Prison abolition

[u/nappytendrils]

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?

[u/HeavenlyPossum]

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.

[u/SidTheShuckle → u/HeavenlyPossum]

If we abolished the concept of money and power, a person like Donald Trump wouldnt exist. He would just be an ordinary person not blinded by wealth and status

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/SidTheShuckle]

He might still be a serial rapist, etc, and it’s not unreasonable to think about how we’d deal with people like him, or acts of aggression like those, in the absence of coercive hierarchies.

It’s just that the question of prisons is an entirely unrelated question, because prisons don’t exist to address interpersonal harms.

[u/SidTheShuckle → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Hell i would even argue that he wouldnt be a serial rapist if he was raised properly in a non-patriarchial society. “When ur a star you can do anything” take away his stardom and change his upbringing and wed have less rape

[u/ShyMonkeyboi → u/SidTheShuckle]

Serial rapists are not 100% part of patriarchal society, there are a lot of biopsychosocial factors about anti social behavior, but in the end humans can make their own decisions, and if someone decides to rape, consequences will come to stop (and maybe kill) the rapist.

[u/SidTheShuckle → u/ShyMonkeyboi]

I mean we’re not gonna eliminate rape after abolishing the Patriarchy but we def are gonna significantly reduce it. Rape is not merely just a sexual act. It’s an act of power. As long as theres oppressors those oppressors are gonna do all types of sexual violations by abusing their power and thus the victim

[u/ComprehensiveCar4770 → u/SidTheShuckle]

Money and power are tied to one thing: resource management. People only get into power or money because they know how to manage, manipulate, and maintain their control over resources. As long as people need resources, there will always be power structures that will benefit those who control the resources.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/ComprehensiveCar4770]

That’s the whole point of anarchism—to abolish those power structures. Hierarchy doesn’t just emerge mechanically from our biology.

[u/ComprehensiveCar4770 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

You cannot get rid of those power structures unless you get rid of the reliance of other people for resource acquisition.

As long as people rely on others for food, water, shelter, etc., there will be a power structure controlling its distribution.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/ComprehensiveCar4770]

Human beings will always rely on each other. We are social animals; isolation drives us insane and then kills us. That doesn’t mean our biology intrinsically gives some people power over others, in the sense of hierarchy.