Resources 9-13

 By Shanelle Gordon In her piece, “Why Arguments Against Abolition Inevitably Fail,” Angela Davis described the historical tension between the concepts of reform and abolition, and how the dynamic between the two is presently changing: The insight that racism is… Continue Reading →

By Kaagni Harekal ‘9/13: Abolish Prisons!’ was deeply affectively and ethically charged. Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet, Yale Law graduate, unapologetic ‘felon’ and Allegra McLeod, Law Professor at Georgetown University and staunch abolitionist set the stage for what was to be… Continue Reading →

By Hedwig Lieback Reginald Dwayne Betts, in Abolition 9/13, emphasized towards the end of our conversation that the goal of abolition is not “to ‘humanize’ people in prison,” because this phrase – frequently used rhetorically in abolitionist conversations, would assume… Continue Reading →

By S. Shabzadeh From inside a cell, the night sky isn’t the measure— that’s why it’s prison’s vastness your eyes reflect after prison. My lover don’t believe in my sadness. She says whisky, not time, is what left me wrecked… Continue Reading →

By Muhammad Awais Arshad Introduction “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White house after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people… We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or… Continue Reading →

Primary Readings Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011. McLeod, Allegra. “Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice,” 62 UCLA L. Rev. 1156 (2015): 1156-1239. Available at https://www.uclalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/McLeod_6.2015.pdf. Secondary Materials Harcourt, Bernard E. “Reducing Mass Incarceration: Lessons from… Continue Reading →