Abolition of police and prisons
Abolish is to flourish! Against the prison industrial complex and for transformative justice.
See Critical Resistance's definitions below:
The Prison Industrial Complex
The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.
Through its reach and impact, the PIC helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other privileges. There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant. This power is also maintained by earning huge profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces; helping earn political gains for "tough on crime" politicians; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination and reorganization of power in the US.
Abolition
PIC abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
From where we are now, sometimes we can't really imagine what abolition is going to look like. Abolition isn't just about getting rid of buildings full of cages. It's also about undoing the society we live in because the PIC both feeds on and maintains oppression and inequalities through punishment, violence, and controls millions of people. Because the PIC is not an isolated system, abolition is a broad strategy. An abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives.
Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.
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This depends on the country a bit, but in general, prisons are the opposite of rehabilitation, despite the countries running them telling the contrary.
How gets one rehabilitated when they are pulled from their home, their job, their social surroundings? Supposedly, people are rehabilitated into society - the one they are excluded from and have no access to in prison. Especially in longer sentences - no internet access, years of societal and technical disruption, societies change in the absence of the prisoners. When they get released, they usually have to start over but with the worst conditions - while rehabilitation in prisons claim to help them go l with their standing.
Rehabilitation taken serious would look completely different. Prisons are preventive custody and everything else is an excuse to distract from that fact. Some people may try their best in helping prisoners, but they are working against a system that destroys the chances instead of rehabilitation.
The idea is for it to be an undesirable place to be. Not a $10K/rehab spa.
Don’t do things that put you there.
You were the one mentioning rehab earlier and that's what I replied to.
I said they offer programs to rehab people- NOT spa treatments and one on one therapy sessions. It’s a prison. A place that isn’t supposed to be desirable.
Tons of ex-cons speak of the benefits of rehabilitation through the prison system. The ones that talk shit- don’t want it.
I wasn't talking of spa either? What are you referring to?
if you are rich, they are a spa – if you are poor, they are only punishment – there is no rehab involved in either case
A prison with decent living conditions only seems desirable today because homelessness, poverty, food insecurity etc exist.