Abolition Democracy

Summary, part 1

The Prison-Industrial Complex, Prison Abolition, and Abolition Democracy

From slavery to Jim Crow to prison

Oppression towards Black people in the United States has evolved. It began with slavery, then evolved into segregation and the era of Jim Crow, and then now the prison-industrial complex. Slavery, Jim Crow, and prison are all institutions where punishments considered too barbaric for the democracy are permitted–and they are permitted because they largely target Black people and those considered not to be full humans or citizens. 

Prison and the military

The term 'prison-industrial complex' describes a system in which the government and industry (read: economic forces) have created a system of surveillance, policing, and imprisonment. It is a term that purposely mirrors a term that came before it, 'military-industrial complex.' According to Davis, both complexes "earn profit while producing the means to maim and kill human beings and devour social resources." 

Both the prison and military become important parts of the country's economy. We saw this during the Vietnam War with the crucial role military production played in the economy and how prisons now provide cheap labor to build, among other things, weaponry.

The prison-industrial complex in action

The prison-industrial complex perpetuates what Davis calls ritual violence. 

"The prison system naturalizes the violence that is enacted against racial minorities by institutionalizing a viciously circular logic: blacks are in prisons because they are criminals; they are criminals because they are black, and if they are in prison, they deserved what they got. Prison is more than one way institutionalized the lynchings of the turn of the 20th century when Jim Crow was at its cruelest and most violent."

Like slavery, the prison-industrial complex disenfranchises the Black community since they make up the majority of America's imprisoned population. In many states, former felons are stripped of their right to vote and unable to participate in American democracy.

The fact that most people do not question the process that robs prisoners of their right to vote, Davis says, is a way of thinking rooted in slavery and how certain people aren't full citizens because of certain factors. 

The prison-industrial complex also robs Black communities of their social wealth. Davis defines social wealth as the wherewithal of a community to sustain itself through schools, homeownership, churches, and more.

Once you are in prison, you are socially branded. Things that allow people to re-enter society, such as owning a home, getting a job, and more, are stripped away from you.

The prison-industrial complex exists because of two assumptions widely held in society.

First, the understanding of the racial contract. The racial contract "refers to the social, political, cultural and economic reality in which it is more advantageous to be white than a person of color because all norms are de facto whiteness norms. Within the racial contract, social punishment is accepted because it is done primarily to blacks."

Second, society believes that surplus repression – the idea that restrictions and punishment (in this case, imprisonment) are an "inevitable and desirable" part of society – is a "logical way to deal with crime." In her fight for prison abolition and abolition democracy, Davis wants us to question if imprisonment truly is the only way to deal with crime. 

Davis has two critiques that question the necessity of prisons.

First, there is no correlation between imprisonment and crime. Instead, the rate of imprisonment is correlated with the rate of surveillance.

Second, the prison system exists as a punitive solution to social problems that can and should be addressed by social institutions to allow people to lead better lives.

Such social problems include but are not limited to houselessness, poverty, drugs, and more. With these assumptions, Davis argues that the state practices an imprisonment binge where the state removes the “dispensable populations from society” by putting them in prison.

Davis argues that while prisons may make people feel safer from crime, doing so actually diverts attention away from threats that come from the police, military, profit-seeking corporations, and intimate partners–all of which are more common sources of violence. 

Another major part of the prison-industrial complex is the torture and sexual coercion within it, but this will be elaborated upon later.