Challenges of Penal Abolition

• In Event: Roundtable: Penal Abolition Research and the Politics of “Crime” and Justice

Abstract

Penal abolition faces many obvious challenges in a culture priding itself on being “tough on crime.” Freeing people from prison, addresses one aspect of injustice. However, the prison industrial complex is part of a larger corrections industrial complex, which is part of a larger criminal justice industrial complex, which is part of an enormous fear industrial complex in the U.S. Freed prisoners are not free people. They continue to be stigmatized, monitored, and controlled, oftentimes well after their sentence is completed. Penal abolition proposes to place a large number of individuals in this position. Major challenges exist with the issues encountered by former prisoners and their families and friends, such as where do they go and how can we help keep them, their families, and society safe and thriving? Will they continue to be monitored by the corrections industrial complex? How can we minimize the tremendous burden and frustration experienced by friends and family trying to help freed prisoners? How do we abate the fear industrial complex in the U.S.?

Author

• Kenneth J. Litwin, University of Michigan - Flint