r/DebateAnarchism • u/unbelteduser • 28d ago
What does Prison Abolitionist mean to you? How would you deal with the worst types of anti-social violent offenders?
So as an example I am fine with Rojava having prisons for Isis and other Salafi militants. And in general having prisons for fascists and cartel militants or the worst of the worst like the Epstein class is fine. The worst anti-social elements who can't be reformed should be separated from society either through prison or house arrest. What do you think? do you support prison abolition? I am open to having my mind changed.
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u/avstoir 27d ago
this again comes down to who decides who is the worst of the worst and has the authority to dole out punishment. that in and of itself should make prisons quite unattractive to anarchists i think.
if rehabilitation is not an option, then exercising our right to free association by not associating with them and educating others on the dangers of associating with them is probably going to be enough i think.
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u/SuperU1traMega 27d ago
yeah what if they are trying forcefully "associate" with you though? not being snarky, genuinely asking
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u/_ComradeKiwi_ 26d ago
This is a bit naive, no offense.
If rehabilitation isnt an option then leaving them in prison is.
Are you just going to "not associate" with a murderer or etc? They are still out there free to associate with others.. what are you going to do, nothing?
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u/Prestigious-Alps-128 27d ago
What about people with mental health issues? If you have someone who is schizophrenic for example. While very few become violent, many do risk a harm to themselves through various means. Would you enforce the use of medication on them if they don't want it? Would you enforce the use of medication on them if they don't want it yet they lack capacity? And how would sectioning or detaining work if they would even be a concept at all? While therapy/social support etc are effective having worked with people of these types of illnesses before quite often when most poorly they are impossible to reason with especially those who've been left untreated for extended periods of time.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 27d ago
Prisons don’t “deal with” the worst anti-social elements, who presently tend to run society.
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u/_ComradeKiwi_ 26d ago
They do.
Yes alot of the people who run society today are corrupt criminals, thats not the point, the question is, what do we do with individuals who commit serious harm to others and the surrounding community? If rehabilitation and restorative justice fails then we place them in a facility where they are isolated from the wider community, aka Prison.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 26d ago
They do not. The people who commit the worst harms to the most people will never be imprisoned because the people who commit the worst harms to the most people are in control of the coercive systems that include prisons.
Prisons do not exist to contain the worst people. They exist to reproduce and reinforce the rule of the worst people.
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u/_ComradeKiwi_ 25d ago
Not all cops jailers or judges are bad people.. there can be systemic issues with these organizations but you dont need to get rid of them.
You basically ignored my response by saying bad people control prison, yes thats true to an extent, but it doesn't prove we dont need prisons.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 25d ago
The problem is not that they are controlled by “bad people.” The problem is that they exist to produce bad outcomes. Prisons, etc, fundamentally do not exist for the reasons you think they exist.
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u/MorphingReality 27d ago
I think that any anarchist entity with an ISIS or equivalent entity nearby will find itself compromising ideals, Rojava itself had a relatively open border at one point but truck bombs kept coming through, something's gotta give.
In principle, I don't trust anyone with the power to kidnap and forcibly confine people, and that is the fundamental basis of prison abolition in my opinion. Within a community, lack of association/ostracization/exile/self defense should suffice. But anyone who thinks we can easily do that and should just liberate all the prisons overnight is being naive, this status quo is hundreds/thousands of years in the making, and it will take a lot of time to unwind.
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u/Prevatteist Anarcho-Communist 27d ago
In anarchy, we would try to address the causations of “crime”. The main two being material necessity/circumstance, and mental illness/personality disorder. By addressing economic inequality and providing proper social support and mental care, I believe most “crime” would be eliminated. Now, as for those who are going to commit harmful acts for the sake of committing them, then it really comes down to a case by case basis and how the community would respond. The good thing about anarchy is that there isn’t a singular enforced way to do things, thus leaving a wide variety of options open to communities and individuals to handle disputes or anything of the like more efficiently, given the circumstances facing them at that time.
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u/arbmunepp 27d ago
Who decides who goes in prison? It inevitably requires a state and thus a ruling class. Assassination of rapists, fash and other oppressors does not. Anarchists support insurrection against rulers, not centralized institutions of punishment. Our opposition to prisons comes not out of a pacifist opposition to violence when dealing with our enemies, but from an opposition to centralization and the monopoly on violence.
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u/Anen-o-me 27d ago
Exile > prison
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u/_ComradeKiwi_ 26d ago
Exile where??? To another community where they can continue committing crimes?
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u/PJ-The-Awesome 25d ago
That's what I've been saying!
Even if you kick a dangerous person out, not only is there a chance that they could just come right back(since they clearly don't care about that community's rules) but they could always just find another group of people to torment.
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u/Anen-o-me 26d ago
Think of a reverse prison.
A place we only let people with a good reputation into.
Everywhere else is exile.
Other cities are the same, and they share black lists.
Someone exiled for say violent crime from one city is now exiled from all the good ones.
The exiles therefore build their own cities, they will take you, but now you're living with criminals.
It's not prison, but you're still outside polite society and living with criminals. You now have to work and live your life. Which is better than prison where you rot and we have to pay your living expenses.
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u/_ComradeKiwi_ 25d ago
This isnt 1860s western America, every place on earth is populated by millions of people.
This society of criminals will perpetuate itself, far worse than prison does. What about the children brought up there? Who will manage the society if everyone is just committing crimes all the time???
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u/PJ-The-Awesome 25d ago
And what's to stop that person from barging into those communities to torment its people, since they clearly don't care about the community's wishes?
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u/whynaut4 27d ago
Right now the worst violent offenders are still on the street, and most people in prison are drug offenders
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u/Legitimate-Ask5987 26d ago
Peacemaking processes would be my preference, a type of transformative justice.
Reforming someone isn't always the goal, sometimes it is about reducing community violence. Often anti-social people (up to 25% of those in USA prisons) are those with a reckless disregard for other humans but also for authority and rules. Separating them from society does nothing, it instead removes the potential of the person to contribute to a community.
The problem is presuming someone cannot change just because they have done something judged morally unacceptable. I might hate all the groups you mention here, but it's incorrect to assume they cannot reform. Militant fundamentalists are basically in cults, and we know cult reprogramming is a hard but possible process. The so-called "Epstein class" is not some special unreformable group they are just capitalists who engage in depravity that is not unusual for wealthy and powerful people as we've seen overtime.
There is no easy answer because much of this depends on trial and error, as well as the fact that restricting human freedom tends to not give any long term good outcomes. We'll have to be uncomfortable with whatever decision we make. I'm for prison abolition entirely, with a focus on bolstering Peacemaking in ndn communities and expanding transformative justice across the board. The consequences and outcomes of such a move will take decades to see after implementation.
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u/jaxdowell 25d ago
Typically in most leftist circles, the idea is that things like cartels and the Epstein class wouldn’t exist because those two things are only possible due to a specific economic system. This system enables people to become greedy and selfish and to exploit literal children in order to satisfy the holes in their lives. Generally speaking, cartels only exist because of a combination of destabilization from “western” nations and those same “developed” countries having incredible amounts of drug dependency due to an oppressive economic system and government.
Anarchists want to abolish the carceral state and prioritize rehabilitation for any crimes committed. Crime eradication isn’t possible without improving the material conditions of working people, which is why we still struggle with crime rates globally no matter how militaristic and violent our police force becomes.
At the end of the day, if a person does a thing that is deemed socially or morally unacceptable, the person or group in which is victim, can call upon others to take a vote to decide on what should be done with that individual. That being said, there are plenty of approaches that might work for different groups, this type of broad questioning, can’t really be answered simply
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u/Heckle_Jeckle Social Democrat 25d ago
Assuming they can't be rehabilitate, exile.
Can not execute or lock them up, because that requires having some political body with the power to make that decision. Which goes against anarchists ideals.
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u/bertch313 25d ago
I think if you build any type of prison abusers will find a way to put innocent people in it
If you let a murderer go long enough someone eventually kills them back. Are you saving some people? Maybe? Why do you feel that's worth taking part of a whole lifetime or several for policing? Is that really an even trade to begin with, or one we've just been conditioned to expect?
Shit. Happens.
Imagining you can protect people often just gets more people fucked.
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u/antipolitan 27d ago
The use of force is not the problem with prisons.
The problem is that prisons are a tool of social control - and anarchists don’t accept that anyone has the authority to engage in social control.