Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex/System

I must admit I don’t have a complete comprehension of Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex (Prison Abolition). I only came across the Abolition movement several months ago after reading Andrea Smith’s “Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide”, upon searching this I uncovered years of work produced (over several decades) by Angela Davis. Angela Davis is a Black feminist (interlocking theorist), a former member of the Black Panther movement (she was tried for a murder related to her involvement; John Lennon made a song to free her), and a former member of the US Communist Party (which she left recently over conflicting beliefs)(Click Here). I oppose the prison system for its reproduction of many of the problems it is suppose to rid and at best can only sanction on a purely individual scale. Further it perpetuates and upholds many other problems it is not intended to, including heterosexism perpetuating violence both physical and symbolic against gay and trans* persons (Click Here). (I argue the racist and classed implications of the Prison Complex were intended functions of the its construction.)

Although most of the Abolition discussion centers around the American Prison System the issue is easily extended to Canada’s complex, which also disproportionately affect racialized and impoverished groups of society. It is important to understand the industrial prison as a historical construct. Starting with the US, the Thirteenth Amendment which was intended to free slaves upheld ideas of slavery and free labour by holding onto the idea that certain individuals could be slaves; slavery could be retained as long as the individual who was enslaved had committed a punishable offense. And we know that the majority of criminal offenses that have prison penalties tend to be racial minorities locked in with issues of poverty. This is also true for Canada, which has a highly disproportionate number of Aboriginals within prison both male and female prison. Furthermore, racialized individuals as well as individuals of impoverished class(es) are more likely to be imprisoned for the same crimes committed by White and/or middle-upper class individuals (in all of North America). Thus, the industrial prison complex functions to uphold racist and colonial regimes of disenfranchisement of marginalized groups particularly Black, Latino and Indigenous peoples (Latinos in many circumstances are Indigenous too).

Smith explains that this disenfranchisement (re)produces an exploitable groups who are again racialized and impoverished as they were during slavery and pre-Aboriginal suffrage in both Canada and the US. Smith goes onto discuss the situation of Prisons describing how corporations go in and conduct experiments for pharmaceutical and other corporate ventures particularly birth control drugs on mainly racialized bodies.

Mumia Abu-Jamal explains that the prison industrial complex is highly profitable for numerous corporations, he explains how many communities are actually calling for Prisons because they are highly profitable, which is in contrast NIMBY attitude. Many corporations benefit from these profits, for example Sodexo holds food consumption monopolies within the prisons it holds contracts with and is sole supplier to.

Davis writes that “proposing the prison as the only solution to problems that have never managed to be solved indeed they have been consistency exacerbate by the prison. Bigger and better prisons have always produced more crises the solution for which are even better prisons, which have in turn produced more crises.” So the prison does not rehabilitate its subject (i.e., rehabilitation facility), but instead not only reproduces the dysfunction but perpetuates them through the problems visible within re-offenders, who re-offend in worse crimes.

A move to abolish the industrial prison complex is not to suggest the prison complex should or even could be abolished within days especially with the vast and strong interests underlying (including the mass hegemony) that acts in preservation of the complex. Smith writes “it's not like tear down prison walls tomorrow, it's about proliferating alternatives until prisons become unnecessary” (Click Here). It is mainly through Smith’s work that the alternatives becomes apparent. Smith calls for reconciliation projects instead of individual punishments that are actually performed by the State and do not meet the needs of the “victim(s)” or the community. This is perhaps most discerning to those who still rely on the state for justice and fairness, along with corporate ventures that exploit those within the complex. It is important to remember that crimes are committed within socio-economic, political and cultural contexts and they are intrinsically connected. For example, when a sexual assault occurs the individuals is simply punished and the victim is occasionally “treated”. Sexual assaults occur within a culture of misogyny, hyper-masculinity and violence within a patriarchal state. When hate crimes happen against racial and/or sexual minorities they occur within a racist and heterosexist/homophobic nationhood. Simply punishing the ‘victimizer’ does nothing to counter-act the hostile and oppressive context. Continuing from this point crimes of theft must also be understood in their neo-liberalist environment that causes inequalities and social dysfunction that lead to higher crimes rates, including theft. There most be an evaluation of the contexts, and imprisonment acts to conceal these “matrixes of domination” (racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism ablism, ageism) and the neo-liberal regime (Click Here).



More Links

Lennon & Yoko - Angela
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyXfjYOZa5Y

Angela Davis - The Prison a Sign of Democracy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q25-KJ55k_0

Angela Davis - Abolition Democracy and Global Politics
http://vimeo.com/4770086

Andrea Smith - Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
http://books.google.ca/books?id=PUnu_8vpRIMC&dq=conquest+andrea...

Mumia Abu-Jamal -The Industrial Prison Complex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37u3sPHjrro