Prison abolition and decarceration are increasingly debated, but it
is often without taking into account the largest exodus of people
from carceral facilities in the twentieth century: the closure of
disability institutions and psychiatric hospitals. Decarcerating
Disability provides a much-needed corrective, combining a
genealogy of deinstitutionalization with critiques of the current
prison system.
Liat Ben-Moshe
provides groundbreaking case studies that show how abolition is not
an unattainable goal but rather a reality, and how it plays out in
different arenas of incarceration—antipsychiatry, the field of
intellectual disabilities, and the fight against the
prison-industrial complex. Ben-Moshe discusses a range of topics,
including why deinstitutionalization is often wrongly blamed for the
rise in incarceration; who resists decarceration and
deinstitutionalization, and the coalitions opposing such resistance;
and how understanding deinstitutionalization as a form of residential
integration makes visible intersections with racial desegregation. By
connecting deinstitutionalization with prison abolition,
Decarcerating Disability also illuminates some of the
limitations of disability rights and inclusion discourses, as well as
tactics such as litigation, in securing freedom.
Decarcerating
Disability’s rich analysis of lived experience, history, and
culture helps to chart a way out of a failing system of
incarceration.