Critical Resistance

Critical Resistance is a national, member-based grassroots organization that works to build a mass movement to dismantle the prison-industrial complex. Critical Resistance's national office is in Oakland, California, and has three local chapters in New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland.

Critical Resistance popularized the idea of the prison industrial complex after their first conference in 1998, which drew thousands of former prisoners, family members, activists, academics and community members, and by many accounts re-invigorated anti-prison activism in the United States.

Organization

Critical Resistance was founded by Angela Davis, Rose Braz, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and others in 1997.[1] The organization is primarily volunteer member-based, with three staff members based in Oakland.

Each chapter determines its own work independently. Projects included:

Mission

Critical Resistance takes an abolition stance against the prison industrial complex, which draws from the legacy of the slavery abolition movement in the 1800s.[2] CR abolitionists view the current prison system as not "broken" as many reformists do, but as working effectively at its true purpose: to contain, control, and kill those people that the state sees as threats, including people of color, immigrants and members of the LGBT community. Thus, CR's goal is not to reform the prison system but to dismantle it completely.[2] The three key dimensions of Critical Resistance, as identified by the organization co-founder Angela Davis, are public policy, community organizing, and academic research. CR strives to bridge academic work, legislative and other policy interventions, and grassroots campaigns to reverse the expansion of prisons and to call for the decriminalization of drugs and prostitution.[3] Part of CR's mission statement is that providing basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom, and not incarceration and punishment, are what will make communities safe and secure.[2]

Origins

Critical Resistance (CR) was formed in 1997 to challenge the idea that incarceration can solve all social problems. Angela Davis, Rose Braz, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and other activists founded CR to challenge the issue of mass incarceration and policing.[2] In September 1998, CR held its first conference that challenged the phenomenon now known as the prison industrial complex (PIC). CR pinpoints that the government has commodified prisons as desirable and, in return, gained public support to expand prisons.[4] Another part of the PIC is that as certain groups of people are criminalized such as racial minorities, the working class, and immigrants, they are incarcerated and become disenfranchised.[5] CR’s initial international conference put the term “prison-industrial complex” on the national agenda with the goal of re-informing and re-educating the American public to bring stop mass incarceration.[4] CR’s mission statement is founded around abolishing the PIC and the idea that capitalism profits from incarceration, a reason for the dramatic increase in the incarceration of people of color, women, and the poor.[1]

"Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex"

"Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex" is the first conference held by CR at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1998.[6] Over 3,500 participants including former and current prisoners and their families, activists, academics, religious leaders, the homeless, policymakers, and the LGBT community attended.[6] For the first time in history, the conference brought a large amount of attention to mass incarceration issues which they now call the "prison industrial complex". The conference became a starting point in the opposition against the PIC, causing different organizations to engage in activism. In particular, the "Schools Not Jails" initiative and the Youthforce Coalition began to combat the criminalization of youth of color after the conference.[6] CR was lauded for being the first organization that moved towards a more "rational and community-oriented" approach that called for the need to protect human rights whether they are of legal or illegal status.[7] CR holds conferences as a strategy to open discussion about the PIC, gain insight from different activists and participants, and spread awareness of the PIC to different parts of the United States. CR hosted more conferences through Critical Resistance South and Critical Resistance East in New Orleans and New York.

Campaigns and Projects

Critical Resistance has been working on numerous campaigns and projects to abolish prisons locally, nationally, and worldwide. These projects are to spread awareness of the prison industrial complex to the public from an insider perspective, to eradicate prison laws and institutions, and to fight for prisoner rights.

The Prisoner Mail Working Group in CR receives letters from prisoners regularly in order to stay connected to them and understand what is happening in prisons.[8] CR believes it is crucial that the voices of diverse communities are heard, especially prisoners, in order to create a collective dialogue that can expose the reality of the prison industrial complex.[1]

CR has been working on a campaign to defeat California's Juvenile Crime Initiative (California Proposition 21) to stop the California Department of Corrections from building a 5160-bed occupancy prison with the cost of $335 million in Central Valley. In 2001, CR filed a law suit against the CDC that generated a lot of important media coverage around "the irrationality and rank opportunism of prison construction".[1] CR worked with the California Prison Moratorium Project and brought together an unprecedented coalition of environmentalists, farm workers unions, Latino and immigrant advocates, and prison abolition activists. The law has since delayed construction of the prison.[6]

The Abolitionist Educators support campaign works with educators and scholars to inform students about the PIC through writing abolitionist issues in The Abolitionist newspaper, inviting CR to do guest presentations in universities and K-12 systems, and teaching these issues in their own classrooms.[9] In particular, The Abolitionist newspaper is a formal and ad hoc publication that does not involve police or state intervention.[10] CR is actively seeking help from abolitionist educators to expand their vision.

CR Film Festival and Video Series works to create documentaries to "recognize the importance of cultural work in the fight against the PIC."[1] CR is planning their First Annual CR Film Festival that will screen their films and share a visual documentation of its history and the work it does as an organization. Visions of Abolition is a sub-project of Critical Resistance, Los Angeles, that screens its documentary "Visions of Abolition" portraying video interviews of those who experience the PIC.

INCITE! Partnership

The women’s anti-violence group INCITE! and Critical Resistance partnered to create this statement on gender violence and its connection to the PIC. This partnership was formed because the lack of attention paid to violence within communities and ignoring the experiences of survivors of domestic abuse and other gender crimes in the 1970s caused tensions with the feminist movement, which limited the overall success of Critical Resistance.[11] The statement was published in 2001 and declares that the prison abolition movement must address gender violence and that social movements must not work in isolation, but rather in inter-sectional coalition. The publication emphasized that both organizations share common struggles and common goals in working to deconstructing the sexism, racism, classism and homophobia that exists in criminal justice system. The statement analyzes ways women are disproportionately targeted by the justice system and identifies strategies for combating these injustices.[12]

Achievements

Slogans

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Rose Braz, Bo Brown, Leslie DiBenedetto, Ruthie Gilmore, and et al. "The History of Critical Resistance." Social Justice 27.3 (2000): 6-10. ProQuest. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "About". Critical Resistance. Critical Resistance.
  3. ↑ Brewer, Rose M., and Nancy A. Heitzeg. "The Racialization of Crime and Punishment: Criminal Justice, Color-Blind Racism, and the Political Economy of the Prison Industrial Complex." American Behavioral Scientist 51.5 (2008): 625-44. Sage Publications. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
  4. 1 2 Rose Braz, Bo Brown, Leslie DiBenedetto, Ruthie Gilmore, and et al. "Overview: Critical Resistance to the Prison-Industrial Complex." Social Justice 27.3 (2000): 1. ProQuest. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
  5. 1 2 Whatley, Sheri. “Dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex: Critical Resistance South Regional Conference”. Off Our Backs 33.5/6 (2003): 53–54. Web. 6 May 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Bosworth, Mary. "Critical Resistance." Encyclopedia of Prisons & Correctional Facilities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005. 206-08. Print.
  7. ↑ Faith, Karlene. “Reflections on Inside/out Organizing”. Social Justice 27.3 (81) (2000): 158–167. Web. 3 May 2016.
  8. ↑ "Campaigns & Projects". Critical Resistance. Retrieved 2016-05-01.
  9. ↑ "Abolitionist Educators Support Campaign". Critical Resistance. Retrieved 2016-05-01.
  10. 1 2 Lawston, Jodie M., and Erica R. Meiners. "Ending our Expertise: Feminists, Scholarship, and Prison Abolition." Feminist Formations 26.2 (2014): 1-25.ProQuest. Web. 1 May 2016.
  11. ↑ Williams, Kristian. "Critical Resistance at 10." Against the Current 139 (2009): n. pag. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
  12. ↑ "Critical Resistance-Incite! Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison-Industrial Complex." Social Justice 30.3 (2003): 141-50. ProQuest. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
  13. ↑ Rubac, Gloria. "Critical Resistance Fights To Abolish Prisons." Workers World 51.41 (2008): 3. Left Index. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
  14. ↑ Shakur, Assata. "i believe in living". Retrieved 2007-08-11.

External links

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