THE CRISIS OF THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Prisons and policing are destroying us. In the past two decades, the number
of people in prison in the U.S. has risen 400%. The system is filled with
68% people of color. One in three Black males born today will end up in a
cage. And an additional 4 million former prisoners in the U.S. are left
without hope or resources - barred employment opportunities,
disenfranchised, and often prohibited from getting federal loans, applying
for public housing, or getting services.

In neighborhoods where people are most affected by mass imprisonment and
policing, we see the direct effects of our society's $50 billion per year
investment in prisons and policing: schools are closing, homelessness is
rampant, basic health care remains out of reach, and poverty remains an
entrenched reality in the richest country on earth.

The prison industrial complex, or PIC, affects everyone. There have been
huge increases in police and court powers over all our lives. Poor people of
color continue to lose power. And prisons have failed to cut crime. They
have instead led to more racism, poverty, and sexism. Our communities only
become weaker when we use punishment to solve our problems.

CRITICAL RESISTANCE'S VISION

Critical Resistance's vision is the creation of genuinely safe, healthy
communities that respond to harm without relying on prisons and punishment.

We call our vision "abolition", and take the name 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 be
abolished. As PIC abolitionists today, we also do not believe that reforms
can make the PIC just or effective. Our goal is not to improve the system;
it is to shrink the system into non-existence.

We don't believe that we need the PIC to keep us safe. Instead, we work to
build safe and healthy communities, where the basics are provided, such as
food, shelter, and self-determination. We also work to create and promote
alternatives to the current system.

Critical Resistance (CR) is building a member-led and member-run grassroots
movement to stop using punishment to "cure" complicated social problems. We
know that more police and prisons will not make our communities safer.
Instead, we know that things like food, housing, and freedom are what
creates lasting safety. We work to prevent people from being arrested or
locked up in prison. In all our work, we organize to build power and to
stop the devastation that the reliance on prisons and policing have brought
to ourselves, our families, and our communities.

CREATING ALTERNATIVES

Even today, when so many rely so heavily on the prison industrial complex to
respond to harm, alternatives are being tested inside and outside the U.S.
Within the US, neighbors are setting up alternative neighborhood watches (or
shifting the agendas of existing ones) to support each other and provide
safe living environments without involving local police. Conferencing
circles and mediation are increasingly being used to resolve disputes. Some
organizations that work closely with survivors of sexual violence have begun
to reject intervention by the police while developing their own
community-based alternatives for safety and conflict resolution. Alternative
schools have been established that provide practical alternatives to the
juvenile justice system.

The goal of abolition pushes us to broaden our options in responding to
harm. Creating a wider spectrum for economic and political participation;
making affordable, quality housing for everyone a priority; or understanding
substance use as a health issue can help us challenge some of the
assumptions on which the prison industrial complex is based upon.

While in the long run we seek abolition; in the short run we seek
alternatives to cage based punishment and to reduce the number of prisoners
and prisons. Today, we are taking practical, small steps that will move us
toward abolition.