Do you agree that prisons should be abolished and replaced with a different justice system?

Shuzuo Chen(Millie)

“Our current criminal-justice system is rooted in the assumption that millions of people require policing, surveillance, containment, prison. It is a dark view of humanity.” (Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The Emergent Movement for Police and Prison Abolition, pg. 10) Disappointment toward policing system has led to desistance for prison, which shrouds the light of humanity. While many would regard surveillance, hand-cuffs, and punishment a necessity for order, safety, and justice, in the eyes of many, such as Taylor, incessant attacking incidents toward the racial minorities invoke ever more questionings about the deep-seated injustice and harm in the police system. Concerning the abolition of prison, the key lies in the reconstruction of a social structure that uncovers the light of humanity.

The continuation of police abuse has aroused resentment toward police abolition. From McDonald to George Floyd, we have seen incessant murder or overtly harm done by police. The most horrifying fact lies under the impunity of the police’s wrongdoing, be it racial profiling or manslaughter. Police would have sufficient justifications and power for dominating the African American diaspora, which is often regarded as being placed at a vulnerable position among the entire American social structure. The result is the mistrust for the whole criminal-justice system, which is a whole system including police forces and prisons. All these incidents would confirm, either explicitly or implicitly, the fact that the system is not as effective as we once conceived. This questioning toward the system has created an unhealthy relationship — antagonism — between the criminal-justice system and with the mass, which the criminal-justice system should have sheltered us. As a result, this is harmful for the construction of the criminal-justice system to proceed in the future. Notably, even if progresses have been made through every assaulting cases, (i.e. The trail of Chauvin) it is still very hard to eradicate potential menace from the African American community. Such anxiety leads to the questioning of the prison system as well. For instance, Taylor has pointed out the efficiency of building prisons, which fail to educate criminals and maintain orders albeit costing considerable amount of time and money for construction. It is easy for us to direct our anger and mistrust toward the whole police system, which breeds corruption, violence, concealment, or even conspiracy.

The reason why many would encourage the abolition of prison underlies the disappointment toward policy reformations. Pointed out by Dean Spade, there are very deep problems with the reformation strategy, as it is deemed weak, superficial, and immature in the eyes of many — “reform is often demobilizing.” (Dean Spade, Mutual Aid, pg. 132) Reformations for the most time fail to bring material change. While police attack of African American remains virulent, merely putting up “antidiscrimination policy” without speaking about the “behavior of the participants or the outcomes of their operation change” would have no fruitful progress. (Spade 132) The office would hire gay or African police, but the violence of police remains the same. Or, even if the policy has pinpointed the outcome of misbehaving, it would simply skim the least marginalized groups or just speaking toward those who are privileged or having the accessibility toward the policy. In other words, there are profound problems about how could we enact a reformation that is regarded fair and just per se. Even worse, the reformation would sometimes even expand the capacity for harm, such as upgrading more police force with more harmful weapons. All these point to the fact that “reform often merely tinkers with existing harmful conditions, failing to reach the root causes.” (Spade 132) And such inefficient reformations would lead to the questioning of the police system, even if it is only the enactor of the reformation policy.

The remedy is not about abolishing prison or the whole criminal-justice system, but rather how to rebuild the social order. Like a symphony or orchestra, the criminal-justice system belongs to our society, the larger picture that determines our daily life and well-being; it needs corporation from all sectors of society. The problem will not simply be solved by abandoning the existing system and to start anew, but rather can be tackled when the collective will for repair emerge. The key is about how to make the existing system more efficient and virtuous. Therefore, instead of abolishing prison, it is more crucial to bring back the trust for the criminal-justice system with more efficient and humane proposals. At the meanwhile, we should also combine other strategies with the prison system. After all, the prison exists as the authority for punishment, which implies the cost of conducting crimes. Penalties and laws, polished by the Constitution and cases, have withstand the test of time. Indeed, the prison has its shortcomings, but it should remains to demonstrate the functioning of this penalty-base society. Many would argue that the prison illustrates all the pessimism about humanity, that mankind is vicious and not trusty per se, yet there are definitely spaces for shaping the prison into some place that the innate kindness can be activated.

Another point to think about is, if the prison is abolished, what other system could be established? And, could it last long enough? Could it achieve the same effect? It donates me the idea that other strategies could be used with the existing system, such as what Spade has proposed, the mutual aid. Such aid, sponsored by independent organizations, would support vulnerable population with more precise targets, without inducing unnecessary waste of social resources. As Kaba mentioned in her book that “A world without harm isn’t possible and isn’t what an abolitionist vision purports to achieve. Rather, abolitionist politics and practice contend that disposing of people by locking them away in jails and prisons does nothing significant to prevent, reduce, or transform harm in the aggregate”,(Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us : Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, pg. 19) merely pushing and locking people in the jail is not a way to stop harm, but how could we treat the criminals or people who harmed others?

Without the exact answer and the blueprint of the better system than current prison, as Kaba said, what we could do and should always remember is that we have to try new things and dare to imagine. Indeed, as a student who hasn’t involved into any issues in prison or police system, I was used to the current situations, though I have heard many of the atrocities the police done or the unreasonable and inhumane issues happened in prisons, and it is true that I was limited and confined by everything we already had. Yet after reading Kaba’s book, the possibility of changing is enlarged. The movements for queer, female and black people all got considerable progresses, which was not imaginable bygone, so we should as well have the confidence of building a better system for peace and order. The “Interrupting the Punishment Mind-set” is a “resource for teachers to work with younger people and help them to think about punishment differently, to move from a focus on punishment to a focus on accountability and consequences,” (Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us : Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, pg. 92) and this indicated that the whole abolishing process should start with changing concepts and include it in education, which is the most important step for changing the social structure. Without the spread of the ideas about abolition and accountability, everything we imagine are delusions.

All in all, the current criminal-justice system is indeed creating harms and also inequities, but reform a new system is not the way to relieve the problem. What we could do is to imagine the better system boldly, transmitting the concepts of more humane and considerate approaches of treating criminals or suspects through education or propaganda, and finally reconstruct the social structure that activates the light of humanity.