businesses that make up the prison industrial complex. The final chapter provides proposals for decarceration and decriminalizing in the pursuit of abolition.
Opens by asking why most of us feel our rights and liberties are improved by the presence of the carceral loss of the same by so many within our communities. Best read as the background starting point for later The New Jim Crow etc, proposes considering replacing much of what we expect from prison to the educational, welfare, mental services etc that insufficiently are being substituted by police and prison.
Absolutely brilliant book. Please read this.
You can find it in pdf form here: www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Angela-Davis-Are_Prisons_Obsolete.pdf
