Prisons, Politics and Activism

3 units

Prison reformers argue that de-criminalizing nonviolent offenses will be enough to reduce mass incarceration, while prison abolitionists argue that we need to dismantle the entire carceral state in the U.S., which is maintained by a racially stratified system of public schooling, housing, employment and health care. What is at stake in these deabtes? Are we seeking to promote basic humanity, racial and gender equality or utopian visions of rehabilitation? This course seeks to historically contextualize prison reform and abolitionism from the 13th Amendment's re-articulation of slavery to current resistance to mass incarceration. Special attention will be paid to the intersections between the prisoner's rights movement and the Black & Brown Power, feminist, queer and disability movements.