Exhibits
Mass Incarceration
The United States incarcerates more citizens than any other country. The U.S. contains 5% of the world's population but accounts for 25% of prisoners worldwide. Since 1970, our incarcerated population has increased by 700%, far outpacing increases in population and crime rates.
People of color are disproportionately affected by mass incarceration - 1 out of every 3 Black men are likely to end up in prison, while 1 out of every 17 white men can expect the same.
Illustrations by Dan Nott, 2016.
Prison Abolition is
Prison abolition is the goal for a variety of activists who aim to radically change how our society deals with crime and punishment. They argue that rehabilitation and preparing those convicted for re-entry into society is no longer the focus of the prison system.
"From where we are now, sometimes we can’t really imagine what abolition is going to look like. Abolition isn’t just about getting rid of buildings full of cages. It’s also about undoing the society we live in because the PIC [prison industrial complex] both feeds on and maintains oppression and inequalities through punishment, violence, and controls millions of people. Because the PIC is not an isolated system, abolition is a broad strategy. An abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives. Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.” --Critical Resistance
But how about this:
"Instead of asking whether anyone should be locked up or go free, why don’t we think about why we solve problems by repeating the kind of behavior that brought us the problem in the first place?" - Ruth Wilson Gilmore, 2019
Graphs from the Prison Policy Initiative's Data Toolbox specific to Mississippi.
Testimonies
In 2016, the activist group Critical Resistance organized in opposition to the County of Los Angeles’ plan to build a new women’s jail in Lancaster, CA. Critical Resistance sought testimonies from people incarcerated in the area, some of which are reprinted here.
- Samuel: “Based on my personal knowledge and experience the so called building of a 'new' jail/prison is never a good idea because once built it would have to fill or fail, so the filling of the new facility would come about by WHATEVER means to simply justify the expense.”
- Kelsey: “I am definitely opposed to a new women’s jail in Lancaster because of several reasons. The women in the community of Lancaster are going to be subjected to being placed in jail for things they would normally receive a ticket for, or probation is going to turn into county jail time! It’s no different than when they built all these prisons they came up with a way to imprison more people to fill them up by changing laws 'Three Strikes Law' and others which will continue to destroy families.”
- Ruben: “Instead of building a new jail I would rather see money being used for more rehabilitational programs and educational programs for our children.”
Decarceration
Roberta Myers, Director of State Strategy at the Legal Action Center, participates in Close the Jail ATL's Redemption Day on May 20, 2019
In May 2019, building on years of organizing and activism around decarceration, the Atlanta City Council voted to close the city's detention center.
Organizers with the Racial Justice Action Center campaigned for years to bring about conditions that enabled the closure of the Atlanta City Detention Center. They worked to shift policing and incarceration away from "quality of life issues" like mental health, homelessness, and substance abuse
to focus more on substantive safety issues. They also worked with immigrant rights advocates to end the city's contract with ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement).
In 2018, organizers launched the Close the Jail ATL campaign, led by Women on the Rise, which brought together policymakers and people directly impacted by the system of policing and incarceration. The campaign's goal is to repurpose the Atlanta City Detention Center into a Center for Wellness & Freedom, using the funds formerly used to support the jail to support services to help the community thrive.
Learn more at CloseTheJailATL.org
Sources Consulted
Close the Jail ATL, https://www.closethejailatl.org/
"Correctional Supervision: Prisons and Jails." The National Reentry Resource Center. https://csgjusticecenter.org/nrrc/topics/correctional-supervision-prisons-jails/
Critical Resistance http://criticalresistance.org/
"Data Toolbox." Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/data/
"End Mass Incarceration." The Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/end-mass-incarceration
“Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind.” New York Times Magazine feature by Rachel Kushner, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html
Nott, Daniel. “What is Mass Incarceration?” Medium, May 25, 2016. https://medium.com/@dan_nott/what-is-mass-incarceration- ff737196580
Prison Policy Initiative https://www.prisonpolicy.org/
The Brennan Center for Justice https://www.brennancenter.org
The Council of State Governments Justice Center https://csgjusticecenter.org/nrrc
“What Do Abolitionists Really Want?” The Marshall Project, by Bill Keller, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/06/13/what-do-abolitionists-really-want
