Prison Abolition Study

Curriculums

• Study and Struggle provides readings, supplementary materials, recommended materials, discussion questions, an exercise related to each session’s topic, and a reading guide.  

• Black & Pink Prison Abolition Syllabus is a collection of readings intended as a primer for readers on the creation and function of the US prison industrial complex. The course was taught in a divinity school and there is an emphasis on the role of religion and theology in this collection of readings. Many secular abolitionist efforts miss some of the important connections between religion and the creation as well as resistance to the US carceral state. | Black and Pink is is a national prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS who are affected by that system through advocacy, support, and organizing.

• Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0 is a resource for those already doing this work and those looking to learn more. We hope it will help deepen understandings, renew commitments, and carry the goal of prison abolition forward from the 2018 strike.

• If You’re New to Abolition: Study Group Guide provides a suggested design for a six-week study group. Each week is organized by theme; we recommend doing the readings/viewings/listening in the order listed. We have included materials that you can read and watch in under 5 hours each week.

Toolkits

• The Critical Resistance Abolitionist Toolkit is not a step-by-step guide to PIC abolition. It is a kit designed primarily for U.S.-based community organizers already working toward abolition and our allies.

• Building Your Abolitionist Toolkit: Everyday Resources for a Punishment-Free. Join Project NIA and friends as we assemble our abolitionist toolkits. In this series, we will explore six different resources that help us build daily practices to move us closer to a world free of imprisonment, policing, and surveillance. Together, we will learn how we can use abolitionist organizing tools and values in our relationships, our homes, our schools, our organizations, and our communities. We will consider how we can deepen discussions about justice, harm, and healing, and we will dive into active ways that we can work towards an abolitionist future that includes everyone.

• DC Alternatives to Calling the Police by DC Standing Up for Racial Justice. Resource Guide by | Showing Up for Racial Justice, DC – Policing Team

Resource Lists

• TransformHarm.org | Abolition. Essays, articles, media, toolkits, and curriculum.

• Abolitionist Futures: Introduction to Abolition. These resources are here to help those new to abolition get to grips with the key ideas. Use the arrows on the right to find more.

• One Million Experiments. Explore snapshots of community-based safety strategies that expand our ideas about what keeps us safe.

• 8 to Abolition: The end goal of these reforms is not to create better, friendlier, or more community-oriented police or prisons. Instead, we hope to build toward a society without police or prisons, where communities are equipped to provide for their safety and wellbeing. Includes a resource page with resource hubs, essays, organizations, and guides.

• The Abolitionist Library: Articles, books, podcast, and other resources on abolition.

• MPD 150 Resources: Aside from our own resources, like the “Enough Is Enough” report, our Frequently-Asked Questions zine, and our “Community Policing and Other Fairy Tales” comic, we wanted to share more resources and readings: books, articles, essays, news items, toolkits, and much more. Of course, this list is not exhaustive; but these are some great places to start if you’re looking to learn more about what a world without police might look like, and how we might get there.

• #AbolitionReadings: “Top 25” Selected Readings. 25 specific readings we’d recommend for people who want to learn more about abolition.

Organizations

• Critical Resistance. Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. We believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, our work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness. The success of the movement requires that it reflect communities most affected by the PIC. Because we seek to abolish the PIC, we cannot support any work that extends its life or scope.

• Project NIA. Project Nia works to end the incarceration of children and young adults by promoting restorative and transformative justice practices.

• INCITE Women of Color Against Violence. INCITE! is a network of radical feminists of color organizing to end state violence and violence in our homes and communities.

• Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. We are a union for the incarcerated fighting for prison abolition.

Books

• Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete

• Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams

• Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

• Emily Luise Hart, Resist the Punitive State: Grassroots Struggles Across Welfare, Housing, Education and Prisons

• Emily L. Thuma, All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence 

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Change Everything Racial Capitalism and the Case for Abolition

• Victoria Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, “Sexual Abuse”

• Critical Resistance, Abolition Now! 10 Years of of Strategy and Struggle against the Prison Industrial Complex 

• James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America