#we are prison abolitionists in this house

[adventures-on-foster-island]

Hey, uh, why the fuck are you letting known criminals near children? Like, yeah they claim to be "reformed" but they still tried to end the world. Plus they almost killed a literal child multiple times.

Language anon, language. As you've pointed out, there's kids here.

Let's clear some things up: they never actually tried to kill anyone. Their actions nearly caused the accidental death of Mare (@aura-acolyte), but it's not like they were targeting her. On a related note, Mare is young, however she made the same choice that many other young trainers have, to put her life endanger to save others. This is not something I condone young people to do, much like I am against kids begining their trainer journey at ten, however she put herself in that danger.

As to why I've invited them to teach at summer camp? To show the wider public that people are capable of change. I run a rehabilitation facility; second chances are what it's all about. Archie and Maxie have put in the time and effort to correct their wrongs and make the world a better place. We share the same goal of helping Pokémon who have been hurt by humans. Foster Island is also no stranger to helping those who have made bad choices. You can check it out in the pinned post, but we run a program to help ex-grunts get their trainer license reinstated while they help retrain "aggressive" Pokémon to be ready for forever homes. The kids were going to be around "criminals" regardless 🙃

[nsomniacsdream]

I have a hard time talking about American law enforcement, because I have ptsd (like a therapist told me this and everything) from my own experiences with cops and because it's so balls quaking insane.

Like, a cop in the United States can pull you over for any reason. Which is a nice way of saying no reason, because literally anything can be used after the fact as justification. A cop can say its cuz you looked at him, or didnt look at him, or it looked like you were holding something, or looked like you were driving too perfectly for it to be natural. It's insane.

There are apparently no circumstances where a cop can't just kill you. The line the courts have applied is "reasonably believed" you were a threat, but that's such a nebulous nothing limit that people get shot for reaching for their license, having their phone in their hand, you're running away with no weapon, not being able to follow conflicting commands, like anything. And cops are almost never charged, because every court is going to believe he could "reasonably believe" he was threatened. Fuck, if you give me enough time, I can make any situation seem juuuuust plausibly threatening enough to pass that bar. It's insane.

A cop can just rob you. Like tell you to give him your wallet, take all the cash out, and just walk away with it. Exactly like you would imagine getting robbed in an alley would go, except no one can help. And he doesn't even have to hide it, he just drops it in a box at the station and they put it in their bank account. It's legal. You can't prove it wasn't drug money. I can't prove any money wasn't at some point drug money. It's insane.

If a cop just walks in your front door and says "I'm here to kill you and your entire family" YOU ARE GOING TO PRISON IF YOU STOP HIM. There is no positive defense for assaulting a police officer in the United States, and doubly so if you kill him. You have effectively no defense against a homicidal cop, which happens same as any other job. Unless for some reason you have cameras all thru your house and clearly caught the audio of him saying that he's there just to kill you, you have zero chance of not going to prison, probably for life. And that's assuming you aren't killed "resisting arrest" while being taken into custody. It is a crime, in this country, for you to defend yourself under any circumstances if the person you're defending yourself from is a cop. That's insane.

You don't have civil rights if a cop says so. You have the right to have a gun, right? A lot of states have open carry. A cop can shoot you if he sees you have a gun. Doesn't matter if you have a license and everything. So you effectively don't have the right to bear arms if a cop can shoot you for exercising it. You have the right to protest. Unless a cop tells you to stop. He doesn't need a real reason to tell you to stop. And if you don't stop, you can be arrested or shot. So you don't really have the right to protest, do you? A cop cant just search your car or house, right? Unless he claims he heard something, or smelled something, neither of which can be proven. So a cop can search whatever he wants, as long as he pretends there was a "reason". So you dont have protection from unreasonable search and seizure, do you? These are no longer rights- they're things the cops allow.. for now. But legally, those rights have already been found to not actually be rights, because any random cop can decide to take that right from you, for any reason. It's insane.

These aren't like crazy things that I'm just making up, these aren't some weird twisted way I'm looking at something, these are all very real things that we all just.. ignore? Police abolitionists and the media bring these things up all the time, and the overwhelming response to it is: so what? Don't break the law and it won't matter. Blue lives matter. More police funding. Cops should have tanks. It's insane. And I always feel like im just rambling and sound insane when I say this kind of stuff because if you wrote a book and had the dystopian government doing the stuff that the police in this country do every single day, those same people who "back the blue" would line up to say stuff like "*Books government* wouldnt have a chance before us real americans stopped them" on twitter and not even get a hint of the irony.

[drdemonprince]

I don't think I have it in me to be an abolitionist because I read that horrible story about the trans teen murdered in South Carolina and my knee jerk reaction is, those people should rot in jail, ideally forever, or worse. No matter how I look at it I can't make myself okay with the idea that you should be allowed to steal someone's life in such a horrible way and then just go back to enjoying your life. Some stuff is just too over the top evil.

You can have whatever emotions you want about that person's murderous actions, but the reality is that the carceral justice system is one of the largest sources of physical, emotional, and sexual torment for transgender people on this planet.

Transgender people are ten times more likely to be assaulted by a fellow inmate and five times more likely to be assaulted by a corrections officer, according to a National Center for Transgender Equality Report.

Within the prison system, transgender people are frequently denied gender-affirming medical care, and housed in populations that do not match their identity, which increases their odds of being beaten and sexually assaulted.

The alternative to being incorrectly housed with the wrong gendered population is that transgender people are also frequently held in solitary confinement instead, often for far longer periods on average than their non-transgender peers, contributing to them experiencing suicide ideation, self harm, acute physiological distress, a shrunk hippocampus, muscculoskeletal pain, chronic condition flare-ups, heart disease, reduced muscle tone, and numerous other proven effects of solitary confinement.

The prison system is also one of the largest sites of completely unmitigated COVID spread, among other illnesses, with over 640,000 cases being directly linked to prison exposure, according to the COVID prison project.

We know that number is rampantly under-estimated because prisoners, especially trans ones, are frequently denied medical care. And even basic, essential physical care. Just last year a 27-year-old Black man named Lason Butler was found dead in his cell, having perished of dehydration. He had been kept in a cell without running water for two weeks, where he rapidly lost 40 pounds before perishing. His body was covered in rat bites.

This kind of treatment is unacceptable for anyone, no matter who they are and what they have done, and I shouldn't have to explicitly connect the dots for you, but I will. One in six transgender people has been to prison, according to Lambda Legal. One in every TWO Black transgender people has been to prison. One in five Black men go to prison in America.

THIS is the fate you are consigning all these people to when you say that prisons must exist because there are really really bad people out in the world. We should all know by not that this is not how the carceral justice system works. Hate crime laws are under-utilized, according to Pro Publica, and result in few convictions. The people who commit transphobic acts of violence tend to be given softer sentences than the prisoners who resemble their victims.

We must always remember that the violent tools of the prison system will be used not against the people that we personally consider to be the most "deserving" of punishment, but rather against whomever the state considers to be its enemy or to be a disposable person.

You are not in control of the prison system and you cannot ensure it will be benevolent. You are not the police, the judge, the jury, or the corrections officers. By and large, the people who are in these roles are racist, transphobic, ableist, and victim-blaming, and they will use the power and violence of the system to terrorize people in poverty, Black people, trans people, "mad" people, intellectually disabled people, women, and everyone else that you might wish to protect from harm with a system of "punishment." Nevermind that incaraceration doesn't prevent future harm anyway.

You can't argue for incarceration as the tool of your revenge fantasies, you have to argue for it as the tool that it actually is. The purpose of a system is what it does. And the prison system's purpose has never been to protect or avenge vulnerable trans people. It has always been to beat them, sexually assault them, forcibly detransition them, render them unemployable, disconnect them from all community, neglect them, and unperson them.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Worried by Florida’s history standards? Check out its new dictionary!

As always, Alexandra Petri is spot on in satirizing the right-wing censorship and educational nonsense happening in Florida. This is a gift 🎁 link, so you can read the entire column, even if you don't subscribe to The Washington Post.

Below are some excerpts 😂:

Well, it’s a week with a Thursday in it, and Florida is, once again, revising its educational standards in alarming ways. Not content with removing books from shelves, or demanding that the College Board water down its AP African American studies curriculum, the state’s newest history standards include lessons suggesting that enslaved people “developed skills” for “personal benefit.” This trend appears likely to continue. What follows is a preview of the latest edition of the dictionary to be approved in Florida. Aah: (exclamation) Normal thing to say when you enter the water at the beach, which is over 100 degrees. Abolitionists: (noun) Some people in the 19th century who were inexplicably upset about a wonderful free surprise job training program. Today they want to end prisons for equally unclear reasons. Abortion: (noun) Something that male state legislators (the foremost experts on this subject) believe no one ever wants under any circumstances, probably; decision that people beg the state to make for them and about which doctors beg for as little involvement as possible. American history: (noun) A branch of learning that concerns a ceaseless parade of triumphs and contains nothing to feel bad about. Barbie: (noun) Feminist demon enemy of the state. Biden, Joe: (figure) Illegitimate president. Black history: (entry not found) Blacksmith: (noun) A great job and one that enslaved people might have had. Example sentence from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): “They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” Book ban: (noun) Effective way of making sure people never have certain sorts of ideas. Censorship: (noun) When other people get mad about something you’ve said. Not to be confused with when you remove books from libraries or the state tells colleges what can and can’t be said in classrooms (both fine). Child: (noun) Useful laborer with tiny hands; alternatively, someone whose reading cannot be censored enough. [...]

[See more select "definitions" below the cut]

Classified: (adjective) The government’s way of saying a paper is especially interesting and you ought to have it in your house. Climate change: (noun) Conspiracy by scientists to change all the thermometers, fill the air with smoke and then blame us. [...] Constitution: (noun) A document that can be interpreted only by Trump-appointed and/or Federalist Society judges. If the Constitution appears to prohibit something that you want to do, take the judge on a boat and try again. [...] DeSantis, Ron: (figure) Governor who represents the ideal human being. Pronunciation varies. Disney: (noun) A corporation, but not the good kind. [...] Election: (noun) Binding if Republicans win; otherwise, needs help from election officials who will figure out where the fraud was that prevented the election from reflecting the will of the people (that Republicans win). [...] Emancipation Proclamation: (noun) Classic example of government overreach. Firearm: (noun) Wonderful, beautiful object that every person ought to have six of, except Hunter Biden. [...] FOX: News. Free speech: (noun) When you shut up and I talk. Gun violence: (noun) Simple, unalterable fact of life, like death but unlike taxes. [...]

Jan. 6: (noun) A day when some beautiful, beloved people took a nice, uneventful tour of the U.S. Capitol. King Jr., Martin Luther: (figure) A man who, as far as we can discern, uttered only one famous quotation ever and it was about how actually anytime you tried to suggest that people were being treated differently based on skin color you were the real racist. Sample sentence: “Dr. King would be enraged at the existence of Black History Month.” Liberty: (noun) My freedom to choose what you can read (see Moms for Liberty). Moms for Liberty: (noun) Censors, but the good kind. [...] Pregnant (adjective): The state of being a vessel containing a Future Citizen; do not say “pregnant person”; no one who is a real person can get pregnant. Queer: (entry not found) Refugee: (noun) Someone who should have stayed put and waited for help to come. Slavery: (noun) We didn’t invent it, or it wasn’t that bad, or it was a free job training program. Supreme Court: (noun) Wonderful group of mostly men without whom no journey by private plane or yacht is complete. Trans: (entry not found) United States: (noun) Perfect place, no notes. [emphasis added to defined words]

[recreationaldivorce]

tbh i kinda just refuse to focus any significant amount of political attention to the threat posed to me/other women/transfems in male prisons by male prisoners for a similar reason as to why i wouldn't focus my political attention on the (actually fairly significant in proportion btw ime) white homeless people who blame refugees for why they can't get housing—because it feels too much like punching laterally to me. cis male prisoners gain the power over gender minorities in male prisons through their alliance with officers in terms of gendered oppression—ie they do the dirty work for officers by assaulting trans women prisoners, & the officers promise to look the other way. the same thing notoriously happens along race lines—white prisoners lynch black & racialised prisoners on behalf of the prison, & in return the prison lets them get away with it. & what abolitionists & prison organisers correctly identify is that this status of racist white prisoners is something that has to be overcome by solidarity in order for the prisoner movement to be successful, rather than an inherent position of white prisoners as reactionary. i entirely empathise with transfem prisoners who blame the men they're housed with but i do not think the violence women & transfem prisoners experience in men's prisons is a result of the male prisoners themselves but the environment—obviously the environment of incarceration in general, being locked up in cages, & also the incredibly violent environment generated by gender-segregating prisons on top of that. and any and all violence we are subjected to by male prisoners has to be understood as violence of the prison not of the prisoners. this violence is stochastic and proxied in nature, plus made inevitable by the cage we, and male prisoners too, have been locked in. not to mention the staggering amounts of violence that comes directly from the officers & other representatives of the prison, and not from the prisoners—this violence which is incredibly unlikely to result in criminal prosecution for what are undeniably criminal offences and is the one area of threat posed to trans prisoners universally denied by the prison whenever trans prisoners express their fears or reports.

[apricitystudies]

what i read in apr. 2023:

(previous editions) bold = favourite

class, race, & labour

the deputy and the disappeared (usa)

the dystopian underworld of south africa’s illegal gold mines

inside australia’s university wage theft machine

lydia maria child and the vexed role of the woman abolitionist (usa)

gender, sexuality, & intersectionality

the narcissist’s playbook

blurred lines, harbinger of doom

how revenge porn is used to silence dissidents in azerbaijan

queer villains are vital to understanding queer history

politics & current affairs

adrift

the rose-coloured tint on shou zi chew overlooks tiktok’s red flags

“we shouldn’t grow up dreaming that our friends don’t get killed”

how to wash your hands in a war zone (colombia)

why south koreans want the bomb

history, culture, & media

former south korea president’s grandson apologises to victims of gwangju massacre

singapore’s prison without walls made the world sit up in 1960s. how did it fall apart?

honey, i sold the kids

dril is everyone. more specifically, he’s a guy named paul

sudan

keep eyes on sudan (guide/resources)

sudan’s outsider

a plague o’ both your houses: the false dilemma of sudan’s elites

sudan’s coup has shattered the hopes of its 2019 revolution (2021 coup)

[piracytheorist]

Tumblr has been randomly suggesting me posts about House MD (despite me having filtered those tags) and you know, this show is a great example of how one wrong choice can alienate an entire group of people against your creation.

Like, the show had a lot of issues with bigotry, particularly misogyny and transphobia especially in two glaring cases, but then you also got the aphobia episode and it's like... just why?

I don't mean to play special victim here but a specific line is crossed when people engage in aphobia. You could be the most left-wing, Marxist, prison abolitionist or whatever, but the moment you show a crumb of aphobia, it all comes crumbling the fuck down. Because it all boils down to one question:

The fuck do you care that we don't feel sexual attraction?

Nothing beats that. There is absolutely no way to justify aphobia. Bigots will bend themselves into other dimensions to justify other types of prejudice, but there's just something about aphobia that makes people sound so... stupid. We're literally, by definition, doing nothing. And yet there are people who hate us.

Again, I'm not writing this to put myself or other asexuals/a-specs in any special position, but instead, the very fact that aphobia exists is the proof that any and all kind of bigotry is based on shit. If people hate us for doing literally nothing, then any other judgment they make for other people is practically rendered baseless.

I mean, I know that asexuality and aromanticism (both labels used as general umbrella terms here) by themselves challenge a lot of social constructs that even some of the gayest people out there have sadly adhered to due to their upbringing, so by our very existence we challenge some deeply rooted principles in a lot of people, so in reality I get why aphobia exists. It's a reaction to people suddenly being brought to question how their attraction works and well. Some people just don't like being brought out of their comfort zone, so torches and pitchforks it is.

I mean, it doesn't make it right, but it does make it stupid.

[black-rabbit-razumikhin]

Raz Reads Les Mis (II)

Fantine - The Fall

We have met Jean Valjean

And we learn so much about him and I have so many thoughts, I'll do my best to keep this chronological

Of course, when Valjean is first introduced, we don't know it is him. There is a brooding man with an angry countenance who is wandering around looking for shelter for the night

He's been walking for 12 leagues (someone tell me what a 'league' is) and he's tired and hungry and has only been drinking water from fountains

But, because of his yellow passport - and the fact that somehow he is detestable enough a prisoner that everyone knows him - he can't find shelter

Not at any inn, tavern or dog kennel (guilty for laughing at the dog kennel scene)

Eventually some old woman points him to a warm house that she is sure will take him

It's our old friend bishop Charlie!

And he feeds Valjean off the best silver in the house and gives him a room just off the bishop's own

So obviously Valjean takes advantage of this and steals the bishop's silver plates when he's asleep and runs away

But Valjean gets caught (because he chose escaping but escaping did not choose him) and taken back to bishop Charlie

And what does our kind and lovely bishop Charlie do? "Bro, you forgot the silver candle holders I gave you too"

And he makes Valjean promise to be good

Valjean steals money from a child with a marmot and that's his breaking point

All horror is put behind him and he endeavors to be better than his past

What is his past you may ask?

I know this is all explained during the events but I like the logic of my timeline

Valjean is named after his dad, Jean Valjean, and let me tell you his childhood backstory confused me for a moment after reading that

But he grows up poor and he's a bit withdrawn, but he's kind enough - he pays for milk his nephews and nieces steal on a regular basis

But when Valjean gets hungry and steals bread, that's a crime worth five years in prison

Five years! For bread! That he didn't even get to eat! Dude I'd be pissed and full of vengeance at the system too

So he goes to prison and keeps trying to escape, and fails, and is now stuck there for 19 years

Hugo lets us know that Valjean is the strongest prisoner of all. Also he can climb horizontal walls like Spider-Man (or Dracula) which - Valjean, you have to be the absolute worse at escaping if nature gave you everything and you're still getting caught

Finally though after 19 years he gets out and rages against The System

Me too dude, I genuinely don't blame you

I do question the stealing silver plates from the one man to show you kindess

I do also question you stealing money from a child with a marmot

But his soul gets a whole cleansing thing when he realizes what he's done and bishop Charlie's words come back to him in a flood of remorse

Bishop Charlie really did look at this angry, sullen, vengeful criminal and go "I can fix him"

I have so many unanswered questions. I have no idea if I'm pro-Valjean or not. Hugo also does a really good job showing both sides of his predicament, how he is both "the man and the beast" and it's a battle for him to see which one wins, and how the prison system has exacerbated the problem it proclaims to fix. I don't think Hugo is a prison abolitionist, because at the end of the day he does blame how Valjean reacts and not the structure itself, but seeing some level of critical dissection of the whole thing was unexpected, but not unwelcome.

[barricadescon]

BarricadesCon Panel Descriptions: Highlights of Track 2, Friday, July 12

Black and Pink National by Darryl Brown Jr. and Kenna Barnes

Black & Pink National is a prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS who are affected by that system through advocacy, support, and organizing. Programming includes wrap-around services for those coming out of the carceral system such as but not limited to workforce development, transitional housing, newsletters to inside members and penpal matching, nationwide Chapters, youth-led research about young people living with HIV, and programming for and by people who do sex work.

Sex work as an issue sits clearly at the intersection of reproductive justice, prison abolition, and trans and queer liberation. Black trans women who engage in sex work face some of the highest rates of policing and surveillance, directly interfering with their ability to access safety and autonomy. We know that when we center the needs of Black trans women, especially those who engage in sex work, we are inherently able to address the needs of other system-impacted people along the way.

The Sex Worker Liberation Project (SWLP) is a collaboration between Black and Pink National and a network of current and former LGBTQIA2S+ people who do sex work across the country. This sex worker led group moves with the intention of building community, providing resources, and cultivating self advocacy tools.The SWLP is on a mission to tackle the urgent and multifaceted issues confronting sex workers, with a specific emphasis on the challenges faced by Black and Brown LGBTQIA2S+ sex workers.

Beat By Beat: A Les Mis 2012 Deconstruction by Eli (Thecandlesticksfromlesmis)

As an avid Les Mis fan and also someone with an MFA in screenwriting, Eli finds the script for the Les Mis 2012 movie absolutely fascinating. The choices they made, the added brick scenes, the added song, the pacing, the dialogue, the shots selection—all of it contributes to a very interesting adaptation that our fandom owes a huge debt of gratitude to (whether we like it or not 🥲). This panel will take the audience through the 9 major beats of a screenplay, apply it to Les Mis 2012, and share Eli’s thoughts on what the filmmakers did right for this adaptation and what they did wrong.

[reasonsforhope]

"California used to need lots and lots of prisons. Big prisons, little prisons, prisons with special cells for gang leaders and prisons for those convicted of nonviolent financial chicanery. There were so many prisoners packed into so many prisons that federal courts intervened, mandating that the state find a way to alleviate the overcrowding.

At the inmate population’s peak in 2006, California incarcerated 165,000 people in state prisons.

Today — after a decade of sentencing reforms and a surge of releases tied to COVID-19 — California prisons house a little more than 95,000 people. 

So how many prisons does California actually need? 

“Difficult decisions have to be made, but if we don’t make those decisions, the alternative is paying hundreds of millions for prison beds we don’t need to be paying for,” said Caitlin O’Neil, an analyst at the Legislative Analyst’s Office. 

O’Neil is the co-author of a new report that lays out how the state can close up to nine of its 33 prisons and eight yards within operating prisons while still complying with a federal court order that caps the system’s capacity.

The potential closures signal a seachange in California criminal justice, representing the wind-down of the tough-on-crime policies that packed prisons in the 1990s and offering one of the few ways the state can cut costs in its $18 billion prison system.

California prisons held about 120,000 inmates as recently as 2019. That year, newly elected Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a goal to close a single prison during his tenure.

“I would like to see, in my lifetime and hopefully my tenure, that we shut down a state prison,” he said that year in an interview with The Fresno Bee editorial board.

Since then, he has already effectively closed two and his administration has plans underway to shut at least two more.

In September 2021, the state closed Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy. The California Correctional Center in Susanville is scheduled to close in June, along with yards at six other prisons. 

Two other prisons, in Blythe and in California City, are scheduled to close by March 2025.

Even after those shutdowns, according to the LAO analysis, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has the space to close five more entire prisons by 2027. Today, the corrections department operates 15,000 empty beds, according to the LAO. That number is expected to reach 20,000 empty beds by 2027.

“The state pays for empty beds, and that number hasn’t been justified at this point, “O’Neil said. “It’s really just math, simple arithmetic.”" ...

For prison abolitionists like Woods Ervin, co-director of the anti-prison activist group Critical Resistance, the LAO report’s conclusions were “super exciting” and come close to their group’s goals of closing ten prisons, and announcing the closures by 2025. 

“This is big,” Ervin said. 

-via Cal Matters, 2/23/23

[howieabel]

“What, then, would it mean to imagine a system in which punishment is not allowed to become the source of corporate profit? How can we imagine a society in which race and class are not primary determinants of punishment? Or one in which punishment itself is no longer the central concern in the making of justice? An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment—demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance. The creation of new institutions that lay claim to the space now occupied by the prison can eventually start to crowd out the prison so that it would inhabit increasingly smaller areas of our social and psychic landscape. Schools can therefore be seen as the most powerful alternative to jails and prisons. Unless the current structures of violence are eliminated from schools in impoverished communities of color—including the presence of armed security guards and police—and unless schools become places that encourage the joy of learning, these schools will remain the major conduits to prisons. The alternative would be to transform schools into vehicles for decarceration.” ― Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?

[dykeulous]

if prison abolition was a thing, what would we do about male violence? even in rich circles, it is still a huge issue, so solving poverty wouldn't mean an end to it. even when all living conditions are fulfilled perfectly, there will still be men who seek to violate women. should r*pists and femicide murderers be "rehabilitated" somewhere they are allowed to leave? isn't somewhere they aren't allowed to leave still a prison in some form? wouldn't it be better labelled as prison reform, not prison abolition? do we really want murderers and r*pists to be roaming free, free of consequences? or should their houses be labelled as "s*xual offender" or "murderer" so that people in the neighborhood are at least vigilant around them? but then wouldn't that be a big struggle for families and households with women who often wouldn't be able to afford moving if they were uncomfortable with having a literal convicted r*pist or murderer next door...? i'm just curious what your actual thoughts would be. and if you say "just read xyz book" i'd appreciate at least to be told specific pages to read, same as naming a youtuber. i'd prefer a video in general on the topic but only if it genuinely answers my questions and isn't just "the alternative sucks"

when talking about prison abolition, we have to keep in mind that an actual prison abolitionist understands that this is a severely complex & nuanced subject– and that no person who is actually well-informed on the topic is going to claim to want to destroy all prisons & let all criminals out overnight.

1. “what will we do about male violence?”– let me flip the question for you; what are we doing about male violence now? we have been taught that prison is the only viable solution, but it really is not. if prions are, in any way, shape, or form, helping reduce recidivism rates, then why is america, a country with immensely high numbers of incarnated people, so dangerous & unsafe; and why are the numbers of criminals only increasing? the legal system, besides also being morally corrupt otherwise, is also extremely anti-woman; it has a very-well preserved reputation & tradition with letting rapists, femiciders & men who commit domestic violence get away with very light consequences, and in some cases, scot free. in other words, the legal system/police system/prison institution, are all anti-feminist & do nothing to address male violence, unfairly favor men, and on top of it– they do nothing productive & useful for neither the victim, the offender, nor the community as a whole. prisons are a site of violence & abuse– they are a distillation of white supremacy & imperialism; indigenous people & people of color are more likely to be incarnated, and unfairly as well. modern prisons have their roots in colonial structures, and have undoubtedly kept the kinds of cruel & unjust punishments that the colonial powers imposed & enforced on their victims.

2. “wouldn’t it be better to advocate for prison reform, rather than prison abolition?” no– because the prison system is not a fit case for reform. the prison system is one rotten at the core, mere reform would not be capable of fixing it. it was created to instill fear & cruelty, attempting to operate within such a system in a healthy society would just not work. we cannot claim to be against oppressive superstructures, if we support the exact same grounds they were built on, and the materials they were built from.

3. “how exactly does prison abolition work?” when we talk about prison abolition, we have to also be talking about the alternatives to prison– rehabilitative, restorative, and transformative justice. restorative justice majorly operates because it has the victim’s needs at heart– for restorative justice to work sufficiently, the offender has to engage directly with the victim & actively work on repairing harm. restorative justice does not work simply on the basis of “setting the offenders free”– that is a fallacy created by people who do not understand the truths of prison abolition. restorative justice works depending on various factors– the environment, the person, surroundings, etc.– but its sufficiency is not decided on the type of crime committed. it can work as well on violent crime as it does on nonviolent crime. community service, victim-offender dialogue, and other types of restoration that have the victim’s needs at heart first & foremost– are all tactics advocated by prison abolitionists. the prison system does not do anything for the community as a whole, neither– incarnating a single perpetrator does not reduce crime. abolitionists understand that harm will happen regardless, our goal is to reduce harm– and of course, as a person currently majoring in sociology– i work to understand the human mind, and i am interested in other projects & movements beyond prison abolition, that can work together with prison abolition in sync to rehabilitate society as a whole. colonial values are built in every aspect of our society, and to dismantle them, we have to acknowledge they are present in the activist & progressive movements we choose to support, as well– decolonizing feminism, leftism, veganism & other social movements is crucial. decolonial feminism is anti-carceral. the transitory period between a carceral & non-carceral state remains uncertain, but prison abolition is currently an experiment.

4. how would i incorporate prison abolition with feminism & leftism?– i know this isn’t a question you asked, but i would like to mention it, as well. i am an advocate for revolutionary feminism & revolutionary leftism– not reformist feminism & leftism. aside from my prison abolitionist views, i believe in arming all working-class people, and i believe in arming proletarian women especially. i believe that, for a proletarian revolution to be successful, we have to put a special emphasis on the woman worker. simply destroying capitalism won’t liberate women, although an end of capitalism is needed for female liberation. an end of all sexist practices, and an end of misogynistic thoughts & beliefs on a worldwide scale– will require exhausting labor from the entirety of society. i believe that reeducation camps & centers fall under the rehabilitative category, and i do not believe that restorative justice is inherently peaceful & calm. we do not beg and plead with oppressors to stop oppressing. justified violence is helpful, but the prison system only harms the oppressed, and is violent in a cruel, injustifiable way.

5. as for the sources, i can direct you to some that have personally helped me.

1.) Colonialism VS Coloniality

2.) What is Abolition?

3.) documentaires: 13th, They Call Us Monsters, Just Mercy, Cointelpro 101

[loving-n0t-heyting]

presumably what abolitionists want is not what was consistent with brock's treatment, where he got a laughably short sentence and nothing else. the idea is restructuring society in ways that 1) prevent more crimes (via i.e social programs to reduce poverty, presumably broader systems in place to protect victims from assault) and 2) provide some sort of educative/rehabilitative alternative. not sure what that would look like in this case but it seems a bit strange to act like the vision of Society Without Prisons that abolitionists are imagining is just "guy rapes a woman and gets a few months for it" and like it therefore means they are internally inconsistent for being upset about it. we still live in a society where we have not yet created the conditions for these crimes to occur less innit

How do new mandatory minimums and intimidating judicial recalls and rallying outside a guys house with ar-15s work to establish poverty programmes and "educative/rehabilitative" not-prisons?

He did NOT get "a few months" and nothing else he received 3yrs probation and a lifetime on the offence against the constitution and common decency that is the sex offender registry

Why are you like, guesstimating the positions of ppl you are defending? Why are you invested in the good name of ideologues the contents of whose beliefs you are acquainted with only thru hesitant assumptions?

[gatheringbones]

[“In 1985 the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for women in New York held historic hearings on the devastating links between criminalization and gender-based violence; incarcerated women and their advocates testified about the devastating pipeline between experiencing sexual violence and incarceration. Sisters Inside, an Australian abolitionist group that supports incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women, in 2001 presented the term “state sexual assault” to argue that the state itself is a perpetrator of sexual violence through policing, incarceration, and other carceral methods.

State sexual assault is strip searches and cavity searches of incarcerated or arrested people; it’s the enabling of rampant sexual assault by police officers and prison guards, the general punitiveness and systemic denial of incarcerated people’s bodily autonomy. Sisters Inside organizers who had been incarcerated themselves described how physical and sexual abuse from interpersonal partners and from agents of the state carry many of the same impacts and feel virtually indistinguishable from each other.

Despite the inevitable sexual violence perpetuated by the prison system, mainstream feminist leaders like Gloria Steinem spent the summer of 2022 shilling for the creation of an ostensibly “feminist” women’s prison to be built in a shut-down jail in Harlem. It would be called the Women’s Center for Justice and incarcerate “women and gender-expansive people.” The proposal was immediately shot down by abolitionist feminists, pointing out how prisons are inseparable from white supremacy and are innately sexist and dehumanizing, no matter what they’re called.

“Feminist” organizing for the Women’s Center for Justice is hardly the first time criminal justice reformers have unveiled supposedly more humane forms of prison, like house arrest, electronic monitoring, or parole. This level of state surveillance amounts to a prison without walls, all around us. In their 2020 book Prison by Any Other Name, Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law note that all these ideas raise fundamental questions about the prison system as a whole: “What does it mean to reform—to improve—a system that, at its core, relies on captivity and control? What are the dangers of perfecting a system that was designed to target marginalized people?”

Abolitionist feminists recognize the futility of reforms or collaborations with police to help abuse victims. Abolition entails the end of prisons and policing; it reconstructs society to ensure everyone’s needs are met, survival-based “crimes” are no longer necessary or criminalized, and harm is addressed without dehumanizing, carceral resolutions, which are more likely to reproduce and worsen harm than alleviate it. The carceral system, a fundamentally racist web of processes and institutions that criminalize and incarcerate people, has always been deeply tied to our societal crises of domestic and sexual violence—from the hostility and threats of criminalization that many victims of abuse face when they seek help, to the prevalence of sexual abuse and violence carried out by police officers and within prisons.

Lived experience first prompted me to question the norms of how we understand gender and violence from a carceral lens that frames law enforcement as saviors rather than assailants. With time and reflection on my own experiences with sexual assault, I learned the complexity of acts of interpersonal harm, and multilayered paths to personal restoration that are threatened and upended rather than supported by carceral logic. As a teenager, I balked at the idea of talking to people with guns about what had happened to me when I couldn’t even talk to my own parents. When your only option to process or seek “justice” for acts of sexual harm is to implicate yourself and someone who’s hurt you—someone you may hold complex or even loving feelings toward—into a violent, permanent system, truthfully, you’re left with no options at all. Even then, I think on some level I understood that victims of abuse are not the people that our law enforcement systems and punitive traditions are designed to serve. The police state is built to perpetuate rather than alleviate abuse, to disempower rather than support those who survive violence. The result is a culture in which victims of a wide range of acts of sexual and interpersonal harms are left to fend for themselves or risk incurring additional trauma—even, in no shortage of documented cases, criminalization and incarceration. Carcerality is incompatible with creating environments in which abuse victims feel safe enough to seek recourse. Overinflated police and prison budgets mean that publicly funded resources for victims are severely lacking if not nonexistent. Yet carceral policy is the governing model of nearly all cities across the country, which rely on it to generate revenue through policing, incarcerating, and exploiting Black and brown people, consequently slashing funding for essential resources.”]

kylie cheung, from survivor injustice: state-sanctioned abuse, domestic violence, and the fight for bodily autonomy, 2023

[3liza]

Honest question, prison abolitionist, where do the murderers go?

comedy answer: your mom's house

serious theoryposting answer: this is covered in any given book or Wikipedia summary on the subject much better and more concisely than i can write off the top of my head on Tumblr so check out the "prison abolition" wikipedia page and follow some of the citations for more reading on the subject. it's a pretty basic and big tenet of most forms of leftism and good to familiarize yourself with the arguments whether you believe in it or not

my own personal fringe belief: i should have personally shot with a firearm every person who has sexually assaulted me but i didn't because of the carceral state and how that always works to enforce hegemony instead of upholding "justice" as is claims to. still though, i realize everyone who promises you they will "kill anyone who hurts you" means it in the moment and it's a gesture of love to say that to another person but like. we should be following through on those promises sometimes. you know?

[cosmicrhetoric]

tagged by the incomparable @briarhips to post nine book recs <3 sorry so many of these are classics im going thru smth

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen: This is MY Austen of choice. I'm doing a reread atm and it's very Emma in it's social commentary but this is THEE eldest daughter book of all time. Maybe I just like when characters are super repressed but if you want to see a woman (who has spent 200 pages being soooo hinged) have the most cathartic breakdown about it......

Identitti, Mithu Sanyal: For fans of Kuang's Yellowface who want a bit more of an academic lens! Our main character, a 2nd gen Indian-German woman, spends years of her life in the trenches of postcolonial study under a seemingly Indian woman who is then exposed as white. It doesn't give you any easy answers but it provides a lot of scholarly resources and leaves a lot of space to come to your own conclusions. Read it on a plane. Kinda fire.

Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson: We all know Carson. But I'm picking a nonfiction essay instead of Autobiography of Red or her translations mostly because this one takes you behind the curtain of a lot of her famous translations when it comes to the aspect of love. I'm not really nonfiction girl in general but this was worth it

Chain Gang All Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Speculative abolitionist fiction! Set in a near future where prisoners can compete in death matches to try and win their freedom. I've honestly read nothing like this...ever, like it's in a league of it's own but if you're a fan of the way footnotes were used in something like Babel you're gonna wanna check this out. Multiple povs (really interesting pov switching from a craft perspective actually) overlap to paint a stark and realistic depiction of American prisons.

The Devourers, Indrapramit Das: This was described to me as "IWTV but with werewolves and in Mughal India and actually really good" and while that's a pretty comprehensive plot summary it does not even begin to cover the shit this novel goes through. This is a book about transformation and stories and what letting a story live in you can do for you. The werewolves are kinda obviously a genderqueer allegory as well (as they often are in sff lmao) but when the interviewer himself starts talking about gender in his experiences you can see how that changes the story he's transcribing and it's just very cool. Heavy trigger warnings on this one though. Don't read if you can't handle a bit of piss (they are wolves). Writing style wise feels very similar to the magical realism of The Hungry Tide if that's ur bag

The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot: In the way that s&s is my Austen, this is MY Eliot. A classic story about women of this era who cannot fit into the boxes society lays out for them. A failed romance brands the main character an outcast in their town in a way that is. Hear me out. Fucking Utenaesque. Follow for some classic tragedy and themes of water....I would compare this more with like Dickens Bleak House than Austen though.

Villette, Charlotte Bronte: Once again. MY Bronte. Maybe it's just cause I read this before Jane Eyre but literally I do not understand why Miss Eyre gets so much more love than my girl Lucy. In broad strokes the story is about an English girl who ends up having to support herself by moving to France and becoming an English teacher at a girls boarding school. She's also plagued by a terrifying apparition of a nun, because this is Charlotte we're talking about and there's a bit of Catholic v Protestant thing going on. I read this during the very early pandemic and let me tell you some of the descriptions of isolation and loneliness are soooooo. yeah.

Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett: Listen. Like, listen. It's that good. I wouldn't put a discworld novel up against fucking chain gang all stars unless it was THAT good. This is a classic 'girl dresses up as a boy and goes to war to find her brother' story. It definitely started as a commentary on folk songs/stories but it is at it's heart a novel long criticism of imperialism, nationalism, and organized religion (there's jokes though it's funny). Also not to be that guy when it comes to LGBTQ book recs but the thing came out in 2002 and it's surprisingly thoughtful when it comes to both gender and sexuality. You do not have to be a fantasy fan or a discworld fan to read this. If you gave Pratchett a try and didn't like it i STILL insist you give MR a shot. It is in a league of it's own.

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell: Do not be scared off by the sheer length of this one. It's fucking silly. This is one of my faaaaaaaave 1800s novels about class. We have juxtaposition between Molly's family (her father is a gentleman but a working doctor) and the landed gentry but also this divide between the uneducated Squire and his Cambridge bound sons and another one with the 'new money' gentry. There's also quite a lot of early science and anthropology documented in this (Gaskell and Darwin were besties) if that's interesting to you. WARNING: SHE DIED BEFORE SHE FINISHED THIS. ITS LIKE 99% DONE THOUGH

This was a hard list to narrow down but I have to include (at least as honorable mentions): Ling Ma's Severance/Bliss Orange, Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem and the SFF POC anthology New Suns

tagging: @weltonreject @bronskibeet @gaymersrights @orchidreign @brechtian + any and all mutuals i know ive forgotten <3