Week 11
perils of reform
Key Questions
What sort of reforms have been implemented and advocated for historically? How can these reforms be problematized?
How do reforms expand the scale and the scope of the carceral system? What does this carceral augmentation reveal about the inherent nature of reforms?
What is the difference between reformist reforms and non-reformist reforms?
Required Materials
Kay Whitlock and Nancy Heitzeg, Carceral Con: The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal Justice Reform, “The Slippery Slope of Pretrial Reform”
Kay Whitlock and Nancy Heitzeg, Carceral Con: The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal Justice Reform, “Courts, Sentencing, and Diversion”
Silky Shah, “Beyond Private Prisons”
Naomi Murakawa, “Police Reform Works – For the Police”
Critical Resistance, “Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing”
Critical Resistance, “Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps to End Imprisonment”
Supplementary Materials
Micah Herskind, “Three Reasons Advocates Must Move Beyond Demanding Release for Nonviolent Offenders”
Asar Amen, “To End Mass Incarceration, Our Society Must Look Beyond the Non-Violent Drug Offenses”
Kay Whitlock, “Prison Reform Misdirection: 5 Caveats About Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration”
Alex Vitale, The End of Policing, “The Limits of Police Reform”
Naomi Murakawa, “Police Reform Works – For the Police”
Dylan Rodríguez, “Reformism Isn’t Liberation, It’s Counterinsurgency”
Charlotte Rosen, “Abolition or Bust: Liberal Police Reforms as an Engine of Carceral Violence”
Mariame Kaba, “Police ‘Reforms’ You Should Always Oppose”
Beth Richie, Dylan Rodríguez, Mariame Kaba, Melissa Burch, Rachel Herzing, and Shana Agid, “Problems with Community Control of Police and Proposals for Alternatives”
James Kilgore, “The Case Against E-Carceration”
Michelle Alexander, “The Newest Jim Crow”
Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, “Your Home Is Your Prison” (AUDIO)
Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, “Locked Down in ‘Treatment’” (AUDIO)
Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, “Confined in ‘Community’” (AUDIO)
Sean Allen Hill II, “Bail Reform and the (False) Promise of Algorithmic Risk Assessment”
Leah Wang and Katie Rose Quandt, “Building Exits Off the Highway to Mass Incarceration: Diversion Programs Explained”
Fiona Doherty, “The Case for Moving Beyond Probation, And How to Do It”
Raven Rakia and Ashoka Jegroo, “How the Push to Close Rikers Went From No Jails to New Jails”
Exercise
Compare the Kerner Commission recommendations, the Katzenbach Commission recommendations, and the Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommendations. How are the recommendations for police reforms over the past 60 years similar? Are there any differences? How can this inform abolition?