There is a lot of talk about reforming certain institutions, but there is also a lot of chatter about abolishing certain institutions. Many people become scared when they hear the word “abolish” or “abolition;” they are terms that I feel receive a negative connotation because people are scared about what we are going to do if we do abolish certain institutions. The term abolition refers to terminating said institution, while the term reform refers to making changes to ostensibly improve said institution. When it comes to the prison-industrial complex, I believe that people are more open to the idea of reforming prisons and policing than abolishing them. So how do we decide whether or not to reform or abolish an institution?
Since 2012, at least, and perhaps even more so since 2020, there has been an increase in talk about reforming policing practices – especially with the multiple killings by police and self-appointed community patrollers of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. These are just a few of the many black and brown people killed by police every year. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has created a much larger discussion than in the past of reforming and even abolishing police. In an article in The Atlantic, lawyer Derecka Purnell writes, “Reforms make police polite managers of inequality,” and “Abolition makes police and inequality obsolete.” She is absolutely correct. How are we to reform a system that was built on the criminalization and control of black and brown people? The system must be torn apart and recreated in order to inflict real change and fight the inequalities in America.
This is where abolition comes in: if we get rid of the system completely, and start from scratch, creating a new system that values equality rather than power, then we are able to adapt to real change throughout the institution in this country. The same concept goes for prison reform versus prison abolition. We must address the serious issues of racism that are built into the institutions of this country and create new systems that value equality and efficiency.
In Are Prisons Obsolete? Angela Davis addresses that many people view prison abolitionists as irrational and unrealistic. She goes on to explain that prisons are so “natural,” as she puts it, that it is difficult for people to imagine a world without prisons. Through historical study and material analysis, Davis questions the rationale of prisons and if they are actually harming or helping society. She concludes that the United States’s practice of fast-paced expansion of prisons since the mid-20th century is actively harmful rather than something that keeps anyone safe. Throughout Are Prisons Obsolete? we are able to understand that abolition is not only about just getting rid of something entirely, but it is also about creating something that can help change the world for the better.
While some abolitionists, such as Mariame Kaba and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, believe that there are “reformist reforms” that we ought to oppose if we are to work towards abolition, I believe that it is not abolition versus reform, but that it is abolition and reform. While Davis, Kaba, Purnell, and Gilmore all establish different perspectives on reform and abolition, there are always new ways to think about abolition. Personally, I do believe that we need to focus on abolition and reform as two pieces of a whole strategy, simply because many people are afraid of the term abolition. I currently do not have much hope in society when it comes to abolishing institutions, so I believe that if we try to improve institutions without abolishing them completely, then in turn, I hope, more progress would be made and we would be a step closer to abolition. Reform might be what gets us there.