Critical Reflection #10 — Prison Abolishment

In Is Prison Necessary, Rachel Kushner talks about the structural issues about prisons and why Ruth Wilson Gilmore is pushing towards getting rid of prisons. Gilmore argues “‘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?’”. I think this is a fair point. Prisons create horrible environments that often do more harm than good. They often don’t rehabilitate them, instead, they get more involved in crime due to the environment. I agree with the prison abolitionists who not only want to get rid of prisons but also want to resolve inequalities and get people the resources they need long before they ‘mess up.’ Gilmore points out there are many false narratives that people have about prisons and prisoners. Similar to most people, I too thought that prisons are somewhat racist and that private prisons are purely for profit. However, Gilmore argues that prisons are majority black, is a misconception. It is hard to look at the demographics of race and how they differ in each state. “In terms of racial demographics, black people are the population most affected by mass incarceration — roughly 33 percent of those in prison are black, while only 12 percent of the United States population is — but Latinos still make up 23 percent of the prison population and white people 30 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.” Many people believe the idea that since prisons are predominately black, that prisons are a conspiracy to re-enslave black people. Gilmore states that “Slaves were compelled to work in order to make profits for plantation owners. The business of slavery was cotton, sugar and rice. Prison, Gilmore notes, is a government institution. It is not a business and does not function on a profit motive.” The prisoners aren’t being forced to work, they are being warehoused with little to do and not given many programs or resources that enable them to succeed once they get out of prison. Many people believe that private prisons are the enemy, but 92 percent of prisoners are inside publicly run and funded facilities and 99 percent of those in jail are public jails. Private prisons could close and not a single person would go home. Private prisons are the issue, they are parasites. “The explicit function of prison is to separate people from society, and this costs money. Fifteen and a half-billion dollars of the proposed budget for the coming year will go to corrections, and 40 percent of that goes to staff salaries alone, not including benefits and generous pensions. This is state-subsidized employment, not a profit venture.” These statements go against what I thought about prisons and now I have a new perspective.

The non-profit organization Justice Now, is trying to safeguard women’s legal and human rights by building a safe and compassionate world without prisons. They focus specifically on women, trans, and gender non-binary people. They bring together healthcare providers and community activists inside to work with prisoner peer educators. They work with individuals to produce human rights reports on prison abuses and provide direct legal services. They want to challenge what is happening in prisons but also build a different world where everyone has access to affordable housing, food, healthcare, economic opportunity, and freedom from individual and state violence. This is important because our current prison system isn’t making our communities safe, instead, they damage the people it imprisons and their communities. I don’t think their strategies or goals are truly sustainable because it would take a lot of money, and agreement amongst society to abolish prisons. Their strategies may work for a small population of people, but I don’t think it would have a long-lasting effect on the entire prison population. Their entire board is comprised of currently or formerly imprisoned and their personal experiences drive the mission. I think that their mission and strategies are inspiring and I think it would be nice to get rid of prisons and have a more compassionate world. It would allow for a much more united community and affect our housing, education, healthcare, and many other systems. Their ideas are similar to the article Is Prison Necessary?, but I don’t think they are very realistic. Prison systems have stayed relatively the same throughout history, and I don’t see there being a drastic change to abolish them.

This quarantine has made me realize how much privilege I have. Personally, I feel like all I’ve lost is freedom, which is hard to lose, but other people have lost way more. Many people have lost their jobs and have to worry about paying rent or feeding their families. I can’t even imagine what it is like for the families of my community partner. The children have lost out on an education — this is a prime time for child development, and the lack of schooling could make them fall behind. Being out of school for so many months will dramatically decrease their skills. Many students don’t have the resources (technology or books) to continue learning on their own. Nguyen states that “radical acts of self-reflection, self-assessment and, eventually, solidarity” might come out of this quarantine. This makes me want to spread awareness of how important it is to stay inside and stay safe. At the beginning of quarantine, I feel like a lot of young adults took advantage of the quarantine and still continued to go outside and didn’t take it seriously. I think once people realized how serious of an issue this became, they started to take it slightly more seriously, but I still see many people going outside and being around other people. I don’t think we have even experienced the worst yet. The virus will continue to spread and reach new heights. If the government were more strict about staying inside, I think we could contain the virus better and get back to living ‘normal’ sooner. Although I think it is important to note that things won’t be the same once this quarantine is over. We can’t all just return back to what we were doing pre-quarantine because it’s going to exasperate it. Not to mention the economy is going to suffer.