Week 12
becoming abolitionists
Key Questions
What is abolition? In what ways is abolition a positive rather than purely negative vision?
Why must abolition be a global, planetary movement? How are people around the world resisting the carceral system?
What does an abolitionist future look like? How can problems and issues be addressed without the carceral system?
Required Materials
Mariame Kaba, “So You’re Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist”
Brendan O’Connor, “How to Build a Global Abolition Movement”
Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, “Beyond Alternatives” (AUDIO)
Mariame Kaba, We Do This Til' We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, "Justice: A Short Story" (AUDIO)
Supplementary Materials
Barnard Center for Research on Women, “What is Transformative Justice?“
Barnard Center for Research on Women, “Everyday Practices of Transformative Justice”
Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete, “Abolitionist Alternatives”
Kyle Lopez, “After Abolition”
Michael “Safear” Ness and Chanthon Bun, “The Home I Dream”
Tamara Nopper, “Abolition is Not a Suburb”
Mia Mingus, “Transformative Justice: A Brief Description”
Barnard Center for Research on Women, “What is Accountability?”
Christians for Abolition, “Accountability vs. Punishment”
Mon Mohapatra, Leila Raven, Nnennaya Amuchie, Reina Sultan, K Agbebiyi, Sarah Hamid, Micah Herskind, Derecka Purnell, Eli Dru, and Rachel Kuo, #8toAbolition
Social Justice Portal Project and Taína Asili, "Abolition"
Liat Ben-Moshe, Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition, “Abolition as Knowledge and Ways of Unknowing”
Jackie Wang, “Against Innocence”
Mariame Kaba, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police”
Mariame Kaba, “To Stop Police Violence, We Need Better Questions — And Bigger Demands”
Rachel Kuchner, “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind”
Alec Karakatsanis, “Why ‘Crime’ Isn’t the Question and Police Aren’t the Answer”
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Futures of Black Radicalism, “Abolition Geography and the Problem of Innocence”
Amanda Alexander and Danielle Sered, “Making Communities Safe, Without the Police”
exercises
Using the template below, create a compilation of responses to the common questions people have when encountering abolition. How can we adequately address people’s concerns? How can we approach confrontations to radical abolition imagining with compassion and care?
