i listened to the ep and was about to pull my hair out at that part. will and felix have no clue about the real-world alternatives abolition advocates are calling for, and it starts by demystifying the farcical and sadistic view the average usian has regarding what the police and prisons really are. that’s where there is political ground to be gained, not by more fear mongering. if one genuinely cares about the right-wing canard of “victims’ rights” then prison abolition is the path forward.
the real-world alternatives abolition advocates are calling for
What are you thinking of? A lot of alternatives (including de-criminalizing certain drug use, for instance) do work very well for some cases. I think the trouble starts when you ask what we should do in cases where those alternatives fail.
first, it means we create a system that addresses crime as an outcome, not a cause unto itself, with a refocus from reactive measures (that is, our current system) to preventative ones (increased social services, etc.). this would cost billions of dollars, but good news! there’s billions available in the pigs’ piggybank.
after a crime is committed, it means focusing on restorative justice integrating offenders back into purposeful, beneficial work–especially work tailored to making victims of crime whole–instead of just locking them in a box and pretending that does anything other than facilitate more crime down the road. it doesn’t have to be a labor camp, which is just a prison by another name, but it can at least be something more akin to a job.
i hate hypotheticals, but let’s imagine a crime that can’t be prevented merely due to lifting someone out of poverty, domestic violence, for example. domestic violence rates are higher among the poor, but not zero among the affluent. under the current system, poorer offenders are locked up while wealthier domestic abusers usually get probation. in both case, nothing happens to make the victims safer or restored.
under a restorative justice model, one option (but certainly not the only one) would be putting these offenders under supervised work programs benefiting their victims in some manner, either directly through payouts or systemically in services that tangentially boost the well being of those partners. that is NOT to say that we putremoveds out mowing the lawns of their victims every weekend, but any model that prioritizes the restoration of the victim would be better than what we have now.
I think we should do all of that. We do some of it now (being sentenced to complete community service is “purposeful, beneficial work”), and we also sentence a lot of people to probation, not jail.
Where I see that approach break down is when you have someone keep committing crimes, which is common in your example of domestic violence.
i listened to the ep and was about to pull my hair out at that part. will and felix have no clue about the real-world alternatives abolition advocates are calling for, and it starts by demystifying the farcical and sadistic view the average usian has regarding what the police and prisons really are. that’s where there is political ground to be gained, not by more fear mongering. if one genuinely cares about the right-wing canard of “victims’ rights” then prison abolition is the path forward.
What are you thinking of? A lot of alternatives (including de-criminalizing certain drug use, for instance) do work very well for some cases. I think the trouble starts when you ask what we should do in cases where those alternatives fail.
first, it means we create a system that addresses crime as an outcome, not a cause unto itself, with a refocus from reactive measures (that is, our current system) to preventative ones (increased social services, etc.). this would cost billions of dollars, but good news! there’s billions available in the pigs’ piggybank.
after a crime is committed, it means focusing on restorative justice integrating offenders back into purposeful, beneficial work–especially work tailored to making victims of crime whole–instead of just locking them in a box and pretending that does anything other than facilitate more crime down the road. it doesn’t have to be a labor camp, which is just a prison by another name, but it can at least be something more akin to a job.
i hate hypotheticals, but let’s imagine a crime that can’t be prevented merely due to lifting someone out of poverty, domestic violence, for example. domestic violence rates are higher among the poor, but not zero among the affluent. under the current system, poorer offenders are locked up while wealthier domestic abusers usually get probation. in both case, nothing happens to make the victims safer or restored.
under a restorative justice model, one option (but certainly not the only one) would be putting these offenders under supervised work programs benefiting their victims in some manner, either directly through payouts or systemically in services that tangentially boost the well being of those partners. that is NOT to say that we putremoveds out mowing the lawns of their victims every weekend, but any model that prioritizes the restoration of the victim would be better than what we have now.
I think we should do all of that. We do some of it now (being sentenced to complete community service is “purposeful, beneficial work”), and we also sentence a lot of people to probation, not jail.
Where I see that approach break down is when you have someone keep committing crimes, which is common in your example of domestic violence.