Prison abolition movement

The prison abolition movement is a movement that seeks to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with more humane and effective systems. It is distinct from prison reform, which is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons; however, relying on prisons less can significantly improve their conditions by eliminating overcrowding.[1]:3

Some organizations such as the Anarchist Black Cross seek total abolishment of the prison system, not intending to replace it with other government controlled systems. Many anarchist organizations believe that the best form of justice arises naturally out of social contracts. However, many supporters for prison abolition intend to replace it with other systems, reducing prisons to a smaller role in society.

Advocates for prison abolition

Historically, Quakers were among the first advocates for alternatives to prison.

Anarchist groups such as Anarchist Black Cross have played a significant part in the prison abolition movement and this trend continues today. Anarchists wish to eliminate all forms of state control, of which imprisonment is seen as one of the more obvious examples. Anarchists also oppose prisons because they house non-violent offenders (e.g., thieves and swindlers instead of just murderers and rapists), incarcerate mainly poor people and ethnic minorities, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse.[2] As a result, the prison abolition movement often is associated with humanistic socialism, anarchism and anti-authoritarianism.

In October 2015, members at a plenary session of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) voted to adopt a resolution in favor of prison abolition.[3]

Prison reforms and alternatives

Proposals for prison reform and proposed alternatives to prisons differ significantly depending on the political beliefs behind them. Proposals and tactics often include:

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published a series of handbooks on criminal justice. Among them is Alternatives to Imprisonment which identifies how the overuse of imprisonment impacts fundamental human rights, especially those convicted for lesser crimes.

Abolitionist views

In place of prisons, some abolitionists propose community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies to control the problem of social crime.[4] They argue that with the destruction of capitalism, and the self-management of production by workers and communities, property crimes would largely vanish. A large part of the problem, according to some, is the way the judicial system deals with prisoners, people, and capital. They argue that there would be fewer prisoners if society treated people more fairly, regardless of gender, color, ethnic background, sexual orientation, education, etc. This is proven with the creation of private prisons in America and corporations like Correction Corporation of America (CCA). Its shareholders benefit from the expansion of prisons and tougher laws on crime. More prisoners is seen as beneficial for business.[5]

Arguments made for prison abolition

"Eighty percent of people accused of crimes [in the United States] are unable to afford a lawyer to defend them."[6] The US Supreme Court held in 1963 that a poor person facing felony charges "cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him."
"Long Term Neglect and underfunding of indigent defense have created a crisis of extra ordinary proportions in many states throughout the country."[6]
(2005) "The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails. Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses."[7]
"The so-called drug war was started in the 1980s and it was aimed directly at the black population. None of this has anything to do with drugs. It has to do with controlling and criminalizing dangerous populations."[8]"Blacks are 12.3 percent of the U.S. population (2001) but they comprise fully half of the roughly 2 million Americans currently behind Bars. On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males aged 20- 29 are "under correctional supervision."[9] Blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison.[10]
"Each Prisoner represents an economic asset that has been removed from that community and placed elsewhere. As an economic being, the person would spend money at or near his or her area of residence—typically, an inner city. Imprisonment displaces that economic activity: Instead of buying snacks in a local deli, the prisoner makes those purchases in a prison commissary. The removal may represent a loss of economic value to the home community, but it is a boon to the prison [host] community. Each prisoner represents as much as $25,000 in income for the community in which the prison is located, not to mention the value of constructing the prison facility in the first place. This can be a massive transfer of value: a young male worth a few thousand dollars of support to children and local purchases is transformed into a $25,000 financial asset to a rural prison community. The economy of the rural community is artificially amplified, the local city economy is artificially deflated."[11]
Unfortunately, there are no definitive national statistics on the employment status of felons. But both anecdotal evidence and fragmentary data confirm what common sense would predict: individuals who have been incarcerated have great difficulty securing employment when they return to society. Except for a short period in the late 1990s, when the labor market was so tight that the Wall Street Journal reported on employer efforts to reach out to felons, those leaving prison have faced formidable obstacles to employment. Some of these difficulties are related to company policies or procedures and others are the result of employer perceptions of felons' job skills or trustworthiness. Felons are also barred from public employment in a number of states, including three with a high proportion of African American residents (Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina). Occupations that are licensed by states also have restrictions on allowing felons to work in them.[12]

Opponents of the abolition argue that none of the arguments above address the protection of non-criminal population from the effects of crime, and from particularly violent criminals.

Mental illness and prison

Prison abolitionists such as Amanda Pustlinik take issue with the fact that prisons are used as a "default asylum" for many individuals with mental illness.[20] One question that is often asked by some prison abolitionists is:

"why do governmental units choose to spend billions of dollars a year to concentrate people with serious illnesses in a system designed to punish intentional lawbreaking, when doing so matches neither the putative purposes of that system nor most effectively addresses the issues posed by that population?" [20]

This question is often one of the major pieces of evidence that prison abolitionist claim highlights the depravity of the penal system. Many of these prison abolitionists often state that mentally ill offenders, violent and non-violent, should be treated in mental hospitals not prisons.[21] There are more people with mental illness in prisons that in psychiatric hospitals.[22] By keeping the mentally ill in prisons they claim that rehabilitation cannot occur because prisons are not the correct environment to deal with deep seated psychological problems and facilitate rehabilitative practices.[21] Individuals with mental illnesses that have led them to commit any crime have a much higher chance of committing suicide while in prison because of the lack of proper medical attention.[23] The increased risk of suicide is said to be because there is much stigma around mental illness and lack of adequate treatments within hospitals.[23] The whole point of the penal system is to rehabilitate and reform individuals who have willingly transgressed on the law. According to many prison abolitionists however, when mentally ill persons, often for reasons outside of their cognitive control, commit illegal acts prisons are not the best place for them to receive the help necessary for their rehabilitation.[21] For many prison abolitionists, if for no other reason than the fact that mentally ill individuals will not be receiving the same potential for rehabilitation as the non-mentally ill prison population, prisons are considered to be unjust and therefore violate their Sixth Amendment and Fifth Amendment Rights, in the U.S., and their chance to rehabilitate and function outside of the prison.[20][24] [20][21] In America, by violating an individual's rights as a citizen, prison abolitionists see no reason for prisons to exist, and again, offer another reason people within the movement demand for the abolition of prisons.[20][21][24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Handbook of basic principles and promising practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment (PDF). United Nations. April 2007. ISBN 978-92-1-148220-1.
  2. ↑ National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (US). A National Strategy to Reduce Crime. National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, 1973. p. 358
  3. ↑ "NLG Adopts Resolution Supporting Prison Abolition" (Press release). National Lawyers Guild. Dec 17, 2015. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  4. ↑ http://www.blackandpink.org/purpose-analysis/
  5. ↑ http://www.cca.com/ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/mar/03/prison-population-titan-jails
  6. 1 2 Herivel and Wright, Prison Nation. Routledge, 2003. p. 6.
  7. ↑ Justice Policy Institute, "Substance Abuse Treatment and Public Safety," (Washington, DC: January 2008), p. 1. http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08_01_REP_DrugTx_AC-PS.pdf
  8. ↑ Herivel and Wright, Prison Nation. Routledge, 2003. p. 56.
  9. ↑ Herivel and Wright, Prison Nation. Routledge, 2003. p. 31.
  10. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20120302060617/http://www.fff.org/comment/com0303e.as. Archived from the original on March 2, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2010. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. ↑ Clear, Todd. "Backfire: When Incarceration Increases Crime". in The Unintended consequences of Incarceration. New York: Vera Institute of Justice, January 1996
  12. ↑ Margaret C. Simms, "JOINT CENTER FOR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES" MAY/JUNE 2004 p. 7"
  13. ↑ http://www.massdecarcerate.org/download/HumanRights.doc
  14. ↑ http://peaceconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Jakopovich.pdf Daniel Jakopovich, The Humanist Defence and Critique of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peace Studies Journal, Vol.4, Issue1, 2011
  15. ↑ Andrews and Bonta, 2003
  16. ↑ Tyler, Tracey (August 12, 2007). "Access to justice a 'basic right'". The Star (Toronto). Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  17. ↑ Public Interest Law Institute – Indigent Defense Systems in the United States
  18. ↑ "Prison population statistics". Archived from the original on 2007-10-02. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  19. ↑ MotherJones.com – Debt to Society
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 Pustlinik, Amanda. 2005. "Prisons of the Mind: Social Value and Economic Inefficiency in the Criminal Justice Response to Mental Illness."The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.96(1): 217–265.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 Rollin, Henry. 2006. "The Mentally Ill Should Be in Hospital, not in Jail." The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology. 17(2): 326–329.
  22. ↑ Torrey, E., Kennard, A., Eslinger, D., Lamb, R., & Pavle, J. (2010). More Mentally Ill Persons Are in Jails and Prisons Than Hospitals: A Survey of the States. Retrieved from http://coos.or.networkofcare.org/library/final_jails_v_hospitals_study1.pdf
  23. 1 2 Ahmed, Mukhtar. Bowen, Andy. and Graham, Tanya. et al. 2007. "The Identifications and Management of Suicide Risk in Local Prisons." Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology. 18(3): 368–380.
  24. 1 2 Harvard Law Review. February 2008. "Developments in the Law: The Law of Mental Illness." Harvard Law Review. 121(4):1114–1191.
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