Abolitionism and Decarceration

Carrier, Nicolas; Piché, Justin; Walby, Kevin

doi:10.1002/9781119372394.ch23

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Finally, the field of psychology should do more to support abolition as an approach to ending mass incarceration. Abolition challenges us to find “new ways to perceive, feel, and conceptualize situations once we have stopped privileging the deeply entrenched perspective of political and legal systems” (Carrier et al, 2018, p. 319). Abolition from the prison industrial complex (PIC) is “focused on eliminating punitive measures, practices, policies and policies that control, surveil, and harm people” (Paine et al, 2021, p. 10).…”

Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing mass incarceration amid a pandemic: Psychology informing decarceration as a racial justice and public health response.

Alexander,

Klukoff,

Gaglione

2023

Translational Issues in Psychological Science

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Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing mass incarceration amid a pandemic: Psychology informing decarceration as a racial justice and public health response.

Alexander,

Klukoff,

Gaglione

2023

Translational Issues in Psychological Science

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“…This approach is founded on prison abolitionism (Seigel, 2018: 136) and begins from the moral premise that prisons are absolutely and irredeemably oppressive (immoral) spaces. As Canadian penal abolitionists Carrier et al (2018) argue, prisons are fundamentally immoral because they do not achieve their proposed outcomes (making people and society safer) yet continue to violate the dignity of the individual. As such, we must abolish prisons.…”

Section: Literature Review: Cps and Abolitionism Are Not Inherently D...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Decolonizing prisons: Indigenized programming and a critique of critical prison studies

Tetrault

2023

Incarceration

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Critical prison studies (CPS) is increasingly influential in scholarly discussions about decolonizing prisons. Proponents of CPS largely oppose the idea that cultural prison programs are decolonial, which include courses teaching Indigenous cultures and colonial history, prisons facilitating spirituality, involving Elders and communities in rehabilitation, and specialized prisons called “healing lodges.” Most CPS scholars writing on the topic disparage these initiatives as assimilationist and thus a weapon of cultural genocide. For these scholars, decolonizing prisons is impossible. CPS arguments against Indigenized programming are premised on abolitionist theory rather than a discernible decolonial method centring the perspectives of Indigenous peoples affected by prisons. I explore the accuracy and utility of CPS scholars’ arguments against Indigenized programming, drawing from 587 interviews with incarcerated men and women detained inside six prisons across Western Canada. Almost 40% of these participants identified as Indigenous. Indigenous interviewees nearly universally praised Indigenized programs for how they can help heal and empower those affected by colonial violence. Participants desired more cultural programming and easier access to such resources. More research is needed on how prisons develop and implement cultural programming, but existing empirical works suggest that these initiatives, while flawed, support the dignity of incarcerated Indigenous peoples. My critique is a call for criminologists writing on Indigenous issues to consider the ambiguity and tensions of decolonial processes and to premise their arguments foremost on methods centring Indigenous peoples affected by incarceration.

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“…Penal abolitionists cognizant of the European tradition will normally avoid mobilizing the notion of crime altogether, preferring the notions of problematic or problematized situations (Carrier et al, 2019; Hulsman, 1995). Such a perspective puts forward an ethics of “knowledge, proximity and dialogue” (Ruggiero, 2010: 183), seeking to understand the situation from the experience of involved and concerned parties without resorting to the logics and categories of criminal legal systems.…”

Section: Abolitionism(s) and “The Dangerous Few”mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Canada and other white settlers political enclaves, it is not infrequent to see abolitionist struggles aligned with broader Indigenous contestation and denial of the claims to the land—and its law—by the state (Piché et al, 2019). In Canada, the activism of the anarchist collective End the Prison Industrial Complex (see https://epic.noblogs.org/) illustrates this potential alignment of abolitionist struggles with broader Indigenous resistance to the state (see Carrier and Piché, 2018). Anarchist postures are envisioning post-sovereigntist horizons in which institutionalized penalty has no place (Walby, 2011), whereas Indigenous resistance has a different relationship with sovereignty.…”

Section: Abolitionism(s) and “The Dangerous Few”mentioning

confidence: 99%

Monstrosity, correctional healing, and the limits of penal abolitionism

Carrier

2022

Crime, Media, Culture

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Despite gaining significant cultural and academic currency, penal abolitionism remains unable to radically problematize the punishment of individuals found responsible of exceptionally disturbing acts of criminalized violence. Through an empirical examination of a recent Canadian controversy over penal governance articulated to the transfer of a “monster” to a correctional healing lodge, the article makes legible our difficulties in communicating about appropriate responses to exceptional criminalized incidents which would forgo the use of afflictive sanctions as retaliatory harms. Engaging penal abolitionism empirically, theoretically and normatively, the article notably suggests that the limits of penal abolitionism can be explicated by the fact that its critique is premised on an instrumentalist conception of penalty which neglects the communicational function of punishment.

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Abolitionism and Decarceration

Cited by 8 publications

References 33 publications

Addressing mass incarceration amid a pandemic: Psychology informing decarceration as a racial justice and public health response.

Addressing mass incarceration amid a pandemic: Psychology informing decarceration as a racial justice and public health response.

Decolonizing prisons: Indigenized programming and a critique of critical prison studies

Monstrosity, correctional healing, and the limits of penal abolitionism

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