Penal Abolition: Working to Distinguish the Fear of Difference

• In Event: Penal Abolition – Building Ideas and Practices

Abstract

As a project reflecting the anxieties and social paradigmatic thinking of its age, the penal project has always been and always will be designed by one group that is threatened by another group according to its tally of "differences." An examination of how law is designed, where police focus, how courts operate, who goes to prison, and in general who is part of the prison industrial complex, demonstrates that those most feared by the dominant group today are predominantly persons of color, undocumented immigrants, the destitute, the mentally ill, war veterans, and those with diminished access to education, wealth, or the opportunity for stable work. As such, the penal abolition project is based on and moves out of an attempt to recognize and highlight difference that is marginalized, "criminalized," and constructed out of view.

Author

• Rachel Herzing, Critical Resistance