Abolition of police and prisons

> Ultimately, this “generous offer” amounted to turning the West Bank into non-contiguous cantons, crisscrossed by a network of settlements, roads and Israeli areas. Even the supposed “capital” of the Palestinian state would mostly be under Israeli control, with stipulations and conditions that stripped any real sovereignty from any area of the supposed Palestinian “state”. Not even the sky above Palestinian heads would be under their control, nor the water under their feet, as Israel still demanded access to water resources under the West Bank.

From abolitionist.tools

> As demands to divest from policing and invest in non-police community-based and accountable safety strategies have become the subject of broader discussion, several organizing campaigns have expanded defund demands to include courts, prosecutors' offices, and other machinery of the criminal punishment system. > > In this workshop, hosted by Community Justice Exchange, Interrupting Criminalization, and Critical Resistance, we explore why the abolition of the prison-industrial complex necessarily requires abolition of the criminal court system. Together, we’ll learn how criminal courts serve as the machinery of prosecution, punishment, and surveillance, feeding people into prisons, probation, and other forms of surveillance and control. We’ll discuss the interventions organizers and community members are already making to shift and build power while criminal courts still exist, like reforming bail and pre-trial detention policies. We’ll present the reformist detours to avoid that serve to only move us farther away from abolition - like campaigns to elect and defend "progressive prosecutors," and calls for the establishment and expansion of court-based diversion programs - while highlighting the organizing campaigns and interventions that might get us closer.

>If the use of human shields was so wide as to cause hundreds upon hundreds of dead Palestinian civilians, then surely there would be a reporter or an observer on the ground that could have caught a whiff of it. But reporters on the ground could find no trace of such a supposedly widespread action, Jeremy Bowen of the BBC wrote that he found no evidence of the use of human shields while he was covering the assault on Gaza. Similarly, Kim Sengupta writing for the Belfast Telegraph interviewed Palestinians in Gaza and unsurprisingly came to a similar conclusion: Hamas was not forcing anybody to be a human shield, counter to Netanyahu’s claims. > >But perhaps these reporters were missing something, let us consult an organization which specializes in these matters. Fortunately for us, Amnesty international released a detailed report of its investigation into the matter. In their report they indicate that: > >> “The Israeli authorities have claimed that in a few incidents, the Hamas authorities or Palestinian fighters directed or physically coerced individual civilians in specific locations to shield combatants or military objectives. Amnesty International has not been able to corroborate the facts in any of these cases.” > >So, it seems that the Israeli claims have no basis in reality, and are just a way to demonize Palestinians and legitimize their indiscriminate bombardment of civilians. This is hardly the first time Israel has used this accusation to delegitimize their enemies. For example, in the 2006 war against Lebanon Israel accused Hizballah of using human shields. Unsurprisingly, investigations by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch similarly found no evidence.

> Long-time prison abolitionist Jacques Lesage de La Haye reflects on decades of anti-prison organizing in France and his personal journey from inmate to activist.

Winning proposal:

>Once Derek Chauvin has been found guilty in a court of law, he is sentenced to a term of community service of a length and type appropriate to the severity of his crime. (So in this case, a lot. Life?) That community service is overseen by agents of the court; I’m thinking more like lawyers or clerks, less like armed bailiffs. Those agents are not charged with forcing him to stick to the community service, but rather just observing whether he does so.

>If he forfeits on his community service, as determined by the courts, then he will be considered an “outlaw” - meaning, specifically, someone not protected by the law. Anything done to him that would ordinarily constitute a crime no longer does. No police are necessary; if he refuses to serve his time helping his fellow man, then anybody with a chip on their shoulder can punish him for it. As long as he sticks to his sentence, he’s safe, with his life dedicated to helping others. And if anyone were to commit a crime against him while he was in that situation they would face the same fate he currently faces—an appropriate community service sentence enforced by the threat of being put outside of the protection of the law should he violate that sentence.

>Obviously, it’s crucial that the courts are seen as impartial and unimpeachable, since they don’t have a bunch of men with guns to enforce their will. But it’s the best I’ve got. Derek broke the social contract; either he makes amends or we’ll put him outside of the protection of that social contract. Simple as that.

Excerpt:

> At the end of June 2023, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 147 Palestinian minors in detention or in prison on what it defined “security” grounds. At that time, the IPS was also holding 26 Palestinian minors for being in Israel illegally. > > At the end of 2020, the IPS adopted a new policy and stopped providing B'Tselem with the requested figures. Instead, it has since published some data on the IPS website every three months. The first year this occurred (July 2020 through September 2021), the figures published were partial and therefore are not included here.

> Relying on state violence to curb domestic violence only ends up harming the most marginalized women.

> This carceral variant of feminism continues to be the predominant form. While its adherents would likely reject the descriptor, carceral feminism describes an approach that sees increased policing, prosecution, and imprisonment as the primary solution to violence against women.

> Carceral feminists have said little about law-enforcement violence and the overwhelming number of survivors behind bars. Similarly, many groups organizing against mass incarceration often fail to address violence against women, often focusing exclusively on men in prison. But others, especially women of color activists, scholars, and organizers, have been speaking out.

> By relying solely on a criminalized response, carceral feminism fails to address these social and economic inequities, let alone advocate for policies that ensure women are not economically dependent on abusive partners. Carceral feminism fails to address the myriad forms of violence faced by women, including police violence and mass incarceration. It fails to address factors that exacerbate abuse, such as male entitlement, economic inequality, the lack of safe and affordable housing, and the absence of other resources.

> Carceral feminism abets the growth of the state’s worst functions, while obscuring the shrinking of its best. At the same time, it conveniently ignores the anti-violence efforts and organizing by those who have always known that criminalized responses pose further threats rather than promises of safety.

The short war which Azerbaijan waged against Armenian-populated Karabakh after a months-long blocade is over (Armenian separatists lost, and will likely get ethnically cleansed out of the region)...

...but in the aftermath, it's worth pointing out that several high-profile Azeris did speak against their government starting a war - and were repressed.

The most worrisome case is the chairman of the confederation of trade unions, Afiaddin Mammadov. A provocateur who had previously injured himself threw a knife at him, and cops arrested him immediately after that, claiming he had injured the provocateur.

Excerpt:

> The two fatalities are among a growing list of young people dying inside Minnesota’s correctional facilities this year – another young man, Oscar D. Rodriguez-Corona, 21, was found dead inside Hennepin County Jail on September 18. > > Rivera-Coba’s death is being investigated by the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office. However, nearly two months after he died, the county hasn’t received the toxicology or autopsy reports from the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office. > > Rivera-Coba’s family and advocates gathered outside Anoka County Jail on August 10 demanding answers to his death and an investigation into the jail.

Did my first bit of Lemmy moderation ever to ban someone for making dehumanizing comments and making copoganda. Copogandists, we don't want you here. This is not your space. Please report such comments as you see it.

> How do we imagine a world without prisons and policing? Transforming our punishment mindsets is a daily discipline. Punishment is so deeply ingrained that we fail to even notice how we enact it in our lives. It takes practice to uproot it and to focus on being more restorative in our interactions.

I think I agree with Robin D.G. Kelly that we can work toward and organize for abolition under capitalism, but that abolition itself also requires that capitalism be abolished alongside the police and prisons. Capitalism needs police and prisons to absorb surplus populations and as a means to keep proletarian unrest under foot. Capitalism cannot survive if prisons and police are abolished. Likewise, police and prisons need the wealth expropriated from the working class in order to maintain the police and prisons, as these things do not produce value in of itself.

Update from yesterday - Prisoners Face Retaliation for Protest at MCF-Stillwater

> Abolition communism is not a qualitatively new form of communism but rather an integration of abolitionist and communist consciousness. Abolition communism is the idea that communist measures must simultaneously be abolitionist steps. This does not mean that abolitionist steps such as the defunding of police and decarceration of prisoners are necessarily communist measures, though these steps do make communist organizing under capitalism easier. Rather, communist measures implemented by abolitionist communists dismantle systems of policing and incarceration simultaneous to dismantling wage-labor, the State, work, et cetera, precisely because policing and incarceration are central to the rule of capital. The freeing of the prisoners and setting fire to the prisons does more for the proletariat than a hundred programs.

Robin D.G. Kelley talks on what abolition communism means as a horizon and as a practice.

> Being personally thrilled with someone going to prison is anyone’s prerogative, and we understand that a person may feel joy at another’s incapacitation if that individual has repeatedly and unrepentantly caused grievous harm. Let’s be clear though: advocating for someone’s imprisonment is not abolitionist. Mistaking emotional satisfaction for justice is also not abolitionist. > > Abolitionism is not a politics mediated by emotional responses. Or, as we initially wanted to title this piece, abolition is not about your fucking feelings. Of course, everything involves feelings, but celebrating anyone’s incarceration is counter to PIC abolition. > > This may frustrate or anger people who want to claim an abolitionist identity or politic despite not being ready to operate from basic abolitionist principles. We understand. For years, both of us have facilitated community accountability processes to address interpersonal harms (particularly involving sexual and intimate partner violence). As survivors of sexual harm, accountability is always at the forefront in our consciousness. We understand how damaging and serious sexual violence is. And we too have sometimes wished that abolition wasn’t so rigorous in its demands of our politics. > > While abolition is a flexible praxis contingent upon social conditions and communal needs, it is built on a set of core principles. Everyone doesn’t have to be an abolitionist. But if you declare yourself to be, you’re committing to some basic obligations....

> As PIC abolitionists and transformative justice practitioners, we’re always asked, “What about the rapists?” Lately, the question has been phrased like this: “Well, surely you don’t mean that R. Kelly shouldn’t be in prison?” We do. > > What we tell people is this: the criminal legal system will never “bring to justice” every person who does harm in our society. This is impossible. We cannot under any system “prosecute” our way out of harm. As a strategy for justly evaluating and adjudicating sexual harm, the criminal legal system has proven, empirically and qualitatively, an utter failure. Relying on it as the sole response to sexual violence has failed to offer opportunities for accountability and healing for those directly impacted by that violence; in fact, the criminal legal system does not even purport to care about whether survivors of sexual violence heal. Billions of dollars are poured yearly into a criminal legal system most people involved in proceedings of say doesn’t deliver the justice they seek.

~ Mariame Kaba and Rachel Herzing, We Do This 'Til We Free Us, “Transforming Punishment: What Is Accountability without Punishment?”

Excerpt: >Although Shaw’s action was particularly dramatic, rebellion on the part of prisoners and detainees in the face of inhumane conditions is not rare. In prisons, jails, and detention centers all across the country, prisoners and detainees are consistently participating in a mostly spontaneous, decentralized, and often leaderless social movement against the United States’ massive, and historically unprecedented, carceral archipelago. Most of those actions pass largely unnoticed as law enforcement agencies and departments of correction work to minimize their social impact.

> Abolish Criminology presents critical scholarship on criminology and criminal justice ideologies and practices, alongside emerging freedom-driven visions and practices for new world formations.

> The book introduces readers to a detailed history and analysis of crime as a concept and its colonizing trajectories into existence and enforcement. These significant contexts buried within peculiar academic histories and classroom practices are often overlooked or unknown outside academic and public discussions, causing the impact of racializing-gendering-sexualizing histories to extend and grow through criminology’s creation of crime, extending how the concept is weaponized and enforced through the criminal legal system. It offers written, visual, and poetic teachings from the perspectives of students, professors, imprisoned and formerly imprisoned persons, and artists. This allows readers to engage in multi-sensory, inter-disciplinary, and multi-perspective teachings on criminology’s often discussed but seldom interrogated mythologies on violence and danger, and their wide-reaching enforcements through the criminal legal system’s research, theories, agencies, and dominant cultures.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/4661775

> Le documentaire "Produire la menace" révèle comment les agences de sécurité canadiennes incitent des citoyens vulnérables à commettre des crimes pour justifier leurs budgets. Il se concentre sur l'histoire de John (Omar) Nuttall et Amanda (Ana) Korody, manipulés par la police pour tenter un attentat. Bien que libérés, cette tactique est répandue. Les coûts de sécurité augmentent avec l'utilisation d'agents provocateurs, alimentant une industrie de plusieurs milliards de dollars. L'opacité entourant les services secrets rend difficile de connaître l'étendue de ces pratiques. Le film vise à sensibiliser le public à ces méthodes et à leur utilisation potentielle contre des groupes environnementalistes et autochtones.