book review: are prisons obsolete
06 Jul 2020
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis
What are the main ideas?
- prisons are obsolete
- confinement as a punishment is a fairly recent development. it began as an attempted reform to capital and corporal punishment.
- the prison system is hella gendered and the way to achieve gender equity is to dismantle the prison; not to make women have the same shitty treatment as men
If I implemented one idea from this book right now, which one would it be?
in the physical communities in which i live, work to create an abundance of alternatives that make prisons obsolete. it will mean creating or investing in a range of new or existing infrastructures (schools, restorative and transformative justice, mental health care, living wages, meaningful work, etc.)
How would I describe the book to a friend?
davis is economical in her approach and brilliant on every page. readable in a couple days but worth returning to over and over. she takes us from the beginning of the prison to its intensification, global expansion, and then helps us imagine how to get rid of it. it’s too quick and important to not read. read it this weekend, for real.
reminder: book review structure