THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The United States uses prisons and policing as a failed "solution" to social, political and economic problems. We call this system the "prison industrial complex," or PIC. As a result our communities are being destroyed.

The PIC depends upon the oppressive systems of racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia. It includes human rights violations, the death penalty, industry and labor issues, policing, courts, media, community powerlessness, the imprisonment of political prisoners, and the elimination of dissent.

The United States currently imprisons around 2 million people. About 6.5 million people are presently under some form of supervision within the criminal justice system. Women represent the fastest rising prison population. Since 1980, the number of women imprisoned in the U.S. has risen by almost 400 percent. Racism continues to be a major factor in the United States, illustrated by policies and programs that sustain white supremacy. Racism, as it is used through criminal laws that target people of color, is essential to the PIC, not accidental.

The PIC is also fueled by dramatic and racist reporting about "crime," "delinquency," and "rebellion," creating a culture of fear. As a result, people (primarily people of color, youth, and the economically disadvantaged) are locked in cages for longer and longer in the interests of "public safety." The way the many parts of the PIC interact is exactly what makes it so powerful and destructive. In order to fight this system, we have to recognize what drives and shapes it.

ABOLITION

Critical Resistance's vision is the creation of genuinely safe, healthy communities that do not rely on prisons and policing to respond to harm. We call our vision "abolition". We take the name "abolitionists" purposefully from those who called for the abolition of slavery in the 1800's. Abolitionists believed that slavery could not be fixed or reformed - it needed to abolished. We believe that prison is not an answer to drug addiction, poverty, or the harms our communities suffer. This system of locking people in cages cannot be fixed or reformed; it must be abolished.

The end goal of abolition is to reduce harm in our communities by creating lasting alternatives to punishment and prisons, investing in the things that truly build safe communities such as education, housing, and employment, thus eliminating the "need" for the prison industrial complex.

Organizing against the PIC is as much about building something as it is about fighting what is destroying our communities. Our organizing is also an ongoing effort to create alternatives, not only to imprisonment, but to the culture of punishment with which we've become familiar.

We know that abolition is a long term goal, one we may not see in our lifetimes. Today, that means we work to develop practical strategies for taking small steps toward abolition. These steps include shrinking the system by stopping prison expansion and promoting policies that reduce the number of people in prison or the reliance on policing; creating alternatives such as the Plan for a Safer Oakland or our reprinting of the book Instead of Prisons; shifting public onion and public policy through media and public education; and building and supporting leadership by the people prisons impact most. Ultimately, we hope to build a grassroots movement for abolition.

HARM

What is considered a crime is determined by the societies in which we live. Because we have seen over and over again that locking more people in cages does not reduce crime, we must understand the power relationships that lead society to lock up only certain people. Since prisons do not stop problems like poverty, racism, or drug addiction, we cannot expect them to stop crime. In fact, we see the impact prisons make on particular communities as harmful, or in the vocabulary of the PIC, criminal.

We define harm both as something one person does to hurt another, and as the oppression or violence caused by the prison industrial complex in our communities. We see our work as harm reduction: recognizing that the prison industrial complex has failed to reduce harm in our communities, we seek to reduce the harm caused by the prison industrial complex.

ACCOUNTABILITY

As abolitionists, we nonetheless believe in accountability. However, we do not believe that locking people in cages produces accountability. True accountability means that individuals and society must be held accountable for harms that occur and for providing community needs. Accountability means providing support for both the persons harmed and the persons who cause harm. It means repairing the harm that has been done and preventing future harms.