Prison Abolitionist Movement
Prison
abolition, as a movement, sounds provocative and absolute, but what it
is as a practice requires subtler understanding. For Gilmore, who has
been active in the movement for more than 30 years, it’s both a
long-term goal and a practical policy program, calling for government
investment in jobs, education, housing, health care — all the elements
that are required for a productive and violence-free life. Abolition
means not just the closing of prisons but the presence, instead, of
vital systems of support that many communities lack. Instead of asking
how, in a future without prisons, we will deal with so-called violent
people, abolitionists ask how we resolve inequalities and get people the
resources they need long before the hypothetical moment when, as
Gilmore puts it, they “mess up.”
“Every
age has had its hopes,” William Morris wrote in 1885, “hopes that look
to something beyond the life of the age itself, hopes that try to pierce
into the future.” Morris was a proto-abolitionist: In his utopian novel
“News From Nowhere,” there are no prisons, and this is treated as an
obvious, necessary condition for a happy society.
think
absolute power depends on absolute control over knowledge, which in turn necessitates absolute corruption
Popular posts from this blog
Elles Houwelingon, January 21, 2019, New Historian Everyone has heard shocking stories about the transatlantic slave trade, but this was hardly the only type of slavery in which Europeans were engaged. The Pacific slave trade involved the forceful enslavement of Pacific islanders from the mid 19thcentury to the 20thcentury. This particular type of slavery is often referred to as “blackbirding”. The primary focus of “blackbirding” was to supply cheap labor to sugar-cane plantations on Pacific plantations, particularly in Queensland, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the Samoan Islands. This was mainly achieved through trickery and kidnapping. They were frequently deceived about the length of time for which they were “contracted” and the nature of their “contract”. If all this failed, the islanders were simply loaded onto slave ships at gunpoint. The captured islanders were collectively known as Kanakas, which means Person or Man in Hawaiian. These workers were essentially t
The truth about Jackson’s savagery was just as disturbing as the fake news. After a particularly bloody battle in 1814, Andrew Jackson’s men counted the dead Indians by cutting off their noses. They collected 557 noses. and... (this comment) Jackson ran an ad in the Nashville Gazette, in October, 1804, for the capture of a runaway slave, which stated that in addition to the reward, he would pay an extra $10 per 100 lashes (up to 300), to anyone who willing to inflict them upon his miscreant property. He was known to hold a vengeful lifetime grudge against anyone whom he felt had slighted him, regardless of how minor the supposed offense. His betrayal the Choctow tribe, whom he persuaded to become American allies over the British during the war of 1812, culminated in the “Indian Removal Act” (Trail of Tears), of which he took personal responsiblity to see implemented, resulted in the death of thousands of men, women and children. It’s no surprise that the current occupant of the Wh
Here is where you can find us: https://thebigisms.wordpress.com/2020/11/29/my-white-friend-asked-me-on-facebook-to-explain-white-privilege-i-decided-to-be-honest-yes-magazine/ (we will leave this blog up since there is so much history to read and consider.)
Comments