Prison Abolition Movement - Arguments Made For Prison Abolition

Arguments Made For Prison Abolition

• Lack of proper legal representation

"Eighty percent of people accused of crimes are unable to afford a lawyer to defend them." The Supreme Court held in 1963 that a poor person facing felony charges "cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him." "Long Term Neglect and underfunding of indigent defense have created a crisis of extra ordinary proportions in many states throughout the country."

• War on drugs conceals racial tension

(2005) "The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails. Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses." "The so-called drug war was started in the 1980s and it was aimed directly at the black population. None of this has anything to do with drugs. It has to do with controlling and criminalizing dangerous populations.""Blacks are 12.3 percent of the U.S. population,(2001) but they comprise fully half of the roughly 2 million Americans currently behind Bars. On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males aged 20- 29 are "under correctional supervision." Blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison.

• Incarceration is socially and economically crippling to the convicted and the community.

"Each Prisoner represents an economic asset that has been removed from that community and placed elsewhere. As an economic being, the person would spend money at or near his or her area of residence- typically, an inner city. Imprisonment displaces that economic activity: Instead of buying snacks in a local deli, the prisoner makes those purchases in a prison commissary. The removal may represent a loss of economic value to the home community, but it is a boon to the prison community. Each prisoner represents as much as $25,000 in income for the community in which the prison is located, not to mention the value of constructing the prison facility in the first place. This can be a massive transfer of value: a young male worth a few thousand dollars of support to children and local purchases is transformed into a $25,000 financial asset to a rural prison community. The economy of the rural community is artificially amplified, the local city economy is artificially deflated."

Unfortunately, there are no definitive national statistics on the employment status of felons. But both anecdotal evidence and fragmentary data confirm what common sense would predict: individuals who have been incarcerated have great difficulty securing employment when they return to society. Except for a short period in the late 1990s, when the labor market was so tight that the Wall Street Journal reported on employer efforts to reach out to felons, those leaving prison have faced formidable obstacles to employment. Some of these difficulties are related to company policies or procedures and others are the result of employer perceptions of felons’ job skills or trustworthiness. Felons are also barred from public employment in a number of states, including three with a high proportion of African American residents (Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina). Occupations that are licensed by states also have restrictions on allowing felons to work in them.

• It is argued that the prison system is in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was unanimously adopted by all countries, and which is prescribing life, liberty, equality and justice to all people without discrimination of any sort. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has also abolished all forms of slavery and genocide, including torture, repression and oppression that prisons thrive upon.

• Prisons may be less effective at discouraging crimes and/or compensating victims than other forms of punishment.
• Degree and quality of access to justice depends on the financial resources of the accused.
• Prisons alienate people from their communities.
• In the U.S., people of color and from the lower class are much more likely to be imprisoned than people of European descent or people who are wealthy.
• People who are put in prison for what are arguably crimes motivated by need, such as some minor theft (food, etc.) or prostitution, find it much harder to obtain legal employment once convicted of a crime. Arguably, this difficulty makes it more likely they will find themselves back in the prison system, having had few other options or resources available to support themselves and/or their families. Many prison abolitionists argue that we should "legalize survival" and provide help to those who need it instead of making it even harder to find work and perpetuating the non-violent crimes.
• Prisons are not proven to make people less violent. In fact, there is evidence that they may instead promote violence in individuals by surrounding them with other violent criminals, which can lead to predictable negative/violent results.
• Drug-related offenders are being ushered in and out of the prison system like a revolving door. Rather than educate, and rehabilitate the offender to a clean path of sobriety and increased stature, the state ignores them.

Opponents of the abolition argue that none of the above arguments addresses the protection of non-criminal population from the effects of crime, and from particularly violent criminals.