What happened to abolitionism?
An investigation of a paradigm and social
movement.
Rebecca Roberts, Centre for Crime and
Justice Studies
ICOPA Conference, London
July 2008
Why study abolitionism?
‘Abolitionists are now regarded as
sociological dinosaurs, unreconstituted
hangovers from the profound but doomed
schisms of the late 1960s, who are
marginal to the ‘real’ intellectual
questions of the 1990s… Abolitionism, it
seems, has failed to impact upon the
direction of penal policy about crime and
punishment.’ (Sim, 1994)
What I’m going to do….
Methodology
Explore abolitionism:
How people became abolitionists
What abolitionism is
An assessment of abolitionism
Reflections on the future
What happened to abolitionism?
Methodology
Literature review
Ten unstructured interviews
Purposive sampling (interview people who
are relevant to the research questions)
Nine men
Nine professors
Activist / Academics
UK, Norway, Holland
Face to face interviews
Exploring abolitionism
1. ‘The moment of abolition’
2. What is abolitionism?
3. Assessing abolitionism
1. ‘The moment of abolition’ –
Becoming an abolitionist
The smell of the prison. The taste of the prison.
Every time I went home after being in prison I
had to wash all my clothes and have a shower. I
felt – the smell of it, the feel of it – completely
dominated. I think I just knew intuitively from
that experience that there was no way a society
that considered itself to be based on humane
principles could in any way keep people in these
situations. So I think it was an intuitive feeling, it
was an emotion, it was a response to being in a
place that was so debilitating just to visit.’ PS
2. What is abolitionism?
What kind of activity?
Way of thinking
What is to be tackled? What is to be done?
Critique (The focal point)
Reconceptualise or
Alternative discourse Concept of ‘crime’ redefine
Trajectory Punishment Reduce
or period of transition
Prisons Abolish
Hegemonic project
Political device
Activism
3. Assessing abolitionism (successes)
‘Because if there’s a state servant somewhere in a
prison and that state servant who may in the past
have slammed the door and walked away and
they know about the prisoners…. They… say to
themselves… I’ll get a tough time if something
happens to this prisoner here…. If they go back to
check… then abolitionism has done its job… I
know that sounds like an odd answer, but I think
it’s an important element. In a sense, that kind
of work and impact of that work can be defined
and quantified in some respects but in some other
times, it can’t’. JS
3. Assessing abolitionism (successes)
Hegemonic project
Challenged ‘reformism’
Dragged penal lobby and political
debate onto more radical terrain
Contributed to a ‘slowness’ of the
system
3. Assessing abolitionism (failings)
‘The failure in a way is glaringly
obvious. Look at the people in
prison. Abolitionism wasn’t exactly
an unqualified success’ TW
‘I think we’ve lost – we’ve lost so
much ground in terms of the
abolitionist debate’ PS
3. Assessing abolitionism
‘If you say you’re an abolitionist, you might as
well say you are a murderer or something like
that. Because, the way they’ve set it up is in
such a way that you are just regarded as crazy
or… not in touch with the real people.’ JS
You have to talk in a different way. It ends at the
same point... You need to be much more
pragmatic and you have to do a step back to
argue for a moratorium on prisons in an era when
the whole reductionist agenda is being discredited
– I found it pointless to start at that point but I
keep it in my mind and it’s still my end goal but I
have to approach it from a different way.’ RS
The future
‘It doesn’t feel, in terms of the response,
that it’s time has come. But, at some
stage, it may well come. Those sorts of
things are difficult to predict. We are
right so we might as well continue to be
there for when people wish to flock in our
direction… ‘I personally think that
abolitionism has lost confidence… I think
we need to begin to regain confidence in
it.’ JM
The future
‘I see it’s future, now, in the short term,
as one of containing the system. Where
it’s a kind of defensive attitude. And ‘no
more of this’… So, it’s a matter of
containment in the short run’ TM
Keep the prison reform lobby on its toes.
Goal of abolition of imprisonment for
children or women – realisable?
Bringing back in the ‘social’
‘The political climate has changed –
and how do you formulate an
abolitionist perspective? How should
people reflect on wider social
currents?... The strategic vision
would need to be different.’ MR
What happened to abolitionism?
1. On the defensive
2. Reform vs revolution is unresolved
3. Becoming more ‘realistic’
4. Focus on radical reductionism
1. Abolitionism is now on the defensive
Containing the system.
Focus on imprisonment.
Offensive abolitionist action seems
far from current agendas.
2. The question of reform vs abolition is
unresolved
Not fully addressed tensions
between revolution and reform.
Limited in scope to be a genuinely
‘revolutionary’ movement.
3. Abolitionism has become more
‘realistic’
Has abolitionism been drawn onto
more central ground?
Shift from ‘political’ to moral and
pragmatic arguments against
imprisonment?
4. Abolitionism now focuses primarily
on radical reductionism
Narrowing of focus
Rooted in critical and radical
history.
Critical of reformism.
Final points….
Should not be too gloomy or
pessimistic.
What is possible within current
political and economic contexts?
How wary should we be of reform?
A continuum of alternatives?
We would not be looking for prison like
substitutes for the prison, such as house
arrest safeguarded by electronic
surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing
decarceration as our overarching
strategy, we would try to envision a
continuum of alternatives to
imprisonment – demilitarization of
schools, revitalization of education at all
levels, a health system that provides free
physical and mental care to all, and a
justice system based on reparation and
reconciliation rather than retribution and
vengeance.’ (Davis, 2003)
We should certainly not think that
criminal justice could not be abolished..
‘You see, if I look at my own experience ….,
because I live for more or less a century.
I am 84 now… It’s very interesting when
you have such a large space to see all the
things… all the things you have seen
change… You know that things can
change very fast... I am firmly convinced
that nobody knows about the future… We
should certainly not think that criminal
justice could not be abolished.’ LH