Morally, It Is Clear What Must Be Done

In this article, Rachel Kushner talks about Ruth Gilmore and her work and inspiration as a prison abolitionist. Gilmore states that “It is obvious that the system won’t disappear overnight… So many of these proposed remedies don’t end up diminishing the system. They regard the system. They regard the system as something that can be fixed by removing and replacing a few elements.” She tells the story of when she spoke to young students in the central valley about how homicide is rare in Spain and the prison sentence averages 7 years. The children concluded that where life is precious, life is precious and asked themselves “Why do we feel everyday that life here is not precious?” Prisons opened in the late 18th century as a new form of reform rather than corporal punishment. Currently in the US, there is the highest rate of incarceration with more than 2.3 million people in prison. Prisons fail at rehabilitation and violate human rights and it is not even clear that it deters crime and increases public safety. While the prison system fails in these aspects, disregarding true justice, it also acts as a modern continuation of slavery as it disproportionately punishes and strips the rights of African Americans. The ACLU director states that “to genuinely end mass incarceration in America we have to transform how the justice system treats all offenses. Politically, this is a hard conversation. But morally, it’s clear what the direction must be: dismantling the system.” And while there are specific problems with private prisons and violent offenders, we must stop picking and choosing what we think is wrong when the whole system acts against justice rather than reinforce it.

The ACLU’s Smart Justice organization works to “protect voting rights, demand that vulnerable people in prisons, jails and immigration detention centers be released, and fight to ensure reproductive health care remains open and accessible to all who need it”. The work so that imprisonment is a last resort for people. They’ve helped pass hundreds of new criminal justice reform bills concerning sentencing reform, bail reform, prosecutorial reform, parole and release, and reintegrating former inmates back into society. I do think that they address major structural issues within the criminal justice system, especially with sentencing reform, but I think that the root issue of abolishing the system and stopping the disproportionality of those who are criminalized.They work with over 2,300 volunteers in different communities and work many court cases. The ACLU has long been involved since almost 100 years ago to help protect people’s civil liberties and preserve people’s rights. I think that this is a great organization that provides many services, dedicating their work to protect people.

I think that the coronavirus has made me an Aristotelean in the sense that I am greatly dependent on the community around me. While I am privileged to be in the care of a loving and supportive family, I do need that interaction with my friends and colleagues to sort of keep up with life. I really resonated with what Nguyen stated that “the sensation of imprisonment during quarantine might make us imagine what real imprisonment feels like.” And he followed that by stating how for many people a missing paycheck may mean homelessness and lack of health insurance may mean death. I am nowhere close to that but this “sensation” has been very eye opening. I am scared, but I know that I will always have food and a roof over my head. I take my privileges into perspective, but I still struggle through this time in our lives. In a class, one of my classmates talked about California’s plans to involve the immigrant community in their own stimulus payments and how just receiving $500 could save their lives. While my family would gladly accept a check for $500 lives and it would help us with payments, I would not say that it would save our lives. I can’t imagine what those communities are going through and how they cope with day to day lives especially as students on online school. I already have a difficult time keeping up.