Re: Is the Prison Obsolete? by Angela Davis

[nattyreb]

Comments re: Is the Prison Obsolete?, by Dr. Angela Y. Davis (7 Stories, 2003) [129pp.]


With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison.

As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly, the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men and women) Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable.

In Is the Prison Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.

There was a time in America when to call a person an 'abolitionist' was the ultimate epithet. It evoked scorn in the North and outrage in the South. Yet they were the harbingers of things to come. They were on the right side of history.

Prof. Angela Y. Davis stands in that proud, radical tradition.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Godssoulja]

Dr. Davis is right on point,

A better question to ask is who or whom is benefiting from prison systems? When I look at the ethnic background of those incarcerated in the prison systems I find that they all look like me. Why are the majority of the people in prison black? Short answer is racial profiling. Long answer is an ongoing attack is underway to rid the world of all people of color with the main benefactor being the white man.

The easiest way to destroy a family is to destroy the head. The black man is the head thus all of the attacks in the media, newspaper, TV, etc. Even Michael Vick was a scapegoat, I know personally of a white man who had over 1000 trained attacks dogs whom when charged for those dogs received only 5 years probation.

I cant help thinking that it aint what you know, but who you know you heard me.