Abolition for the People
by Colin Kaepernick
In this book, Colin Kaepernick compiles a variety of essays from respected voices in the abolitionist community to provide a great introduction to the vision of abolitionism and an overview of its core principles.
“An institution based on social control instead of social well-being is an institution that needs to be abolished.”
MY TAKEAWAYS
While our criminal legal system is marketed as an institution based on “public safety”, all facets of the system blatantly ignore the well-being of communities and create more harm and violence than they prevent.
“Prisons do not contain a ‘criminal population’ running rampant but rather a population that society has repeatedly failed.” (Colin Kaepernick)
Various forms of media that we consume contain an alarming amount of “copaganda”—messages that portray the police as noble “public servants”— when in reality the police serve the state (not the people) and frequently carry out state-sanctioned violence and harm against the communities they are claimed to protect.
The media also employs alarmist claims of “crime waves” and crises to gain support for further investment in already-bloated police budgets, even while crime rates are actually steadily decreasing.
Our criminal legal system is not broken and cannot be fixed. As Naomi Murakawa writes, “Decades of reform have built an agile, deadly police force and the largest prison system in the world.”
Municipalities attempt to mask the police’s function as upholders of racial capitalism by diversifying police forces to include more people of color, when in fact the inherently racist structure and function of policing remains unchanged.
“Police forces in America began as slave patrols, and their primary function has always been to act in service of the white ownership class and its capitalist production.” (Bree Newsome Bass)
Abolition is not only about dismantling the current oppressive and violent systems, but about building the future we want and deserve - a future where police and prisons are no longer needed and in which prosecution and imprisonment no longer serve as our sad excuses for accountability and justice.
“In the final analysis, can a country that professes to be the land of the free, but which holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners and only 4 percent of the world’s population, truly reflect its promise of happiness and democracy?” (Mumia Abu-Jamal)