The Idea of Prison Abolition PDF
Preview The Idea of Prison Abolition
THE IDEA OF PRISON ABOLITION carl g. hempel lecture series THE IDEA OF PRISON ABOLITION TOMMIE SHELBY prince ton university press prince ton and oxford Copyright © 2022 by Prince ton University Press Prince ton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the pro gress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press . princeton . edu Published by Prince ton University Press 41 William Street, Prince ton, New Jersey 08540 99 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6JX press . princeton . edu All Rights Reserved ISBN: 978-0-691-22975-1 ISBN (e- book): 978-0-691-22977-5 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available Editorial: Matt Rohal Production Editorial: Ellen Foos Jacket and Text Design: Lauren Smith Production: Erin Suydam Publicity: Kate Hensley and Carmen Jimenez Copyeditor: Jodi Beder Jacket image: Jazziel / Alamy Stock Photo This book has been composed in Arno Pro with Futura display Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of Amer i ca 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In memory of my beloved grand mother, Mattie Brock CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix introduction. Reform or Abolition? 1 chapter 1. Army of the Wronged: Po liti cal Prisoners and Black Radicalism 18 chapter 2. The Uses and Abuses of Incarceration: Punishment, Dehumanization, and Slavery 44 chapter 3. A Broken System? Racism and Functional Critique 87 chapter 4. The Prison Industrial Complex: Profit, Privatization, and the Circumstances of Injustice 120 chapter 5. Responding to Crime: Incarceration and Its Alternatives 148 chapter 6. Dreaming Big: Utopian Imagination and Structural Transformation 183 Notes 203 Index 221 vii ACKNOWLE DGMENTS In Dark Ghettos (2016), I argued that black metropolitan neigh- borhoods with high levels of concentrated disadvantage should, on grounds of justice, be abolished. Ending ghettoization would, I said, require a radical transformation of the basic struc- ture of U.S. society, and I insisted that such efforts at fundamen- tal change should include the ghetto poor as essential and equal partners. This book asks whether prisons, which incarcerate an extraordinary number of ghetto denizens, should also be abolished. The Idea of Prison Abolition began as the Carl G. Hempel Lec- tures, which I delivered at Prince ton University in 2018. I am im mensely grateful for the Prince ton Philosophy Department’s invitation and for its warm hospitality. I received invaluable critical feedback on the proj ect during my campus visit, and I thoroughly enjoyed, and learned from, the many conversations, formal and informal, that my lectures provoked. I was able to devote myself to writing t hese lectures, with time away from my regular academic responsibilities, b ecause of a generous fellow- ship from the Andrew Car ne gie Foundation. An e arlier version of Chapter 1 appeared as “Army of the Wronged: Autobiography, Po liti cal Prisoners, and Black ix
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