Instead of prisons: a handbook for abolitionists
Yüklə 1,92 Mb.
|
- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Gates v. Collier
- Trop v. Dulles
- Novak v. Beto
- Raymond v. Rundle
- 3. DIMINISHING/DISMANTLING THE PRISON SYSTEM
- The attrition model
- Building the caring community
- Here are some ways to build the caring community
- 4. MORATORIUM ON PRISON/JAIL CONSTRUCTION
- Arguments in favor of prison construction
| Holt v. Sarver, 309 F. Supp. 363 (E. D. Ark. 1970), aff'd 442 F. 2d 304 (8th Cir. 1971); Rhem v. Malcolm, 371 F. Supp. 594 (S.D.N.Y. 1974) aff'd 507 F. 2d 333 (2d Cir. 1974); Gates v. Collier, 349 F. Supp. 881 (N.D. Miss. 1972); Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstudt, 360 F. Supp. 676 (D. Mass. 1973).
156. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 409 U.S. 902 (1972). 157. See Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1957). 158. Holt v. Sarver, 309 F. Supp. 362 (E.D. Ark. 1970). 159. Ibid., pp. 372-73. 160. See cases cited in note 155. 161. See Novak v. Beto, 453 F. 2d 661 (5th Cit. 1971). 162. Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 (1974). 163. See Raymond v. Rundle, 276 F. Supp. 637 (E.D. Pa. 1967); Walker v. Pate, 356 F. 2d 502 (7th Cir. 1966). 164. Wilson v. Kelley, 294 F. Supp.. 1005, 1012 (N.D. Ga. 1968). 165. See Steve Bagwell (ed.), Depopulating the Prison, p. 62. Instead of Prisons Table of Contents > Chapter 3 3. DIMINISHING/DISMANTLING THE PRISON SYSTEM Value of creating a model As prison abolitionists, it is important that we examine whether our actions move us toward our goals. A vision or continuing plan of action helps us to assess our day-to-day work, enabling us to see how our small piece of work fits into the whole. Without a long range plan, it is possible to waste a great deal of energy because expectations are unrealistic or because we lack the focus necessary to move us nearer our goals. The result can be disillusionment, frustration, and a sense of defeat. For instance, many good court watching programs produce interesting data, but eventually dribble out because there seems to be no way to counteract society's racism and classism in the criminal selection process. However, if court watching programs are placed in an abolition context, the elimination of bail and preventive detention are not seen as ends in themselves. Intermediate strategies might include the creation of release on recognizance (ROR) programs, voluntary restitution programs, and local support groups to move releasees into assistance programs in the community. These programs can be envisioned as part of a wider campaign to continually move toward the abolition of bail, and ultimately, of imprisonment itself. The prospect of changing a system as massive, complex and powerful as the prison system could overwhelm and paralyze us if we were unable to design our work into a series of manageable parts. Visualizing our long range goal of prison abolition as a chain of shorter campaigns around specific issues provides us with the "handles" we need on the overall problem. We are not proposing a single model for prison change. We encourage developing many models, based on the reality of our life situations. For instance, abolition models structured by prisoners might differ from models structured by prisoner allies outside the walls. But the need for communication, agreement on goals, and support for each others' campaigns is crucial to developing a serious abolition movement. While a vision for dismantling prisons will help to clarify our collective strategies, we cannot expect that a proposed model will always be carried out in an orderly sequence. Various forces and dynamics undoubtedly will require some flexibility in our strategies. A good model can be remodeled and adapted to meet unforeseen opportunities for change. We have structured an attrition model as one example of a long range process for abolition. "Attrition," which means the rubbing away or wearing down by friction, reflects the persistent and continuing strategy necessary to diminish the function and power of prisons in our society. To clarify our terms, the reforms we recommend are "abolishing-type" reforms: those that do not add improvement to or legitimize the prevailing system. We also call for partial abolitions of the system: abolishing certain criminal laws, abolishing bail and pretrial detention and abolishing indeterminate sentences and parole. In this chapter we will briefly lay out the attrition model and identify its components. We can test the model's consistency with abolitionist goals by asking the following questions:
The following will provide information, tools and resources to enable us to engage in the suggested campaigns proposed here. The maintenance of an abolition implies that there is constantly more to abolish, that one looks ahead towards a new and still more long-term objective of abolition, that one constantly moves in a wider circle to new fields for abolition. -Thomas Mathiesen, The Politics of Abolition, pp. 211-12 The attrition model Moratorium Declare a moratorium on all new jail and prison construction. Say stop to all construction of cages. Create space and the time to develop alternate planning processes, programs, policies and philosophies. Decarcerate Get as many prisoners out of their cages as possible. Examine all methods of depopulating the prisons and jails. Create a prisoner release timeline: at least 80 percent immediately; 15 percent gradually; the remaining 5 percent within ten years. Here are some of the ways to decarcerate:
Excarcerate Stop putting people in prison. Examine all alternatives to caging. Here are some strategies for excarceration:
Restraint of "the few" For the very small percentage of lawbreakers who need to be limited in movement for some periods of time in their lives, a monitoring and review procedure should be established with the goal of working out the least restrictive and most humane option for the shortest period of time. Building the caring community For prison abolition to become a reality, alternatives must exist. Prisoners must be empowered to take responsibility for their own lives. Prisoners need support and allies. Above all they need services in their communities-health, educational, vocational, residential, counselling and legal services-which should be available not only for prisoners but for all people. Here are some ways to build the caring community:
Instead of Prisons Table of Contents > Chapter 4 4. MORATORIUM ON PRISON/JAIL CONSTRUCTION The umbrella of moratorium on prison/jail construction is a rare action/ organizing opportunity to clearly say "NO" to cages. Already, courageous and progressive professionals, ex-prisoners, reformers, abolitionists and other concerned citizens are joining in a vigorous campaign to educate and act together to stop the unprecedented wave of prison/jail construction projects across the country. The wide support for moratorium has produced a wealth of useful statements: Central to the strategies of prison administrations in the era of convict rebellion is construction of new prisons .... old bastilles should be replaced, say the prison men; some of them are more than a hundred years old, they are too big, unwieldy, unsanitary, overcrowded. The humanitarian reformer will agree, for he has seen the evidence on his television screen and in magazine picture spreads: the tiny, dark cells, rusty iron bars, overflowing toilets, dank concrete, over all an aura of decay. Incomparably worse than any zoo, he will declare! No wonder riots and disturbances are endemic in these places. As long as we must have prisons, let them at least be decent and fit for human habitation. Significantly, the occupants of these disgraceful dungeons have in no instance joined the chorus of demands for newer and better-built prisons. Search the manifestoes of convict leaders from the Tombs to San Quentin and you will find no such proposal. On the contrary, prisoner and ex-convict groups thruout the country are urging opposition to new prison building, which they see as leading to a vast expansion of the existing prison empire. -Jessica Mitford, Kind and Usual Punishment, pp. 182-83 In view of the bankruptcy of penal institutions ... the Commission recommends a ten-year moratorium on construction of institutions except under circumstances set forth under Standard 11.1. The moratorium period should be used for planning to utilize non-institutional means ... Each correctional agency administering state institutions for juvenile or adult offenders should adopt immediately a policy of not building new major institutions for juveniles under any circumstances, and not building new institutions for adults unless an analysis of the total criminal justice and adult corrections systems produces a clear finding that no alternative is possible. -Corrections, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, 1973, pp. 597, 357. Reducing jail and prison populations thru provisions for community-based correctional programs and other alternatives to incarceration. Until such steps are taken, a moratorium on the construction of new jails and prisons should be instituted by local, state, provincial and federal authorities. -Resolution, General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, 1974 No new detention or penal institution should be built before alternatives to incarceration are fully provided for. Specifically, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency calls for a halt on the construction of all prisons, jails, juvenile training schools, and detention homes until the maximum funding, staffing, and utilization of noninstitutional correction have been attained. -Policy Statement, Board of Directors, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1972 If this country is resolved to do something constructive about the crime problem, the immediate thing it must do is call a halt to the building of new prisons, jails, and training schools, at least for a time, while we plan and develop alternatives. We say this for two principal reasons. First, so long as we build, we will have neither the pressures nor the will to develop more productive answers. The correctional institution is the "out of sight, out of mind" response to the problem of crime .... No study that I have ever seen, and there are many, provides any assurance that the prison reduces crime, while there is ample evidence that the fact of imprisonment is a heavy contributor to post-release criminal activity. The prison provides only the illusion, not the reality, of protection against the criminal. And secondly, jails and prisons are so very permanent .... If we were to begin to replace only those cells in American jails and prisons that were built more than 50 years ago, the price tag would exceed one billion, five hundred million dollars. The result would be that two or three more generations of Americans would be saddled with an expensive and counterproductive method of controlling crime. --William Nagel, The New Red Barn: A Critical Look at the Modern American Prison To The Governor and Citizens of the State of Connecticut: At a vote taken by the directors of the Connecticut Prison Association on March 8, 1973, it was unanimously voted by all present, to request a moratorium on the building of any new correctional institutions in the state of Connecticut. This moratorium should last from three to five years, during which time a Blue Ribbon Committee be appointed by the Governor to study alternatives to incarceration of sentenced inmates. -Connecticut Prison Association, March 1973 To fail to give support for an immediate moratorium on institution construction in favor of tested community alternatives is to allocate six to eight billion dollars for new jails and prisons by 1980. The timing is critical. About three billion dollars are already committed by state and federal governments for rebuilding the old prison system. Soon any viable discussion of the prison of the future will be delayed not for a decade, but for a century. -Milton Rector, President of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Fortune News, November 1974 If the Federal Government wants to set up a model, it ought to be doing better things than building prisons, particularly when the trend in many states is toward closing them .... Mr. Carlson undoubtedly is correct that there will always be some offenders who have to be imprisoned for public safety; but these are the few rather than the many, and they scarcely justify the federal government embarking now on a vast program of prison construction. That seems exactly the wrong model to provide, at a time when federal leadership and assistance might go far toward eliminating an American penal system that encourages rather than prevents crime. -Tom Wicker, New York Times, July 27, 1972 We firmly believe that the moratorium period which we ask you to impose upon the Federal Bureau of Prisons, could be utilized to seek out more viable approaches to the resolution of the problem of crime within our society, resolutions which are directed toward more just and safe communities. -Testimony of Reverend Virginia Mackey, New York State Council of Churches, Subcommittee on State, Justice, Commerce and Judiciary, House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, March 25, 1976 Moratorium is the first and most important step towards systemic prison change. Tho local organizing on a state or county level will determine the success of moratorium campaigns, the movement to stop prison/jail construction is fortunate in having a strong national organization to provide information, resources and assistance to local campaigns to help facilitate actions. The National Moratorium on Prison Construction (NMPC), based in Washington, D.C., has researched all aspects of the issues related to prison/jail construction. They produce a variety of literature (the source of much information in this section), including "Prison Program Action Packet," which provides basic material on moratorium efforts. Thru the excellent newsletter Jericho, local efforts can be linked to dozens of similar campaigns around the country, strengthening the movement as a whole. Public education Arguments in favor of a moratorium on prison construction may be gleaned from almost every page of this handbook. We will state briefly here some of the strongest arguments.
Arguments in favor of prison construction Some "corrections" professionals who urge smaller, more "humane" prisons, feel that moratorium efforts block "progressive" leadership within the prison establishment, perpetuating overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and a violent environment. Particularly if the large fortress prisons are closed, these reformers propose a building program which gives the best assurance of creating safe and self-respecting conditions for men and women in custody. Many reformers also feel that prisons will always he overcrowded because it is difficult and perhaps impossible to convince judges and legislatures that sentencing policy should be modified to meet the resources of the "correctional" system. They feel too that efforts to decriminalize or facilitate community alternatives are too long range to effect the immediate needs of those in prison. Thus, they conclude, until alternatives are developed, they will support the building of new prisons. Finally, others argue that building more prisons has the approval of "affected" people-the victims of crime and those who need the jobs prisons provide in both staff and construction. Moratorium proponents, according to these reformers, should have little to say about matters which so directly affect other peoples' lives. Yüklə 1,92 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
|