Book Club Recap: Are Prisons Obsolete?

By Basma Bedawi

    The United States prison system is the largest in the world, holding 25% of the world’s prisoners. What is it about America that leads to such a large chunk of its population incarcerated as some point in their lives? Why do we treat incarcerated people as we do, both when they are in and out of prison? And, with crime on the rise and high rates of repeat offenders, is our current system working or even salvageable? 

    In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Y. Davis begins her case for prison abolition by explaining how exactly we got to where we are today. As she describes it, the current system came as a direct result of the abolition of slavery; with the removal of the ability to legally own the black population, the United States rushed to recreate these conditions. The solution? Mass criminalization of essentially harmless activities and the disproportionate arrest of African Americans breaking these laws who would then be forced to do labor within the prison system. As time went on, it only got more extreme, with Davis herself saying that when she began her work in this field, she never would have expected for the carceral population to grow as large or quickly as it did.

    The late 20th century fixation on a “tough on crime” mentality, despite crime rates dropping at the time, contributed to this greatly, with laws like the infamous 1994 crime bill being passed to not only grow the prison population but strip imprisoned people of even the most basic amenities. From the removal of pell grant eligibility causing the disaffiliation of college classes to even taking out exercise equipment, the goal of this time period was to punish as many “bad” people in prison for as long as possible with little amenities.  

Incarcerated individuals are and always have been very dehumanized. Part of the reason for this is the very word “criminal.” When we refer to those who have broken laws as “criminals” and “prisoners'' and nothing more, we are erasing their humanity. Since the United States pushes that legality and morality are one and the same, these people are no longer individuals but something that must be removed from society. Due in large part to this rhetoric, a culture of punishment is formed that rejects rehabilitation, deciding that those who are arrested are inherently bad and must be punished because that is what must happen to bad people.
    
    The media contributes to this; with the rise of the 24 hour news cycle, news became entertainment and criminality became a spectacle. The depiction of crime and “criminals” in the media led to the public believing that crime was on the rise when, as stated before, it was on the decline during the late 20th century. This enabled politicians to pass laws criminalizing black, brown, and poor communities under the pretense of “law and order” with little pushback from the general public. 

The imprisonment of marginalized groups is not only pushed by politicians but the corporations that profit off of the existence of a large prison population. There are, of course, private for-profit prisons, but only 8.4% of the nation’s prison population is kept in these. While this may lead some to believe that the prison industrial complex is not as big of an issue as it seems, especially with the recent executive order to sever contracts with private prisons, there is another side to the issue of generating profit from incarceration: corporate contracts with government owned prisons. Prisons need supplies, from soap to food, and these supplies are more often than not provided by private companies, which raises some debate around whether this is a morally just thing to do.

    We discussed this in our book club meeting, with some saying that it is alright for companies to sell these things to prisons because they need these supplies and they must come from somewhere. On the other hand, some argued that since these corporations are profiting off of mass imprisonment, they have an agenda to keep as many people in prison as possible and are therefore also contributing to the prison industrial complex, a point that Davis makes in the title. 

It is undeniable that America has an issue with mass incarceration and its treatment of the imprisoned population both before and after release, but does the system need reform or abolition? Angela Davis argues abolition, that we need incremental change to get to a point where prisons truly are obsolete. She explains that decarceration should be the overarching strategy, which would include a wide array of reforms to our entire society including free and accessible higher education, healthcare for all, and a fair justice system among several other things. An abolition of prisons would mean a restructure of our society from one of “crime and punishment” to one of mutual aid and resources. One where the focus is on rehabilitation and root causes, on the betterment of lives.

Basma Bedawi is Equity and Inclusion Director for March For Our Lives Virginia and head of the MFOLVA Book Club