Final Exam Review | Source: Lecture notes, Angela Davis (Are Prisons Obsolete?), Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Ella Baker
Tags: carceral state, prison abolition, mass incarceration, prison-industrial complex, prison reform, Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Are Prisons Obsolete, penitentiary movement, First Step Act, Attica uprising, prison necessity
The carceral state grew not from a single policy but from overlapping decisions by legislators, courts, and officials who shifted toward increasingly punitive responses. Prison was originally introduced as a humanitarian reform to replace corporal punishment, yet abolitionists argue it has never deterred crime or increased public safety. The central tension in the course is between reformists (who seek to improve conditions within the system) and abolitionists (who seek to dismantle it entirely).
Carceral state
The broad network of institutions, laws, and practices that sustain mass incarceration in the United States, extending beyond prison walls to include probation, electronic monitoring, and immigration enforcement.
Prison-industrial complex (PIC)
The overlapping interests of government and private industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social, and political problems. Private prisons profit per prisoner held, creating a financial incentive to keep facilities full.
Prison abolition
The political vision that the prison system should be dismantled entirely, not merely reformed, and replaced with community-based approaches to safety (jobs, education, housing, health care).
Recidivism
The tendency of a convicted person to reoffend. Policies that push offenders to the margins of society (e.g. sex offender registries) can increase rather than decrease recidivism.
Clemency
Mercy or lenience granted by an authority, such as a pardon or commutation of sentence. Commutations and pardons have become extremely rare; life sentences increasingly function as de facto death sentences.
Penitentiary movement
The early 19th-century push in England and the United States to replace corporal and capital punishment with imprisonment. Prison was the reform, not the problem it was designed to solve.
First Step Act
Federal legislation aimed at criminal justice reform. Abolitionists note that while well-intentioned, such reforms can make it harder for some individuals to get relief and ultimately reinforce the system rather than shrink it.
Before the penitentiary movement, punishment in England and America was overwhelmingly physical: whipping, burning alive, hanging.
By 1790, Enlightenment-era reformers began replacing corporal punishment with incarceration for a set period. The prison was seen as the humane alternative.
Angela Davis traces this arc in Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003): early English common law punished petty treason by burning alive; by the late 18th century this was "reformed" to hanging, and eventually to imprisonment.
The penitentiary movement was motivated by humanitarian impulses, but abolitionists argue it simply relocated cruelty behind walls.
Chapter 1: Prison populations exploded from roughly 200,000 in the 1960s to ten times that within three decades. Prisons function as dumping grounds for people society labels undesirable, disproportionately African American, Latino, and Native American. Davis argues prisons have become a last resort for people without shelter or health care.
Chapter 2: Davis draws a direct parallel between slavery and imprisonment. Slavery was once considered normal; over time society recognised it as wrong. She suggests the same reckoning may come for prisons. Prisoners are treated as rightless, used for free labour, much as enslaved people were.
Chapter 3: Prison and reform have always been intertwined. Each wave of reform targets those who violate social norms but ultimately reinforces the system. Davis focuses on the American Revolution's influence on imprisonment as a form of punishment.
Chapter 4: Prisons reflect gendered power structures. Defining women's prisons as marginal reinforces the assumption that male prisons are the norm. Sexual abuse and terror are routine in prisons.
Chapter 5: The prison-industrial complex drives prison growth. Private prisons charge per prisoner, giving them a financial reason to keep beds full. Corporations have found new markets by selling products to correctional facilities.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore recounts visiting a Central Valley community where children assumed "bad people" go to prison and could not imagine a world without prisons. This illustrates how deeply normalised incarceration has become.
Abolitionists do not oppose all reforms, but they argue that reforms alone reinforce the system. One penalty gets swapped for another; the underlying logic of punishment remains.
The goal is to reduce the scope of the carceral state, halt new prison construction, and stop punishing vulnerable communities.
Gilmore's key insight: prison was not inevitable for individuals or for California. The more prisons the state built, the better it became at filling them, even as crime rates fell.
A productive, violence-free life requires investment in jobs, education, housing, and health care, not cages.
That prisons are predominantly filled with nonviolent drug offenders. In reality, the majority of people in prison are not there for drug crimes; ending the war on drugs alone would not end mass incarceration.
That prison is simply a modern form of slavery. Gilmore acknowledges two truths in this narrative (Black suffering is central to mass incarceration, and prison is a human rights catastrophe) but notes the framing can cause people to worry about a population they might otherwise ignore, rather than confront the full scope of the problem.
That the system is driven primarily by corporate profit. While private prisons are a real factor, the carceral state is sustained by a wider set of forces: legislation, prosecutorial discretion, and cultural assumptions about punishment.
Legislators have decreased penalties in one area (e.g. drug offences) while increasing them in another.
The U.S. toughened penalties for all kinds of offences, so people served most of their sentence before being released or paroled.
What built the carceral state is not what sustains it today. The prison-industrial complex and economic interests now have their own momentum.
Private companies have expanded carcerality beyond prison walls: privatised probation, electronic monitoring, criminalisation of immigration enforcement.
Weaker welfare systems correlate with higher incarceration rates.
States that are less punitive overall still show greater racial disparities in incarceration.
Most people directly affected by the carceral state have been politically disenfranchised. Many cannot vote even after completing life sentences.
The carceral state was not built on legislation alone. Officials at every level have exercised enormous discretion in a more punitive direction.
Prisoners at the Attica Correctional Facility in New York demanded humane treatment. The state's response was an "orgy of brutality," resulting in 43 deaths.
Attica revealed that prisons and jails had become the socio-economic destination for the poor and disproportionate numbers of Black people, as well as political militants.
Prisoners were denied minimal humane treatment, decent medical care, and fundamental constitutional rights.
The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act enhanced police powers and increased funding for prisons and police, deepening the cycle.
After Attica, the 1976 booklet Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists (Fay Honey Knopp) outlined three goals: a moratorium on new prison building, decarceration of those currently imprisoned, and "excarceration," meaning moving away from criminalisation and incarceration entirely.
A prison-abolition movement in Scandinavia led to "open prisons" emphasising reintegration into society.
These facilities have reported very low recidivism rates, offering a concrete alternative to the American model.
Rather than fighting prisons directly and hoping others joined, Gilmore sought out groups already mobilised on other issues (e.g. environmentalists who could see that a new prison would harm biodiversity).
This coalition-building approach reframes prison abolition as connected to a wide range of social and environmental justice concerns.
⚠️ Know the distinction between reform and abolition. Reforms improve conditions within the system; abolition seeks to dismantle it. Exam questions may ask you to evaluate whether a specific policy (e.g. the First Step Act) counts as reform or abolition, and why abolitionists might critique it.
⚠️ Angela Davis's slavery-to-prison parallel is a recurring theme. Be ready to explain both its strengths (highlights continuity of racial control) and its limitations (Gilmore's point that the framing can obscure the full scope of the problem).
⚠️ The Attica uprising is a key historical turning point. Connect it to both the immediate state violence and the longer-term growth of abolitionist organising.
⚠️ "What built the carceral state is not what sustains it today" is a central analytical claim. Be prepared to give specific examples (private prisons, prosecutorial discretion, electronic monitoring).
⚠️ Do not conflate "ending the war on drugs" with "ending mass incarceration." The notes explicitly state that the majority of prisoners are not incarcerated for drug crimes.
Q: Why do abolitionists argue that prison reform is insufficient, even when it improves conditions?
A: Abolitionists contend that reforms reinforce the underlying system by replacing one penalty with another without challenging the logic of punishment itself. Reforms can make the system appear more humane while leaving its fundamental structure intact, and some (like the First Step Act) may actually make it harder for certain individuals to get relief.
Q: In what sense was "prison the reform," according to Angela Davis?
A: Davis traces how the penitentiary movement of the early 19th century arose from Enlightenment-era humanitarian impulses. Before prisons, punishment was physical: burning, whipping, hanging. Imprisonment for a set period was introduced as the humane alternative. The irony is that what was once seen as progressive reform has itself become the system abolitionists now seek to dismantle.
Q: What does Ruth Wilson Gilmore mean when she says prison was "not inevitable" for California?
A: Gilmore argues that the growth of California's prison system was the result of political choices, not natural necessity. The more prisons the state built, the better it became at filling them, even as crime rates were falling. This shows that incarceration is driven by institutional momentum and political will rather than by actual levels of crime.
Q: How did the Attica uprising shape the prison abolition movement?
A: The 1971 Attica uprising and the state's violent response exposed the inhumane conditions inside U.S. prisons and the disproportionate imprisonment of poor and Black communities. It generated momentum for systemic change, leading to the 1976 publication of Instead of Prisons, which articulated the three core abolitionist goals: moratorium on prison construction, decarceration, and excarceration.
Q: Why is "ending the war on drugs" not a sufficient solution to mass incarceration?
A: The majority of people in prison are not incarcerated for drug crimes. While ending the drug war would have a meaningful impact, it would affect certain demographic groups unevenly and would leave the broader structure of mass incarceration intact, including toughened penalties for all offences, prosecutorial discretion, and the prison-industrial complex.
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