I find myself incredibly disappointed that the notion of prison abolition presented by Angela Davis in her book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, is being brushed off as implausible and unthinkable.  Why shouldn’t prisons be recognized as the racist, sexist, and thoroughly corrupt institutions that they are?  Then, once recognized as such, why shouldn’t they be done away with?  How can a community of morally and socially conscious citizens allow atrocities such as these to continue existing without being challenged?

Let’s start with the facts.  I think most people will agree with Davis on most of her points about the corruption, racism, and sexism within the prison system.  These instances are well-documented and undeniable: the majority of prison inmates represent a minority of the population as a whole; harsh treatment within the prison on the part of guards; prisoners are not rehabilitated at all, thus there is a high rate of recidivism. As Davis says in her book, prisons “reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison.” We all know that the system is not working. So why not get rid of it?

Before everyone pounces on me, let me explain why prisons are innately wrong.  First, what gives anyone the right to rescind rights from others, regardless of their crimes? We elect officials and give them this power to decide who should or should not be punished, but why? What makes them capable of deciding right and wrong and what punishments people deserve? Nothing. There is nothing to distinguish one person from another in terms of ability to dole out sentences. Yet there they are, taking away years from people’s lives, or in some cases, their lives themselves.

Granted, I understand the concept behind prisons: People want to protect themselves from others who are deemed as dangers to society. Yes, there are dangerous crimes. However, most prisoners have been incarcerated for non-violent crimes, such as drug possession. Is drug possession dangerous to anyone? No, not really. It may be dangerous to the person using it, depending on the drug, but that does not pose a threat to the rest of society. In fact, according to John Stuart Mill’s harm principle (which he discusses in On Liberty), people should have the freedom to do anything they please, so long as it does not harm another human being. Thus, in the case of drug use, as long as the person is not, say, taking drugs and shooting people, he or she should not be punished (not on the grounds of possession or use alone).

To get back to the main point, most people in prison have not done anything to harm another human being. So what can be done with them instead? Rehab! What a novel idea. Imagine a world in which people with addictions to drugs are treated and made better instead of punished and turned into criminals. Gosh, doesn’t that sound better than the one we have, in which people with drug-related problems are tossed into a broken system from which they are unlikely to ever escape?

What about those people who have harmed others and are punished for doing so? Again, let’s look at what they have done. Take the small percentage of people who commit mass murder, or even just murder in general. The majority of society would probably agree that they should be put to death, or at least locked up for the rest of their lives. Is this truly a solution to the problem? No. For rational thinkers, killing another human being is so morally wrong that they could never even imagine doing it. So if someone has taken the life of another person, isn’t there something mentally wrong with him or her? For someone to dismiss the idea of all consequences and morality and take a life, there has to have been something wrong. Based on this idea, should they receive harsh punishment, even though their crime is arguably heinous? No. The mentally ill and criminally insane, again, need rehabilitation. Putting someone away forever will not help them to improve their lives or reform themselves. It will only label them as criminals and prevent them from ever moving on. Prisons are allegedly used to protect people. What about those who are the “danger”? Are they not people? If the danger is themselves, shouldn’t they be protected by being rehabilitated rather than punished?

Think about it. We are each given one life. So if someone makes a mistake in theirs, or is disabled or impaired by addiction or mental illness, they should not be put away for the remainder of it. It should be the responsibility of society to try to give everyone the quality of life they deserve, not by locking some people up to protect others, but by rehabilitating those who need it to not only protect society as a whole, but to also help those who need it. Prisons are incapable of helping anyone. Once again, if they aren’t doing the job they were designed to do, why are we keeping them around?

In closing, I’d like to go back to something Davis said towards the end of her book. “…’criminals’ have been constituted as a class and, indeed, a class of human beings undeserving of the civil and human rights accorded to others. Radical criminologists have long pointed out that the category ‘law-breakers’ is far greater than the category of individuals who are deemed criminals since, many point out, almost all of us have broken the law at one time or another.” If we incarcerate every single person who has ever broken a law based on the idea of protecting society, there would be no one left to protect.

Abolish prisons. Improve society.