An incisive guide to abolitionist strategy, and a love letter to
the movement that made this moment possible.
Critics of abolition
sometimes castigate the movement for its utopianism, but in How to
Abolish Prisons, long-time organizers Rachel Herzing and Justin
Piché reveal a movement that has made the struggle for abolition as
real as the institutions they are fighting against.
Drawing on extensive
interviews with abolitionist crews all over North America, Herzing
and Piché provide a collective reconstruction of what the grassroots
movement to abolish prisons actually is, what initiatives it has
launched, how it organizes itself, and how its protagonists build the
day-to-day practice of politics. Readers sit in on the Winnipeg
rideshares of Bar None and the meetings of the Chicago Community Bail
Fund as they assess the utility of politicized mutual aid. They
follow the campaigns and coalitions of Critical Resistance in Oakland
and San Francisco and Survived and Punished in New York City, and
learn about the prisoner correspondence projects that keep activists
behind bars and outside them in constant coordination.
Abolitionist
campaigns are constructing on-the-ground initiatives across North
America to deconstruct carceral society and build resistant
communities.Through the words, deeds, and personalities of this
beautifully peopled movement, How to Abolish Prisons emerges
as a stunning snapshot of a movement’s thinking in motion.
