Well, I finished my second book on my current reading list, and I've had some thoughts, most of these are disjointed thoughts I had while reading that I jotted down, I will try to make them coherent.
- 'Kinder, gentler caged are still priosns' and prisosns are still inhumane places, where criminialized persons are sent as punishment, the removal of their liberties being the main punishment, the removal of human rights, these human persons are being treated as less than human,, and often prison itself is not the only punishment recived, the violence inflicted one them by those in positions of power over them is justified as punishements for 'unwanted behaviour',and those who comit the violence use that power to protect themselves and each other from consequences.
- Crimes and thier impact as well as the reparations needed need to be evaluated on a case by case basis, and over arching laws will never understand and account for the nuances of community life, attempting to do so is part of the issue with our carceral system, we try to fix every problem with imprisonment, and it works 0% of the time, addressing the root causes of crimes, such as sytemic violence, or poverty, is shown to be a much more effective way of reducing crime (but it doesn't make profit, so the govnmt isn't incentivised to do it, because prisons are run for profit).
- The approach to abolition femenism needs to be predicated on communication, you need to be able to communicate your thoughts, ideas, solutions, and theories to people for them to be eneacted or tried. Having people who are directly impacted by the systems that cause harm in positions of leadership is critical, having relavant perspectives on the issues from the inside, not just based on how things look from the outside, this means centering criminalized persons in the conversations about what abolition should look like and how it should function.
- The mantra of white people saying "listen to People of Color" is important, but it is also important to recognize that PoC are not a monolith, and will have varying and contradictory opinions, you have to reconcile that somehow. (also it should be noted that the US govnmt is know to find the PoC with the most extreme views that align with US capitalist policy and amplify thier voices, so be wary of that)
- It is just as critical to make sure that those who have no experience with the systems they are attempting to dismantle should not be given positions of leadership, and their input needs to be deprioritized, no one who is an expert in their field should have to argue that they are indeed an expert against someone who knows nothing on the subject, meaning white women with different experiences of oppression should not be prioritized in the conversations about black femenisim and what is needed to achive black femenist goals.
So yeah, thats a general summation of the things that stuck out to me from that book, I'll be finishing Are Priosns Obsolete? next, and I'm sure I'll have many more thoughts and opinions then, I know the one thing they keep bringing up is that its hard or near impossible to imagine a world without prisons, and I do agree, but I think its clear that if we addressed the social issues that lead to most 'low level crime' to be commited that would bring us significantly closer to that future without prisons, and the way to do that is by defunding police and prisons, releasing inmates that are in prison for non violent crimes (and re-evaluating violent crimes that could be argued as self defense), and putting that money towards social services that actually serve and protect the community, as decided on by the commuunity.
P.S. I never thought I would write this much again, let alone on matters like this! I've missed writing, this is awesome!