Are Prisons Obsolete?

"As Angela Y. Davis has written, “prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.” Prisons do not contain a “criminal population” running rampant but rather a population that society has repeatedly failed. Uprisings in response to the hellish conditions Black folk have been forced to live in, both in and out of prison, have been criminalized as well.

In her book Are Prisons Obsolete, Davis effectively analyzes the purpose of prisons. “These prisons represent the application of sophisticated, modern technology dedicated entirely to the task of social control,” she writes, “and they isolate, regulate, and surveil more effectively than anything that has preceded them.

”An institution based on social control instead of social well-being is an institution that needs to be abolished." —
Colin Kaepernick, from
Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Police & Prisons