this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Look, I'm not a prison abolitionist
don't need a prison to show this guy the wall
How would jailing this person let him (or people like him) get away with it?
whether the specific guy avoids or is subjected to torture in the penal system doesn't matter if the things that will reproduce these circumstances in future aren't changing. the ruling class is getting away with it, fostering prejudice, upholding an unjust economic system, inflicting settler colonialism, etc.
never be fooled into thinking these punishments for the genuinely bad improve society. they're just the human sacrifices to make you think the temple priest is actually bringing the rain
What happens to this specific guy absolutely matters. How should this specific case be handled?
summary execution
With an AK-47
the community should decide, not you or me. and after providing ideological/educational bases through a socialist party, along with programs where people can work for reparations, the hope is they would choose not to kill people. sorry if that's vague but centering social good in restorative justice is the opposite from handing down prescriptions from on-high.
these questions are like asking whether you'd order a pizza with a phone or the internet under socialism, when all we have so far is the broad organizational principles. and that's not even treating with what the circumstances you're asking about: what do we do the day after the revolution? what's the ideal case in a safe and stable socialist society? what should we do right now still under capitalism and prison-industrialism?
What if the community decides he should be imprisoned? Should they be allowed to choose that option? I imagine an abolitionist would say no, which means to some extent we are "handing down prescriptions" from outside the immediate situation. That's not always a bad thing, though -- I'd say we shouldn't have the death penalty, for instance.
And what is the community allowed to do with him as they decide how to ultimately handle this case? If he says he's going to flee before they can decide, can they jail him pre-trial?
i think these are decisions that would probably be made on a level higher than a locality, but who can say their shape just yet. my personal opinion is pretty hands off (i.e. if they really democratially decide to kill someone, i'm fine with it) but the party or region could most certainly forbid it
but something like a prison system has to be centrally organized, and it's not popping up overnight if one neighborhood wants to put a murderer in it. the 'state' or whatever regional/national organization ought to have the alternatives to prison already organized so cases people might want to apply 'prison' to would be much simpler to put there instead of recreating prisons from scratch
I think we're on different pages to an extent. I'm talking about how this actual case, today, should be handled. Or very similar cases in the near future. I think you're talking more about how things should work after we've created a leftist society.
Isn't that just lynching? That's how it would play out in most places today or in the near future, which is what got me thinking we're not exactly talking about the same thing.
What alternative would be appropriate here? And what do you do with the guy if he does not voluntarily participate?
the dude will go to jail, probably. what's the point of this diagnostic? we don't have a say in how this is going to be done, and if we aren't imagining "how things should work" there's nothing more to say. prison abolition is not an actually existing social system we can sub in for capitalist prisons, and the praxis right now is focused on prisoners' rights & trying to keep people out of prisons.
I'm not asking what is likely to happen, I'm asking what you, as a prison abolitionist, think should happen. The only constraint I'm adding is that we have to work with people as they are today, not hypothetical people educated in a possible leftist state, who we can postulate would be open to all sorts of radical things.
If you let the immediate community decide on what to do with him, the community of today will likely decide to kill or imprison him. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like an abolitionist would oppose both of those. So to me, "let the community decide" is not a satisfactory answer.
You bring up alternatives to prison. OK, what sort of specific alternative should be on the table? Put yourself in the shoes of the state, with the state's resources. Is it something you could get people today on board with? I'm not asking facetiously; you can get today's people on board with prison alternatives for lesser offenses.
And what do you do with the guy if he does not voluntarily participate? Can he be held in custody for any amount of time, even if he says he will flee if released?
i don't know if you're trying to catch me in a contradiction or what, prison reform is unrealistic and largely unpopular while people are still so indoctrinated and blind to alternatives. people's minds have to be changed. even my optimistic instincts would not be confident that making this guy pay reparations and work for the community the rest of his life would be acceptable to the victims' community, maybe they'd take exile as an option that wasn't confinement or death. i think we should expect to make concessions to expedience and lingering retributive justice-brain in transitional stages---like in Cuba
the state would not expropriate a murderer-landlord's property & employ the guy building public housing or teaching anti racism, these are fundamental things to capitalism. you've got to appreciate that moving the needle on one issue requires moving others, we can't do prison abolition without abolishing capitalism, we can't abolish colonialism without abolishing capitalism. having difficulty imagining or rectifying contradictions in the conditions for one thing under capitalism does not mean it is unworkable, it means we've got a lot of work to do.
Death
I'm taking about this specific case. If you're going to support abolition, you have to directly address these type of crimes, not just the ones where any leftist would agree they should be handled leniently (if the activity should be criminalized at all).
soviets had prisons also, imho judging all prisons by america's example is like judging all governments by america's example. like as much as europe sucks they have countries where the cops don't kill as many people proportionally. some countries have prison systems that focus on rehabilitation instead of retribution. it's like judging all military actions by the nazi's example (i.e. resisting genocide with violence makes you just as bad as the genociders!)