The Case For Prison Abolition
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The Abolition of Prison
Author: Jacques Lesage de La Haye
language: en
Publisher: AK Press
Release Date: 2021-07-13
The Abolition of Prison provides a reflection from a longtime prison abolitionist, psychoanalyst, and former prisoner on the history, theory, and practice of anti-prison activism in France and globally over the last fifty years. This book powerfully makes the case for the end of prisons, punishment, and guilt and, instead, suggests we work towards social change, care, collectivity. The book weaves together Lesage de La Haye’s own experiences—in prison, as a psychiatrist, and as a social theorist—with the simple argument that, if we take the reasons for prison and punishment at their word, we must evaluate the system as a complete failure. So then why continue to support it and funnel money into it?
Are Prisons Obsolete?
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
Women’s Imprisonment and the Case for Abolition
In 2007, the Corston Report recommended a far-reaching, radical, ‘women-centred’ approach to women’s imprisonment in England and Wales. It suggested a ‘fundamental re-thinking’ about how services to support women in conflict with the law are delivered in custody and in the community, recommending the development and implementation of a decarceration strategy. This argued for appropriate treatment programmes in the community, reserving prison for only those women who commit serious and violent offences. Ten years on, what progress has been made? What is the relationship between Corston’s vision and a more radical abolitionist agenda? Drawing on a range of international scholarship, this book contributes to the critical discourse on the penal system, human rights, and social injustice, revealing the consequences of imprisonment on the lives of women and their families. A decade on from Corston's publication, it critically reviews her report, revealing the slow progress in meeting the reforms it proposed. Identifying the significant barriers to change, it questions the failure to reverse the unrelenting growth of the women’s prison population or to transform state responses to women’s offending. Reflecting the global expansion of women’s imprisonment, particularly marked in advanced democratic societies, the chapters include comparative contributions from jurisdictions where Corston’s recommendations have relevance. It concludes with a critical appraisal of reformism and the case for penal abolition. Essential for applied and theory courses on prisons, punishment, and penology; social justice and the criminology of human rights; gender and crime; and feminist criminology.