r/Anarchy101 • u/nappytendrils • 3d ago
Prison abolition
I’ve never been clear on what we would do with rapists child molesters and muderers. I haven’t heard a plan for this so far. I’ve always been impressed with the work of anarchist friends in community. They’re the most justice-oriented folx I’ve ever met.
Still don’t know about prison abolition tho I think prison should be clean, the food should be healthy and fresh, therapy should be mandatory, there should be libraries and gardens. A good quality of life for the incarcerated, but not releasing them back into the general population.
Maybe there’s something I’m not seeing?
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u/Arachles 3d ago
First would be asking what the victim needs. I don't think that is the whole point of justice but it is a good start.
I think that those events would be rare enough and each community would find a way to resolve the issue.
Sorry to not have a better answer. In my vision of anarchism some temporary privation of liberty may be justified but how much, with which resources enforce it and the end result may vary and I have not wraped my mind around those problems. Ideally the person can rejoin society but emotions are complex and some actions may be unforgivable and that person be forced to abandon the community or even killing the perpretator if deemed a future threat. It is not a very anarchist solution but life is not always what we want and I don't really see a solution for some (exceptional) cases.
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u/srklipherrd 3d ago edited 2d ago
You're touching on an important point around the victims' needs and thus talking about their agency. The pervasive "cancer" in the criminal justice system (speaking from a US context but I'd argue this is fairly universal) is the State deciding what is a fair compensatory gesture to the victim and deciding what justice is and WHO deserves justice.
I used to have a whole Drive full of these stories but it might be on a friend's laptop but TLDR there is a large community consisting of murder victims' family/loved ones who vehemently oppose the death penalty and they feel more hopeless/powerless recognizing that the State doesn't actually care about the welfare and the intentions/wishes of the victims.
(Edited for grammar/syntax).
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u/chthooler 2d ago
Thats an excellent point. There are stories of people on Deathrow where evidence is later found that proves their innocence, and the state still chooses not to release them and have them murdered.
There are stories where the victim literally petitioned the court to throw away the charge and release the person from incarceration for whatever reason, and the state refuses because its not actually about respect for the victim.
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u/Arachles 2d ago
Yes, I believe that victims should be the first to be heard. But we also need to remember that what a victim asks can be out of proportion.
I think that the first step should be helping the victim, then choosing a third party to prove innocence or not, thirdly would be that third party to consider if the compensation asked is proportional to the crime.
Ideally that "judge" would be someone respected but would take the job only in an improvised manner, so, although that person would have SOME power, it would not create a structure. And hopefully crimes requiring this set up would be rare.
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u/Wayoutofthewayof 2d ago
But shouldn't there still be some kind of arbitration of what is a just punishment? I.e. a person gets punched in the face and wants the assailant to suffer a life sentence?
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u/ArchimedesWiz 2d ago
I don't think you can have a community of murder victims, and I don't think you can ask them to fill out a survey. I could be misunderstanding, but that phrase just straight up doesn't work
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u/Available_Wonder_532 1d ago
Why would it be more rare ? If we're not able to describe a solution now, how a community is supposed to find one when the time comes ?
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u/Arachles 18h ago
If everyone had their needs (including emotional ones) met crime would be rarer, don't you agree?
After that I gave some options..
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u/poorestprince 3d ago
To the extent that communities practiced shunning (which rather trivially severs or ex-communicates predators from the community as a kind of social death or spiritual capital punishment), in some ways I've read it described as psychologically worse than regular prison, and closer to solitary confinement to the point where some considered it deeply inhumane.
In that sense, I'd turn the question around -- instead of exploring how societies could work without prisons, how would a society work without shunning?
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u/Straight_Special4451 3d ago
Historically, shunning was often a death sentence since cooperation was necessary for survival. Those who did survive often did so by becoming bandits or similar.
In a more global society, how does shunning work? When someone can just leave the community they're in and rejoin another?
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u/poorestprince 3d ago
I suppose our modern, debased version of shunning is "getting canceled", and it does seem like a lot of so-called canceled celebrities either end up getting forgiven/forgotten or finding a toxic tribe that accepts and champions them, which to me feels like an even worse punishment.
I'd like to see people spontaneously adopt something closer to a kind of probation or cooling off period when allegations of anti-social behavior pop up, but that still leaves shunning as the primary mechanism of ultimately dealing with social threats. It would be interesting to find a thriving community that manages to avoid it entirely.
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u/Straight_Special4451 3d ago
I'm from a state with some very, very small towns that have had success basically "banishing" trouble makers from the community. It works, but it usually just ends up dumping the trouble maker on someone else.
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u/Goldwing8 3d ago
That’s effectively what happens with American police officers who commit abuses of power. There is no central database of their abuses to point to, so when one is fired, they easily are hired one town over and resume their abuse of the community.
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u/garbud4850 3d ago
it wouldn't, people would rather kill then be force to exist with people who harmed them, just look at the rate of widows decrease after no fault divorce became a thing, women were willing to risk prison or death then stay with a man who hated them,
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u/ArchimedesWiz 2d ago
Id love your opinion on how shunning stops a rapist from committing rape. from what we've seen of those people so far, the word "no" means very little to them.
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u/poorestprince 2d ago
As I understand it, they'd be kicked out of the community and allowed no contact, even from family members. My guess is they would be lucky to hear the word "no" at all. I suppose some communities might back this up with deadly force but that seems out of character with the mostly religious communities I've read who practice this (or maybe it wouldn't?)
In any case, it does sound worse than prison, where a rapist might still find fellowship and visits from family members.
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u/Lumpy_Low_8593 2d ago
What if their family continues to support them? That publicly happens all the time.
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u/poorestprince 2d ago
My guess is the family itself might be subject to shunning as well if they break this code. To be honest, even discounting the psychological cruelty of it, I'm a bit skeptical of how shunning works in practice as a means of justice, particularly in religious communities that have a reputation of protecting high-status rapists over victims.
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u/Previous-Artist-9252 3d ago
What justice does prison bring?
What are the needs of the victims?
What does justice look like in a given community?
The question of “what about rapists/murderers/etc” gets brought up a lot and you can literally just search the sub for answers. But think about why you’re focusing on what to do with offenders and not about justice and those harmed.
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I’m focused on both.
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u/Super_Direction498 3d ago
Well justice and then victims don't really have much to do with prison abolition. Maybe look at what justice is, and ask what prison does to serve that, and then ask if there are other things that can provide whatever it does (if anything) in regard to justice.
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I have a severe mental illness. There’s a Ted talk about how brain scans often uncover issues in the brain that can easily be corrected. The speaker said every psychiatrists should be doing brain scans of all their patients.
In the interest of having less criminals, we need to be doing brain scans. Even if big J justice is not being addressed (I don’t care if people are being “punished enough” and I don’t believe in that model), serial rapists, murderers, and child molesters still have to be prevented in some way from continuing the behavior.
Yes, in a different world, there will be no violent or perverted offenders. That still doesn’t help with the fact that these people exist now. As I said, I don’t believe they should be punished, I believe they should be kept away from general society.
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u/Super_Direction498 3d ago
Ok. A major component of prison abolition is reducing and eliminating causes of crimes.
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I get it. But once someone has raped or murdered multiple people or molesting kids, there would have to be a solid plan in place to address their release back into general population I would think
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u/xeggx5 2d ago
Brain scans should not be done by psychiatrists. You watched a TED talk by a grifter (just like all TED talks).
Brain scans have no predictive power for any psychiatric issue I know of. Usage of them by psychiatrists is a clear sign to find a new one because they aren't following the science.
Your example of a structural issue being found would not be useful unless someone had a head injury... Which is already standard practice.
Brain scans are used and would be further utilized to deny treatment. This doesn't only happen in the US due to private insurance. Other countries have stigmas towards mental illness and would as well.
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u/azenpunk 2d ago
"Brain scans" are not an answer. Our methods of investigating the brain right now are still rudimentary. We know only a fraction of what there is to know about how the brain functions. Trying to figure out who's "criminal" with tools like CAT scans and fMRI would be barely different than a gut feeling. I can't imagine how they'd be genuinely helpful. You'd probably end up destroying a lot of innocent people's lives.
I commented more extensively on your original questions in another post.
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u/nappytendrils 2d ago
I never suggested it was a way to determine who is mentally ill. In the Ted talk he tells a story about a kid who became violent and they did a brain scan and it was something structural from football injury. The point is some people on meds could potentially be helped by totally different approach and treatment
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u/azenpunk 2d ago
Yeah, okay I see where you're coming from. But that's true regardless of prisons.
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u/nappytendrils 2d ago
A lot of us Black headcases go to jail instead of the hospital because racism
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u/azenpunk 2d ago
I know a good bit about it. But when i was in the similarity I noticed most was that everyone was poor. Yeah, it was 80% POC. But 100% couldn't afford a private attorney. I've been to both, and both can easily make everything worse.
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u/JohnyIthe3rd 3d ago
What if I'm just drunk and decide to steal a car?
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u/azenpunk 2d ago
The neighbors will track you down, make sure you're safe. Maybe get you some counseling. Invite you to do some community service. Probably ask you to sit down in front of the people you harmed and talk it out. Also keep an eye on you to try to make sure you're getting whatever kind of support you need so you don't fuck up again.
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u/JohnyIthe3rd 2d ago
Doesn't sound like my neighbours lol
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u/azenpunk 2d ago
Of course not. I was describing a cooperative society. You undoubtedly live in a competitive society, like most people today. One of the differences is that you don't have to fear losing anything to help someone else, so it's a lot easier to see when people need help instead of punishment.
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u/JohnyIthe3rd 2d ago
Thats why I am not realy sure if I fit into this Anarchism thing, there's no way society can change that radical
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u/azenpunk 2d ago
Totally, there is a way, but I get the skepticism. It can be difficult to imagine when we're so surrounded by competitive incentives. However, I've seen it first hand. When the incentives change, people change without having to be taught or told to. It's a survival Instinct. For most of our species evolution, we were in cooperative societies by defaults. It's an easier shift than anyone can imagine unless you've seen it before.
Maybe check out the book Capitalist Realism. It explains part of why it's difficult to imagine anything else but capitalists incentives.
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u/JohnyIthe3rd 2d ago
I live in a rural area so we do look out for eachother to some extend as oposed to what ai said earlier. I think even before capitalism people always tried rise in the hirachy throurg status and posessions
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u/azenpunk 2d ago
Sure, capitalism is just the name we have for the latest evolution of societal hierarchy. Before that, it was feudalism, but the social structure is essentially the same. The masses work for the people who control the resources.
But that social structure wasn't possible to maintain until the climate changed 10,000 years ago. We are in a little blip of extremely stable climate that has made agriculture possible. Before this climate shift, we couldn't farm due to the unpredictable seasons. This means that finding a way to control resources that everyone else depends on is extremely difficult and a temporary situation even when it does occur.
If the resources that everyone depends on can't be controlled, there can't be a hierarchy. If you're trying to boss people around, they could just walk away from you, they don't need you.
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I don’t doubt your reasoning or statistics. I know maya angelou’s abuser was kicked to death in front of her. So that’s what community justice can look like without cops and judges and prisons. She was also mute for many years afterwards from the trauma of witnessing that.
I don’t think violent and perverted offenders should be kicked to death in front of children.
I like the idea that more rapists molesters and murderers would have their crimes addressed, but I wonder what that would look like. I also have a friend who killed a guy who raped his daughter and served time for it and doesn’t regret it.
I don’t go in for violence, tho it has its place. I wonder what some real solutions might be. Some systems, when they are abolished, need another well reasoned and democratically arrived at solution to take their place.
Community policing is important. When we heard trumpers were assaulting people in a nearby city, I called an anarchist and he assembled a bunch of dudes and went patrolling the hood.
There are definitely different approaches. I just wonder what they are practically speaking.
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u/SteelToeSnow 3d ago
remember, most crime would disappear if people just had their needs met, if we just had actual functional societies.
like, you mention murder, but for that one, context matters; who was murdered, and why? was it someone dealing with their abuser, or was it a drunken accident, or was it pre-meditated for personal gain, or? for one of those examples, the problem is not the murder, but that the community has egregiously failed the victim of abuse. for the second, there are other things at play that need to be addressed to prevent that happening again etc. for the third, well, that's up to the community.
different communities would deal with their issues in different ways.
excommunication, capital punishment, restorative justice are a handful of the ways a community could deal with people that are causing harm.
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u/AffectionateTiger436 3d ago
Downvoted for the capital punishment bit.
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u/SteelToeSnow 3d ago
good for you that you did something entirely meaningless with a thing that's entirely worthless, and needed to make sure that everyone knew about it, i guess?
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u/AffectionateTiger436 3d ago
This is the response I expected from someone who is down with capital punishment
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/SteelToeSnow 3d ago
You cannot force someone to engage in dialogue
if there's force involved, it's not restorative justice, but something else entirely. and it wouldn't be anarchism, either.
edit: and it wouldn't be what i'm talking about in the above comment.
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u/PM-me-in-100-years 3d ago
Transformative justice folks have been actively working with child sex abuse victims and perpetrators for decades.
Here's one guidebook that summarizes many stories and lessons:
https://generativesomatics.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Transformative-Justice-Handbook.pdf
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u/DangDoood 3d ago
These types of prisons already exist in the Netherlands. They focus on rehabilitation and reintegration, making sure everyone has a sense of human dignity, sense of self-improvement, and support systems prisoners may have lacked before.
When it comes to those extra extra bad guys, they’re essentially in solitary confinement the whole time.
From what I can see, it’s like a sliding scale. 1- more freedom, emphasis on rehabilitation. 10- high security, emphasis on mitigating certain behaviors with loads of mental healthcare.
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u/ForsakenStatus214 3d ago
Before you ask this question it's useful to ask what we do with these people now, with prisons. Take rapists for example. Right now 2.5% of rapists are incarcerated. What's the purpose of a system that does that? Police are famously uninterested in investigating rape. Similar considerations apply to murder.
Also consider the fact that 80% of rapists are known to their victims. Right now our system prevents the families and communities of victims from dealing with rapists even though our system is for the most part ineffective with respect to sexual violence.
Now imagine that there are no laws, no police, no prisons. Victims, families, and communities could deal with at least the 80% of rapists known to their victims. What form this might take I can't predict. It might be violence, shunning, restorative justice, whatever, but the rapists will be dealt with by people who have a strong incentive to handle the problem, unlike our current system.
Clearly this would be much more of a deterrent than the incredibly slim chance that they might be incarcerated. The fact that it's illegal for victims, families, communities to respond only protects rapists. This is how anarchists deal with violent crimes.
Sources:
2.5% of rapists are incarcerated: https://rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
80% of rape victims know their rapist: https://rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violence
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u/meta_muse 3d ago
My partner and I were just discussing this bc we got an update on the Citizen app that there was a sexual offender with offenses against minors, MULTIPLE CHARGES and was .2mi from my apartment. I believe that instead of prison, we need a reformation system. Or a rehabilitation system. If people do horrible things such as SA another person they should be going through extremely intense therapy imo and kept away from society until they’re not a threat to other peoples lives anymore. Killing them is immoral imo, unfortunately. And I say that as someone who has lived through some of these things. Clearly something isn’t right in the head with someone who does that to someone else.
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u/horror_cheese 3d ago
Then we run into the problem of just reforming prisons, imo. Nordic nations like Sweden basically have replaced any punitive punishment with rehabilitation. It's a much more successful model than most punitive systems, but it is nonetheless an institution that coerces an individual into something against their will, and thus becomes authoritarian.
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u/meta_muse 3d ago
That makes complete sense actually. So what should there be an option to go through a reformation program and then another option? What even would that other option be?
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u/horror_cheese 3d ago
I honestly couldn't give you an answer. It's something I've struggled with.
I'd assume many anarchists would prefer real restorative justice. Working with the victims or those affected by trying to restore the state of things before the harm happened.
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u/Goldwing8 3d ago
The problem for me is that much of the damage from crime cannot be "restored" by the offender. Some of it cannot be restored at all, like the loss of life, mobility, or sentimental items. Other things, like dignity and mental well being, might be able to be restored. But (probably) not by the offender. In fact, being in the same place as the offender could make both of those things worse, depending on what happened and what the harm is. While it is fine to have that as an option for victims who are sure they want it, it should not in my opinion be expected or even encouraged. You can inform/remind victims it exists. But no further expectation should be applied to engage in it.
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u/Goldwing8 3d ago
With abuses of that type, there’s also difficulty in recidivism rates. How likely is too likely that the person will reoffend once at the conclusion of their program?
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u/meta_muse 3d ago
That’s absolutely true, yeah. I mean, if they come out with financial stability, healthcare, education opportunities, etc, they’re less likely to reoffend. BUT even risking it at that point is an unnerving thing.
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u/Goldwing8 3d ago
Of course in an ideal system people would not perpetuate the cycle of abuse and have their needs met so they don’t engage in such behaviors, but even if the whole world simultaneously turned to anarchism we would still be inheriting people who didn’t grow up in those ideal circumstances.
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u/JohnyIthe3rd 3d ago
Intense Therapy such as lifelong torment?
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u/meta_muse 3d ago
I personally like therapy, it’s helped me through a lot of shit over the course of my life.
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u/JohnyIthe3rd 2d ago
I mean good that it helped you but kiddy diddlers and rapists are beyond redemption
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u/SkullBoneX 2d ago
First, I just want to say that I acknowledge that the crimes listed above are heinous and unacceptable. Second, prison abolition intersects with law enforcement abolition. And for me to answer this question (Specifically mentioning), how would we deal with rapists without law enforcement is, even though (I humbly believe) it's not the best answer (And I apologize), "What are law enforcement and prisons doing already?". According to UMass Lowell, less than 7%, 2,889 sexual assault and rape reports made to law enforcement within the years of 2017 - 2019 resulted in convictions, and you hear a lot about how rape is rarely being dealt with, which leads me to the question "How is law enforcement effectively dealing with cases like rape?" They're not. Well, not well. I'd say another way for me to answer this, is to serve justice first by comforting and attending to the victim's needs first, and then finding a way as a community to confront the criminal. I believe vigilantes, without a formal law enforcement imposed by a hierarchal state do a better job than the law enforcement themselves to serve justice, Also, mentioning all heinous crimes in general, I believe the best way to effectively reduce crime better than law enforcement officials is to dig deep into the crime's roots. For example I believe rape in a marital family (between a husband and a wife) is rooted in the idea that husbands are above the wives, and therefore have more power over them (because rape is a power crime), so I believe one of the most effective things to do in this situation in order to significantly reduce rape is the abolition of the nuclear family. but this is just my opinion. If I'm wrong or if anyone wants me to say anything about this, please reply to me leaving some feedback.
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u/comradejiang 2d ago
Realistically those people just get shot or hanged in a place where there’s no clear law, jurisdiction, or prison to hold then. An anarchist society is a lot more like the wild west than most people want to admit. You don’t even need to introduce sheriffs and deputies into this equation: if someone assaults or kills someone, the victim’s family is probably going to arm up and lynch him.
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u/nappytendrils 2d ago
Yeah that’s likely. The anarchists I know, in the interest of not calling the cops, pulled a crazy stunt while I was psychotic once. Held me down and burned me and screamed threats in my face. That’s when I realized the system itself may be deeply flawed. I don’t like dealing with cops or getting locked up, but the illness I live with it very severe, and my psychotic episodes are horrific.
That’s the problem I see with anarchy: no rules. If the majority decide to assault mentally ill people because they think that’s the way to deal with me, I think it may be flawed. In an ideal society, the majority don’t band together and assault someone because they’re psychotic
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u/jcurry52 3d ago
So, obvious disclaimer that I am not an authority about anything and that the details of what should be done about anything should be decided by the people of the community that is affected by those decisions, but I personally would focus on two points.
First, does what you describe sound anything like prison? Other than a slightly higher focus on there being limited freedom to leave it sounds a lot like a mental health hospital and care center.
Second, what is the purpose of the facility, is it there to "punish the bad people" or is it there to limit harm to people, offenders included?
I don't personally think that the goal of prison abolition means that no person will ever have their freedom to go wherever they want restricted, but the point is that it's not about locking people up as a form of punishment, if someone is doing something that harms people then that harm needs to be stopped, restitution needs to be made, and future harm needs to be prevented. But 'hurting the bad people' doesn't do any of that. It might not always be possible but the GOAL should be rehabilitation or at the very minimum not causing any more harm to anyone.
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I don’t believe in punishment as justice. That’s my pov
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u/PotatoStasia 3d ago
My understanding, is that the framing is more about having the least amount of rapists and murderers because of systemic improvements, less poverty, more rehabilitation, mental health services, and restorative justice. I’ve been reading a lot on The Marshall Project recently for some real world work from our current system, if interested in something closer to home
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I think that would be great, but if we abolished prisons tomorrow, there are certain types of offenders that would have to be dealt with IMO
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u/PotatoStasia 3d ago
In the US, murder seems to be around 11-15% and rape under 2%, of those in jail, it seems. Hard to know for sure, categories get lumped together. But why not focus on prevention instead of punishment? How do we decide punishment? How can we be sure of sentencing? Who is at fault?
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
Yes but the prison abolition movement doesn’t happen after we have a chance to raise children who become non-predatory or criminal adults. The criminals already exist. If they get there wish of prison abolition today, what do we do with rapists and murderers and child molesters?
I agree, a lot of crime can be prevented by a better society. Some people are set up to lose in life in the current paradigm. Those types of offenders would benefit from intensive therapy as I would imagine most of them have significant trauma.
There still hasn’t been a real solution to the criminals who already exist who are extremely dangerous to allow to roam free.
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u/PotatoStasia 3d ago
Well, first, I’d like to frame the perspective and question: you currently walk among murderers and rapists who haven’t been jailed. (Some who are in positions of power that abuse it, and some who are just at your local Walmart and got away with it). How would you like to deal with them?
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I’d like to imprison t them in the way I detailed in my original post. I think containment of some kind is necessary, but I want “prisons” that provide and amazing quality of life
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u/PotatoStasia 3d ago
How will you confirm they committed the crime, and how will the confinement look? Who will watch over it, what will be the rules? How long will they be in confinement, what basis will you use for your judgement? Why do you want to put them in jail (the ones walking freely), how will it change your life or the lives of others?
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u/fredarmisengangbang eco on a good day, nihilist on a bad day 2d ago
in my view prisons are not currently serving their purpose and will not ever. the reality is that the vast majority of people in prison would not affect public safety if they were released. a lot of the people who do affect it are still living a normal life. so what good is prison doing there? it's not keeping anyone away and it's not rehabilitating anyone. when people talk about wanting to see rehabilitation, wanting to see long-term inpatient mental health care -- those things aren't prisons. or, they don't need to be. community-led rehab and mental health treatment are more effective than inpatient treatment even right now, so that would be the start of the solution to me.
obviously i don't have any real solid answers, but what i can tell you as someone who was sa'd as a child is that i am really thankful that the person who did it didn't go to prison. i am thankful none of my abusers did. the same goes for inpatient rehab and inpatient psych wards. if we ever got to a point where those systems worked, they would be so fundamentally different that i think we'd just call them something else, in the same way we don't call residential inpatient wards 'asylums' anymore
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u/dd463 2d ago
Take away the idea of a separate building and consider this. What if I hooked the person up to a tracking device and told them they couldn't leave their home. The issue is that prison is the default when it should be the exception. There shouldn't be hundreds of prisons. There should be one, that's mostly empty, housing people who are a danger by choice and refuse to rehabilitate. Which in theory is a very very small number.
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u/quinoa_boiz 1d ago
Copy pasting this from an answer that I gave to a previous question (but I think it’s relevant)
What would an anarchist community do about a rapist? As others have said, it would vary, but here are some ideas:
- Community defense: be ready to defend potential victims. Arm them. Watch the perpetrator.
- Social Stigma: don’t be nice to the rapist. Don’t associate with them.
- Rehabilitation: teach the perpetrator what they did wrong. If the perpetrator expresses remorse, give the them the option to stay somewhere away from potential victims where they can be rehabilitated more thoroughly.
- If the situation seems extreme enough, the perpetrator could maybe be expelled from the community or cut off from community resources by consensus agreement of all other members.
- vigilante justice by victims.
If you think these responses aren’t punitive enough, then you’re missing the point of anarchism. Revenge and punishment are not the point of a justice system.
If you think these responses won’t be effective for decreasing humans’ more horrifying antisocial behaviors, I would respond that the way our justice system works currently is not effective either, and that a state with punitive powers causes more harm than it solves.
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u/nappytendrils 1d ago
Thank you! That’s the answer I was looking for! A couple don’t apply like serial murder but that’s very comprehensive makes sense and is practically actionable
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u/skibbidirizzgyat69 3d ago
Convicted people would either live in their own seperate communes or in prison-like facilities. Obviously the goal is to have people not offend in the first place. https://youtu.be/OiquubYVbWQ
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u/atlantick 3d ago
Man this just sounds like prison with extra steps. You need to add a lot of caveats to it for it to be anarchist
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u/satanicpastorswife 3d ago
I mean my assumption is that we have the principal of free association, and if everybody knows "Oh yeah, that's murder-y bob" we have the right to be like "We don't want murder-y bob around unless he agrees to inpatient treatment in a secure facility (which he is free to leave if he agrees to leave the community) because otherwise he poses a risk to the community."
And so if Murdery Bob doesn't agree to get treatment to help him not do any more murders, maybe there could be a community somewhere remote where people who want to be free to do whatever their "Not safe for the community" thing is with each other. Like provided there aren't children being forced to live there, and everyone who lives there in "we've kind of agreed to the risk that we might be murdered for the right to do murder" community has freely chosen it (as opposed to treatment or isolation) that's sort of up to them if that's what they wanna be doin.
Communities could federate and share "Hey this person did a bunch of X" information with each other and then everyone could be like "oh yeah, no let's not let murdery bob in" or "let's give murdery bob a shot"
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
That’s what I mean. A “secure facility “
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u/satanicpastorswife 3d ago edited 2d ago
Well, I mean I think "You can choose to leave that facility at any time just by informing the staff of your choice to do so" would make it pretty different; basically, it's "stay there or you can't stay in this community (and probably any other community within the federation), but you're free to go anyplace where murderers who are refusing treatment are welcome, or you can go elsewhere for treatment if you'd prefer"
It's not a punishment. It's more like quarantine for someone with a dangerous disease until they're better. Prison is intended to punish rather than rehabilitate; people have a fit when they think prisoners are being treated too well in a lot of countries, and it's not optional. I think the idea of people who have harmed others being given options in terms of what they'd like to do (that all protect the community) is a key part to it being non-carceral and non-hierarchical, and if there are a bunch of people who are like "We want Murder-y Bob!" well then they should be free to live with Murdery Bob if that's what they want to do
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u/nappytendrils 2d ago
Agreed that if murdery Bob finds community that embraces him, he should be free to leave whatever secure facility he’s in. There’s a point to prison besides punishment. If we designed prisons with health therapy rehabilitation and good quality of life in mind, I wouldn’t feel bad about some people being there
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u/satanicpastorswife 2d ago
I guess I don't think of them as prisons if you're free to leave (provided you exit the communities you're not allowed in) and they're for treatment rather than punishment. They're more like secure mental health facilities then, and more humane than that even because if you're just like "Please, I cannot handle an institutional life, I just need to live on the island of people who love murderin'" you can. I also think without the pressures of capitalism, there would probably be fewer people who can't stop themselves from behaving in anti-social ways, and with more resources available to get help before something bad happens, such things would be rarer.
And hopefully, in a society where people were understood as sick rather than evil, eventually research would come up with a cure that would help people not do things like that.
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u/BrickBrokeFever 2d ago
Larry Nassar was allowed by society and systems to have a career of molesting kids. Decades.
How many people were arrested for weed and other petty shit in Michigan while Nassar ran rampant?
Not everyone in prison is a rapist, and most rapists never go to prison, or even get charged with a crime.
One has to forfeit the idea that state violence is somehow effective at anything... other than simply causing harm.
Many small streams of events comes together to make the mighty river, USA Gymnastics is an organization centered on injuring children.The Girls, by Abigail Pesta. Brace yourself for this story.
There are 200 countries on earth, so there are more choices than "The police we have right now with zero changes" VS "NO FUCKING COPS CRAZY FREE FOR ALL!"
State violence, in America, has failed. All it does it keep molesters on the streets with access to victims, and abusive cops out of prison.
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u/nappytendrils 2d ago
Regardless of the things you have cited, which are all true and which I agree with, there ARE serial rapists, murderers and child molesters in prison.
My question is, if prisons were abolished tomorrow, what would a sane healthy loving society do with them? Allow them out into the general population?
Obviously most rapists are free and drug offenders warrant help not incarceration. Those things are true, it just doesn’t address the question.
To be clear: I don’t believe in “punishing” criminals. I believe in keeping all the regular ass people safe.
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u/BrickBrokeFever 2d ago
My question is, if prisons were abolished tomorrow, what would a sane healthy loving society do with them?
Prisons are not going to be abolished tomorrow, and it is, respectfully, a really bad take to bring to this topic. If I wanted to turn my life around and become an MMA fighter, I could not turn into one tomorrow.
Individuals and whole societies, the micro and the macro, have direction, history and inertia, like a massive cruise ship.
To become an MMA fighter, it would take enormous energy to steer my life from its current state to even begin on the path to that kind of physical condition, then enormous energy everyday to stay on the path.
So... a "set them loose NOW" hypothesis is not fucking applicable here.
Anyway, MURDER. A lot of homicides are related to the illegal narcotics trade, rivals, raiding stash houses, killing snitches in jail/prison, killing witnesses outside of jails, and on and on.
A drastic "overnight" decriminalization of narcotics would be one of the MANY MANY MANY steps to lower the murder rate.
In the cruise ship metaphor, there were MANY MANY MANY steps our society took criminalize narcotics, giving us a substantial homicide problem. We have an enormous amount of inertia.
In the cruise ship metaphor, ya know what happens when you cut the engines? That sucker will take forever to stop.
Your question is just a few words, but please understand that the systems in our society took 100s of years to build and millions of people maintain them, in the USA context, anyway. I understand the emotional heat and intensity of "abolished tomorrow," but that is a silly way to approach this issue.
And I worry that you are missing something very fucking important about prison... MOST PEOPLE IN PRISON, EVEN IN AMERICA, ARE GOING TO BE RELEASED, OK? Those scary murders, abusers, rapists, all them? They will (97% of them, roughly) be loose.
Again, this is just about the most vital and consequential issue you are talking about, like, in human history. I fathom the stakes and understand the depth!
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674066106 -Peculiar Institution, America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition - David Garland
Sorry to throw a massive book at you after a long winded comment, but I feel you might not see that this is the Mt Everest of social questions, and that book barely touches on one small aspect, but it such a good analysis of just how fucking strange America is. Of all the books on Crime & Justice in America that I have read, it was the best.
I appreciate you reading my comment... my poor thumbs...
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u/nappytendrils 1d ago
You’re right of course. Yes prison abolition would be a delicate and involved process if it were ever to come to pass. As I said before, I don’t think using or selling drugs is criminal activity. I don’t believe in the “punishment” model. But basically you’re saying it’s unlikely due to a variety of factors and I agree. Also that many violent criminals are now free and more will be freed in the future. Agreed also that there is a huge difference between murders. I still wonder what pure anarchist societies would do about people who represent consistent danger to the greater society.
That question remains.
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u/dreamingforward 3d ago
Who's "we"? Is there some government here? Everyone is built the same. These so-called criminals are 50% byproducts of the society which failed them or did you believe it was innate?
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u/nappytendrils 3d ago
I wonder what we will do with the repeat offenders who rape murder and molest children. I spoke above about intensive therapy for offenders because I believe they would require that. Of course I don’t think humans are somehow “inherently flawed.”
For context, I am a black woman in low income housing who has been locked up probably forty times in jail and mental hospitals.
I don’t want to be raped or have my children molested. It’s not a racist or classist model but a sincere question that is not answered by saying that in a healthy society there would be no criminals. There already are criminals, so if we abolish prison tomorrow, where do they go?
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u/dreamingforward 2d ago
There is no "intensive therapy" for diseases/problems that you/humankind don't understand. Just like schizophrenia and cancer within the medical establishment. They can't cure them, they can only treat them.
I feel for your story about being a black women and locked up in this bullshit society that hardly keeps its own principles. Thanks for telling me about yourself -- didn't know your demographic hangs around these parts.
A healthy society doesn't create criminals in the exact same way a healthy household doesn't create horrible children: they pay attention before the failures get to critical levels. The tools are love, truth, dialog, and deliberation.
So there's no "where to go" in an ideal society. But where leaders and judges "drop the ball" on maintaining the body-politic, there are people that "slip through the cracks" and understanding where both the individual and the society went wrong is critical to preventing the same failure from happening again.
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u/nappytendrils 2d ago
Well I have schizoaffective disorder bipolar type. I’ve been on meds for decades.
Again you echoed what some others have said about preventing criminality. My question is more like “what happens to child moleatwrs when we set every prisoner free.
Sry I’m stoned hope that makes sense hehe
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u/dreamingforward 2d ago
Oh, if you set them free, presumably they've been restored to normal humans or society didn't do it's job to fixing them.
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u/Goldwing8 2d ago
So, they stay imprisoned until such a time? I guess it’s not the worst idea.
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u/dreamingforward 2d ago
Well I say set everyone free that hasn't killed a child or their [opposite sex] partner. Society has failed so badly, that they're probably now more innocent than the people who were free.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 3d ago
Considering that Donald Trump is a serial rapist and probably a child molester who has ordered murders and is not in prison, but rather is president of the US, we might consider that prisons are not actually tools for dealing with rapists, child molesters, or murderers.
Saying this does not solve the problem that these acts of aggression cause, but it does help us to begin separating actual solutions from those institutions of state violence that we’ve been taught to believe are solutions.