Davis, Angela Y. Are Prisons Obsolete?, 2003. Print.

Born in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, African-American communist Angela Davis wrote Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003). The Catalyst Project, an anti-racist organization that centers political education in their work, provides a free, accessible PDF of the book.  

Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete? is one of the most influential critical texts related to prison abolition. It calls on the conceptual birthplaces of crime and the prison, its extensive history of subjugation, and a future without them. Its value lies in Davis’ historical approach towards the carceral apparatus—she traces the connection between incarceration and capitalism and offers an intersectionality-informed look at community criminalization. She claims the making of “criminality” and “crime” has always been undergirded by racism and increased racial stratification. Anyone approaching the issue of abolition for the first time are directed to this foundational text, which can be found here: 

Are Prisons Obsolete?: https://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Are_Prisons_Obsolete_Angela_Davis.pdf.

Jacobin. “Angela Davis in conversation with Astra Taylor: Their Democracy and Ours.” Youtube, interview with Angela Davis conducted by Astra Taylor, 13 October 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ScF2GeTUsY. 

In this hour-and-a-half long conversation for Jacobin and Haymarket Books, Davis and Taylor speak of the state of democracy in the United States and its failure to live up to its ideals. Within the video, they cut to one of Davis’ past lectures in Miami at nearly the 10-minute mark. She refers to W.E.B Du Bois’s idea of abolition and the inability to reform a broken system. She says, “so many of the problems we’re confronting are a direct consequence of the fact that slavery was never fully abolished,” and calls for new institutions and a new democracy that invites participation, particularly of people who were never valued before emancipation. Davis and Taylor also discuss the value of intersectional frames within their activism. They agree that the insertion of feminist critiques will lead to a democracy that is more egalitarian and an abolitionist movement that is more centered on care.

Berger, Dan, Mariame Kaba, and David Stein. “What Abolitionists Do.” Jacobin, August 24, 2017. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/prison-abolition-reform-mass-incarceration.

The magazine, Jacobin considers itself “a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.” In this Jacobin article, Berger, Kaba, and Stein remark on how tough the battle may be against prisons (which is “about punishment, warehousing and control”) and the prison industrial complex. However, they put forth a motivating adage by Nelson Mandela, “it only seems impossible until it is done.”

The writers remember the movement’s successful actions and campaigns thus far. The New Jersey 4, Marissa Alexander, CeCe McDonald, and Chelsea Manning were freed because of abolitionist organizing and the unprecedented levels of support for their existence. These cases are only but a few examples of the power of the movement. 

They also provide details of their abolitionist imagination, particularly within the topic of recidivism. Their goals are not limited to freeing incarcerated individuals but to push people “to consider what conditions will support people’s freedom once they return.”

Prison Research Education Action Project. Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists, 1976. Online. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/instead_of_prisons/index.shtml. 

Published as an online resource by the non-profit organization Prison Policy Initiative, Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists provides a critical analysis of the carceral system and describes the next steps towards different alternatives. Opening with nine perspectives, the handbook serves as a comprehensive guide to navigating abolitionist study and activism and attempts to address the difficult questions that may arise. The authors write, “This handbook is written for those who feel it is time to say ‘no’ to prisons, for those open to the notion that the only way to reform the prison system is to dismantle it, for those who seek a strategy to get us from here to there.” The book’s chapters are titled: “Time to begin,” “Demythologizing our views of prison,” “Diminishing/dismantling the prison system,” “Moratorium on prison/jail construction,” “Decarcerate,” “Excarcerate,” “Restraint of the few,” “New responses to crimes with victims,”
“Empowerment.”

Prison Research Education Action Project. “NINE PERSPECTIVES FOR PRISON ABOLITIONISTS.” Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists, 1976. Online. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/instead_of_prisons/nine_perspectives.shtml. 

“Perspective 1: Imprisonment is morally reprehensible and indefensible and must be abolished. In an enlightened free society, prison cannot endure or it will prevail. Abolition is a long-range goal; an ideal. The eradication of any oppressive system is not an easy task. But it is realizable, like the abolition of slavery or any liberation, so long as there is the will to engage in the struggle.

Perspective 2: The message of abolition requires “honest” language and new definitions. Language is related to power. We do not permit those in power to control our vocabulary. Using “system language” to call prisoners “inmates” or punishment “treatment,” denies prisoners the reality of their experience and makes us captives of the old system. Our own language and definitions empower us to define the prison realistically.

Perspective 3: Abolitionists believe reconciliation, not punishment, is a proper response to criminal acts. The present criminal (in)justice systems focus on someone to punish, caring little about the criminal's need or the victim's loss. The abolitionist response seeks to restore both the criminal and the victim to full humanity, to lives of integrity and dignity in the community. Abolitionists advocate the least amount of coercion and intervention in an individual's life and the maximum amount of care and services to all people in the society.

Perspective 4: Abolitionists work with prisoners but always remain “nonmembers” of the established prison system. Abolitionists learn how to walk the narrow line between relating to prisoners inside the system and remaining independent and "outside" that system. We resist the compelling psychological pressures to be “accepted” by people in the prison system. We are willing to risk pressing for changes that are beneficial to and desired by prisoners. In relating to those in power, we differentiate between the personhood of system managers (which we respect) and their role in perpetuating an oppressive system.

Perspective 5: Abolitionists are “allies” of prisoners rather than traditional “helpers.” We have forged a new definition of what is truly helpful to the caged, keeping in mind both the prisoner's perspective and the requirements of abolition. New insights into old, culture-laden views of the “helping relationship” strengthen our roles as allies of prisoners.

Perspective 6: Abolitionists realize that the empowerment of prisoners and ex-prisoners is crucial to prison system change. Most people have the potential to determine their own needs in terms of survival, resources and programs. We support self-determination of prisoners and programs which place more power in the hands of those directly affected by the prison experience.

Perspective 7: Abolitionists view power as available to each of us for challenging and abolishing the prison system. We believe that citizens are the source of institutional power. By giving support to or withholding support from-specific policies and practices, patterns of power can be altered.

Perspective 8: Abolitionists believe that crime is mainly a consequence of the structure of society. We devote ourselves to a community change approach. We would drastically limit the role of the criminal (in)justice systems. We advocate public solutions to public problems-greater resources and services for all people.

Perspective 9: Abolitionists believe that it is only in a caring community that corporate and individual redemption can take place. We view the dominant culture as more in need of "correction" than the prisoner. The caring communities have yet to be built.”

“Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition.” The Intercept, 10 June 2020,  https://theintercept.com/2020/06/10/ruth-wilson-gilmore-makes-the-case-for-abolition/. 

Born in 1950 in New Haven, Connecticut, prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore sits down with Rutgers School of Communication and Information Assistant Professor Chenjerai Kumanyika to “make the case” for abolition in this two-part podcast. In the first part, titled “Where Life is Precious, Life is Precious,” she points to the public’s dependency on carceral measures as justice, which thus funnels millions in funding to the maintenance and construction of police and prison institutions. In her call for the elimination of prisons, Gilmore states that it is not a denial that harm exists but rather, like many abolitionists, an outcome of being exhausted that so much harm is being done. She claims that this exhaustion has made people turn to the “political category of crime” and, oftentimes, towards the cause of abolition. In the second part of the podcast, titled “From Carceral Divestment to Community Reinvestment,” Gilmore speaks about the assignment of impunity that police officers have, and how this ‘keeping of order’ harms and kills members of Black communities. This vulnerability only strengthens her call to abolish the police institution.

Kushner, Rachel. “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind.” The New York Times Magazine, 17 April 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html.

At an environmental justice conference, Ruth Wilson Gilmore explains her abolitionist stance to the doubtful students and says, “Where life is precious, life is precious.” She is referring to the construction of supportive infrastructure for communities and the rehabilitative qualities in reflection and social re-entry, rather than decades of incarceration. In this piece for new learners of abolition, Kushner describes parts of the history, philosophy, and hopes of abolition through the world and words of Gilmore. Kushner also presents a point in which abolitionists’ paths diverge—where some advocate to eliminate private prisons while others find it necessary to shut them down altogether. This pushes the conversation towards public and private institutional profiteering of prison construction projects by different means and under different guises, something about which Gilmore provides information and to which she responds to.

Richie, Beth. “How Anti-Violence Activism Taught Me to Become a Prison Abolition.” The Feminist Wire, 21 January 2014, https://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/01/how-anti-violence-activism-taught-me-to-become-a-prison-abolitionist/. 

Dr. Beth Richie, Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence and America’s Prison Nation (2012), describes her experience in the activism sector for the past two decades and her key takeaways. 

Passionate about ending gender and state violence, Richie was witness to the limitations of a single-axis framework in movement-building, or the lack of Crenshaw’s coined term “intersectionality.” She writes, “Groups organized to resist racialized oppression or class exploitation or gender violence or other monolithic formulations, treating them as separate issues. And they lost focus on how the state colludes to construct a hierarchy of oppression that cannot be agreed upon or changed.” 

In this insightful piece about what she has learned, Ritchie offers an abolitionist, multi-scalar analysis of justice-seeking and alternatives to carceral solutions to gender violence.

Bassichis, Morgan, Alexander Lee, and Dean Spade. “Building an Abolition Queer and Trans Movement with Everything We’ve Got.” Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, 2011. http://www.deanspade.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Building-an-Abolitionist-Trans-Queer-Movement-With-Everything-Weve-Got.pdf. 

Opening with the revolutionary nature of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, Bassichis, Lee, and Spade question the “official” solutions to LGBTQIA+ issues. They hesitate to claim queer liberation and victory with solely the passage of the “Marriage Equality Act” and the celebrations of Gay Pride parades. The vision towards a liberated queer future borrows the revolutionary sentiment of their “trans-cestors” that threw the first bricks at the Stonewall Inn decades ago—it is transformative justice. 

In this text, the writers analyze the history that allowed conservative solutions to gain momentum within the mainstream, rendering any transformative approach too “radical” or “idealistic.” They chart the problems, the proposed “official” solutions, and the alternative transformative approach. The latter includes objectives such as “reclaiming a radical legacy,” “resisting the traps,” and “ending trans imprisonment.” Bassichis, Lee, and Spade imagine liberation to be abolitionist—to abolish and build anew.  

Spade, Dean. “The Queer and Trans Fight for Liberation — and Abolition.” Medium, 13 October 2020, https://level.medium.com/the-queer-and-trans-fight-for-liberation-and-abolition-caec82374018. 

In this call-to-action article, Spade claims that the safety and liberation of LGBTQIA+ people rests on prison abolition. The founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Spade critiques the massive police presence at Pride marches and “rainbow-washing,” a performative activism strategy to distract people from the real issues affecting queer-identifying people across intersecting identities. He deviates from the normative media portrayals and, using a multi-axis framework, puts forward the unrepresented and unsung realities of queer and transgender people, who predominantly face “poverty, housing insecurity, discrimination, and violence” at staggering rates. He provides three reasons one should consider queer and trans resistance to be police and prison abolition. Citing statistics and research studies, Spade denounces the police and prison institutions for its continued harm on the community it claims to support. He writes, “studies have shown that trans people are nearly four times more likely than cisgender people to experience police violence and seven times more likely to experience physical violence when interacting with the police.” For the safety of queer and transgender lives, he finds it absolutely essential that the understood wielders of violence be shut down.