Creating New Anchors: An Introduction to Prison Industrial Complex Abolition

Undergraduate / Graduate

This intensive seminar will introduce and discuss prison abolition as both a long-term vision and a practical organizing strategy. We will explore the ways in which the criminal punishment system and other systems of oppression perpetuate violence and fail to address harm and facilitate accountability. Examples of abolitionist strategies and movements will be reviewed. The connections between abolitionist values and the social work profession's values and ethics will also be examined. We will attempt to move beyond abolition as a theoretical framework and push ourselves to think of the tangible steps required to move towards abolition as a praxis. Angela Davis said, "Mass imprisonment generates profits as it devours social wealth, and thus it tends to reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison." PIC abolition is a philosophy, a daily practice, and an organizing strategy. It requires us to examine our default frameworks (built by white supremacy, anti-Black racism, and capitalism) to relate to one another and create entirely new ways of being with and caring for one another. We will closely read from a selection of interdisciplinary texts, including books, organizing campaign documents, conceptual/theoretical pieces, memoirs, poetry, music, and other forms of scholarship. Each week will include examples of community organizing and/or policy advocacy that connect the philosophy of abolition with its application and practice.